Maybe I'm just purely lucky. If I've come up against obstacles I've always found another way around it.

My town was even smaller. Only six hundred people. We didn't have a grocery store.

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.

I've so much left to explore, it's enormously exciting to me. It's a passion. I just try and get better at what I do, and I study it very hard, like it is my life degree.

People like Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone, Captain Beefheart - all of these artists were what I grew up listening to every day of my life. And there's a very healthy music scene in the west country of England, where I grew up.

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.

Obviously, the emotions I want to convey through music are streamed through the way I interpret life.