I've hidden behind my hair more than clothes. Sometimes having long hair with a fringe is very useful when you don't want to look at people. I used to have very short hair, but long hair is my thing - a black nocturnal shield.
Bat for LashesWe are bits of energy floating about in various guises, and when we die we rejoin the big cosmic soup of the universe.
Bat for LashesI had Halloween parties every year, as it was my birthday five days before. My parents would actually put prosthetic noses on, and my dad would wear a top-hat and tails, put on a fake curly moustache, and hold a pipe.
Bat for LashesI think the best cure is to stop doing the thing that you think you should be doing and go and have a bit of fun in another medium, maybe other crazy things.
Bat for LashesDad was an amazing storyteller and illustrator, which he did in his spare time - very inspiring and dramatic.
Bat for LashesI wrote about Freud and the process of sublimation, which is when you learn to stop breast-feeding, or stop going to the toilet whenever you want to. It's about learning to repress a desire for instant gratification. And in a repressed society, artists fulfil a sense of harking back to instant gratification, or immediate expression, by doing things that function on the edge of society, or outside of what is conventionally accepted.
Bat for Lashes