By the time I was about ten, I had started to lose faith with church ways. I was educated in some ways by my high school government and history teachers.

Ten minutes before you go onstage and you begin singing that torchy blues song, you may just be drinking a glass of water and brushing your teeth and doing some deep breathing.

You don't want to say somebody did a great job of acting. You want to say, "Where did he find that person? How did he get that factory worker to come out of the factory and be on camera?" You want to believe that person is real.

I was brought up in the Christian church and I studied in the teachings of Jesus. I believed in caring for others and trying to be kind. It's something I still have to work on every day.

When I was sixteen, I began to think outside the box of my small town. Not that the people in my small town are in a box - they're not! There's a brilliant college there, and I had brilliant teachers from that college. But in terms of a conservative upbringing, which I did have within my own family, I just began to question things and to think for myself.

To me, the housewife who puts her teacups unwashed in the sink because her husband won't wash them, is political. Every act is political: the things you do, as well as the things you omit doing; the things you refuse to do; the things you fail to do; the things you say, as well as the things you don't say.

By the time I was about ten, I had started to lose faith with church ways. I was educated in some ways by my high school government and history teachers.