I've always been able to just concoct a melody quite easily - it's just kind of instinct, really. You've got to channel your subconscious.

You know, people always ask, 'What are you like offstage?' And I always say, 'Well, I'm completely normal and mellow.'

I got to live out my 11-year-old fantasies - I got to go on stage with Green Day. Billie Joe called my name from the stage. 'Dookie' was the first album I ever bought. I covered the whole of 'Nimrod' and he'd heard it. That was like the 11-year-old girl dreamed.

I'm quite glad I never learned to play the guitar, because I think I'd write songs that were more classically structured. As it is, I've had to create my own way of writing, which isn't typical. Everything's a big crescendo.

For someone so conflicted, who am I to give advice to anybody? It’s such a funny, grandiose idea

It's very flattering when you look into the crowd and people have made an effort and dressed in your style.

My visual landscape as a child was the inside of a lot of these old churches. And the Baroque drama of the things was what I was first engaging with artwise. I'm much more attracted to the aesthetic of religious iconography than the actual religious side. The passion and the blood and the violence and the gaudy side of it I find really fascinating.