I'm pushing ahead on my own - you no longer need a large record company to make you a star.

You make a choice to make music or be an actor, and people automatically think they can have access to your life.

The blowing thing is something that you either have a predilection for or not. And I don't have that thing. It was just unsanitary. I couldn't do it. I am a complete germaphobe.

Madonna is interesting. She changed music. She definitely did. She gave me an opportunity that no one else would give me, so I am very grateful to her.

My father was a jazz tenor sax player. He played in a lot of big bands. So I had that sound around me all the time. The first record that really caught my ear was Clifford Brown's 'Brownie Eyes.' I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Illinois Jacquet. This is where I come from... I love improvisational music.

I stopped beating up on myself. I stopped asking myself why I didn't sell this number of records, why I don't have corporate sponsorship. I just don't buy into any of that anymore.

I dabble in the jazz world, which is male-­dominated. If you had two women playing together, it became a shtick. It becomes a "girl group," and it has to be something cutesy. That's hard to contend with.