Years ago I sang on a track using that voice and someone asked, 'Who is that terribly depressed man?' But Patrick loved it. He said, 'You sound like a young boy, like a child, like an old woman, like an old man,' and really, we all have all of those things inside of us. I don't do any vocal gymnastics to make the voice better as I age. If it comes out rougher, then it's true to what's happening. Singing is who I am. I didn't train for it, any more than I trained for anything else I did. I probably should take better care of myself physically, but it goes against the grain.

I suppose musicians have the kind of arrogant attitude that they can actually offer the world something, because through their passive power, they're able to be the strongest arms that they can be, incredibly strong. That's what keeps us going.

Music is a place to take refuge. It's a sanctuary from mediocrity and boredom. It's innocent and it's a place you can lose yourself in thoughts, memories and intricacies.

There's fatigue but also a deliberate desire to want to reach absolute perfection at every concert.

I feel connected to every other creative element because I have a creative soul. My isolation is not through the work it's through not being able to connect with mediocrity. When I was younger I was a punk and then when I got married and had children I became a mother. They are the only two memberships to any clan-like cultures that I have ever embraced.

The words are in my own internal language, and mean more than I could ever explain.

It is the artist's responsibility to be the oracle, to abstract where you are - that is our responsibility - we're not there to look glamorous. We're there to tune into the frequency of the Earth and the connective tissues of those things that we are responding to - language, colour, costume, literature, poetry, cuisine, perfume - these are the things that make up the desire to throw paint on a canvas, these are the things that create the excitement for building a new language!