There's so much stigma around HIV/AIDS. It's a challenging issue, and the people that already have been tested and know their status find it very, very hard to disclose their status, to live with that virus, and to even seek out the kind of information they need. This experience of going to South Africa a decade ago really woke me up to the scale of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, how it was affecting women and their children. I haven't been able to walk away from it.

Fundamentally, we are all in the same place: we're born, we live, and we're going to die. In between, we'll have joy and we'll have sadness.

To be labeled as a strong woman when you feel vulnerable is a strange place to be, because then you're, like, "Oh, I have to be strong now. But I don't feel strong. I feel alienated. I feel isolated. I feel that things are very surreal, and they're not authentic, and this is all just very overwhelming."

I want to be true to who I am.

The contrast of the world that we live in and the world that is here in Aspen and the world inhabited by women who have no resources, little or no, very few resources - huge disparity.

I wanted to create something that was quite edgy and belonged to me. It wasn't about my sexual orientation, because I'm heterosexual. It was saying that appearance is just temporary, and I want to be as strong as a man.

Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing emotion - very powerful emotions. That's what draws millions of people towards it. And, um, I found myself always going for these darker places and - people identify with that.