It is so hard for musicians when they step into acting is they're not coming in as a blank slate, they're coming in with a real set idea of who they are, where they're coming from, what their politics are, what their tastes are.

A lot of people these days are not music lovers - they just want to be famous which is a very different thing to what I grew up believing in.

Everybody's trying to be the biggest, because if you're not the biggest, you don't survive.

At the end of the day, though, the band members have to be strong. It's down to the individuals in the unit. Listen to me, I'm talking like I'm in the army and this is my squadron.

Here am I. I'm 38. My career's probably never been better. And I've made a decision which may or may not impact on it - I refuse to hide my experience and my age, as if it's something I should be ashamed of. I'm alive. I know lots of people who've never been lucky enough to get to this stage in their life. And I'm not gonna hide it for anybody.

My solo album is dead and buried. We had the funeral. It was sad and I cried a lot but it made such a beautiful corpse that we had an open casket.

I want to hear from the creature who isn't blessed with unbelievable good looks and incredible genes. I want to hear from the geek girl, the forgotten girl, the invisible girl and the miserable girl.