As I've gotten older, I've realized that things are a lot more permeable. It's not so black and white: not every journalist is a jerk.

Young girls getting into feminism.

It was one of the first things I did on my own; I worked at McDonald's, raised the money and did it. I'm really, really passionate about pro-choice, because I wouldn't be here talking to you right now if I'd had a kid at 15.

What (some) bands do is go, 'It's not important that I'm a girl, it's just important that I want to rock.' And that's cool. But that's more of an assimilationist thing. It's like they just want to be allowed to join the world as it is; whereas I'm more into revolution and radicalism and changing the whole structure. What I'm into is making the world different for me to live in.

I made the decision that my contribution needed to be more musical than political. My music was enough, politically. Art matters. Art was enough. My music was enough to say what I had to say.

Every band I've been in, it's just become my total life. I feel like a child star - I've missed out on so much. I never got to play Grand Theft Auto and get stoned every day. I figure at 45 I should probably start doing that.

One of the reasons I went back to music even though I was extremely ill was because I started to forget who I was aside from being sick. And when I'm performing, or even lecturing, it's like I'm myself again, and that was a really amazing discovery - that, all of a sudden, I have a get-out-of-jail-free card.