At the Greenbelt Festival press conference pop star DANIEL BEDINGFIELD fielded questions from a bevy of journalists and broadcasters. Here's what he said.

I think that a lot of Christian artists have gone out of their way to ostracise themselves from society. They don't seem to want normal people in this world to listen to their music, or to buy it. They've enclosed themselves in their own rooms and concert halls; they've employed their own staff; and they've got their own shops. They seem to be rather elitist. I'm generalising. But the elitist ones don't care very much about what the world thinks about them. I'm just not into that. I believe that there are a lot of amazing artists who have a passionate faith - Muslim, Christian, Jewish - Paul Simon, for example, who are not remotely elitist. They never shut themselves off. Prince is a raging Jehovah's Witness; it's all in his music, but he's not cutting himself off. Prince doesn't just have JW fans or friends; he knows a human being is a human being. He doesn't even stop writing about sex; the whole album's about it. JWs have sex too. And so I'm just really into people who are inclusive. And so I want to work with people who have an inclusive attitude towards the people of the world rather than elitist.

Would you invite Delirious?

I don't think Delirious? are elitist. Delirious? are some of the most inclusive people I've ever met. I'll do anything with those guys; they're good mates. I'm on their album, and they wrote a song on mine. They're the best of the [CCM] bunch. Delirious? are one of the greatest groups of musicians who are alive on this planet.

And Greenbelt isn't exclusive, either! This festival is not an exclusive event. This is an incredibly inclusive festival, full of phenomenal examples of people of faith, people of belief, making music in the world. This is a great, fantastic festival.

What's the primary message concerning Stop The Traffik?

Well, it doesn't matter how old you are - you can sign this card. And you can tell your mates to sign this card. You can talk about it; we've got tons of ideas of things schools can do - big walls of ideas. Excitement breeds excitement; people talk to people, and it builds.

You're not the first celebrity to use his or her fame to promote some issue or campaign.

I am very uncomfortable using a medium to promote something else. While a lot of noble people engage in activities of this kind, personally I am uncomfortable with this. I believe that you put all your beliefs in your life, and you root them incredibly deeply so that when you open your mouth and you sing, or you talk, you find out suddenly what you really believe, and what you really feel passionately about. That is the way I believe that true art happens; if you don't do it like that, it comes out sounding trite, clichéd and very embarrassing and alienating to people who don't believe the same as you. No one ever criticises a black gospel singer, because they're not trying to preach to anyone, they're just SINGING! No one feels preached to. I just like that kind of attitude, of demonstrative, powerful singing.

Have you ever thought of taking up any other art forms - writing, for instance?

Writing books, writing film scripts.? Nooooooo! If I start crossing genres too much, I'm going to show my woeful inadequacy in a hundred million ways. Sometimes I feel I'm a single-cell organism, very capable of doing one thing; other times I fancy myself as able to break out of my boundaries and do other things. I'm never sure which one is true. But I am currently consumed with thoughts that I might have been a bit harsh in my previous statements.

Is it hard being a Christian in the showbiz world?

I think it's incredibly hard to be a cookie-cutter Christian in this industry - you know, someone who's picked their beliefs out of a bunch of sermon notes and put it together and that's what they believe. I think we live in a world where people respect everyone's opinion to believe something - so long as they don't force it on anyone else; as long as they show very clearly that they've thought it all through; that they haven't just been duped into believing something, or have been brainwashed; they live a life that's in accordance with what they say they believe, without any apparent two-facedness. And I think that people have all sorts of crazy hair-brained beliefs nowadays. It's really not that hard to have strong beliefs in this post-modern Western world. I feel a lot of support from a lot of people in being the way that I am and believing the things that I believe. And I don't think I've been criticised too much for any particular faith or stance that I have. I think it's incredibly hard in this world to stay with your wife, to not destroy your brain with drugs, to refrain from living a lie... life is a struggle to be who you are, or who you should be. And so I don't think it's particularly harder in showbiz.

Do you want to be a role model?

I just don't think that anyone I've ever seen who's an awesome role model really wanted to be one. They were aware that someone needed to be it, perhaps, and they resigned themselves to it. But every single 'hero' on the planet is so fallible and human. And they are consumed with their own humanness, and their terror of losing people's respect and destroying everything they ever stood for.

When you take it upon yourself to be a role model, that would be just too hard. Too much for one human being to carry on a world level. I don't think Bono shows signs of.sometimes he looks like it, but it seems like Bono's got a good balance of being himself. People count him as a role model and he just jokes about it the whole time.

I want to be an incredible role model to my grandkids, to my children, to my friends. The people I have direct contact with. 'cos it doesn't matter how much I talk about anything into this microphone or on television; you have absolutely no idea whether this is a load of crap or not, because you're not my close friend. You don't see me when I'm angry, or tired. So who I am with my friends, with my record company, with my management, with the fans that I meet, is the only thing that really counts, how I live my life. And you have to be close to see that. I could be absolutely making all of this up. Tons of people are.