I have a three-year-old daughter, which makes me more environmentally conscious. For me, it's about the future.

My dad and I have always been somewhat competitive.

There is this church that I go to a lot in New York. I'm not religious but I love lighting candles and stuff. I find it useful.

When I was young, my mother [folk singer Kate McGarrigle] brought home this recording of Verdi's Requiem and we listened to it from top to bottom. By the end of it, I was a completely different person. It was literally a requiem mass for my former self. I was about 12 or 13. The Requiem just totally hooked into what I was going through emotionally - discovering my sexuality right at the time when AIDS was devastating my community and dealing with intense parental situations.

I've had my ups and downs, and I definitely have a sense - in America, especially - that once you've made your mark and gotten your Rolling Stone piece and your Grammy nomination, that they're on to the next piece of meat, and they don't necessarily like to follow the twistsand turns of an artistic career. Throwing an opera at them is something they have to notice. There's nothing subtle about it.

I am always writing; if you want to survive in this business, you need to keep working, keep creating and never stop the output.

I love being not cool.