Loves

Fake meat

Quorn, tofu, seitan, soy, all those kinds of things. I'm not strict – I eat some fish – but I eat a lot of vegetarian food. I've been vegetarian for a very long time and fake meat makes cooking easier. As an Argentinean, it can be difficult to have a barbecue without it. I do like the taste of meat but I couldn't eat meat from maltreated animals. I think it's really low of people to mistreat animals – whether they're used for meat or not.

Spanish guitar

It's the instrument that I've been playing since I was a teenager and there's just something about it, compared to steel string guitar. It's soft, it's not difficult to master and if you tune it right, it's pretty easy to play. One of my tricks is to do an open tuning [where the strings are tuned so that a chord is formed without pressing any of the strings] that sounds good and then anything sounds good. I don't really play any other instruments. I have a keyboard that I use when I'm recording but I wouldn't say I'm good at it.

Swedish summer

The weather is so bad most of the year, especially in Gothenburg where it rains a lot. In winter it snows but it doesn't stay on the ground, so when the summer comes, everybody gets extremely excited. These few weeks that we have are amazing. Nobody values the sun as much as the Swedes. When it's been dark and rainy for nine months people start to go completely crazy. Then, when the sun comes out there's a complete change – they move from being introverted workaholics to party animals.

Loathes

Huge keyboards

Like the Rhodes piano and the Leslie. I think they sound really good, but they're so heavy. The problem is, once you use them on a recording you then feel like you need to bring them with you on tour, but you can't because of how much they weigh. Now, if they could invent the teleportation machine from Star Trek…

Soup with rice

This is a soup my mother used to make and I think I got too much of it when I was young and since then, I can't eat it at all. It's fluffy and weird.

Writing lyrics

I find writing lyrics really difficult. I record my initial ideas on a dictaphone. Sometimes I have half-finished songs for six months, sometimes they hang around for 12 months. I try and avoid singing about normal day-to-day things and love. I also avoid personal issues because I think it's overdone in music. Plus, there are other aspects of humans which I think are just as interesting.

Touring in boring places

While it's exciting travelling to new places, it feels very strange to be in an unfamiliar place where you're made to feel unwelcome. When you go to Vänersborg, people throw beer bottles towards the stage, which is always a bit unnerving.

José González is one of the artists performing on Arthur's Day, 23 September. Tickets for events are available from www.ticketmaster.com