I've been so used to being supported by musicians, and I don't class myself as a particularly adept musician on instruments. I think I'm a songwriter.

I really don't pay too much attention; I don't go out of my way to read any interviews.

I think I'm a maker of songs, and songs are like films or a picture: You put them over there, and they have nothing to do with you.

You can sing a very aggressive word in such a way that it's very funny. You can change words, completely turn them around on their head so that they mean exactly the opposite of what they are written down. There are endless possibilities which I think Diamanda Galás is doing already. She turns everything upside down by the way she sings it. She makes you feel nauseous or horrified or ridiculous just by her voice. I think that's an incredible power.

There's a level of discipline I use as a writer, designed to get better at what I'm doing, that requires quite a lot of study and quite a lot of hard work as well.

The way I make music is unique to myself and the way I have lived my life - no one else would tell that story in the same way that I do.

To think of myself as a role model is extremely flattering, but I could never accept that, because Im just learning like everybody else.