I think I got introduced to Tom Waits and Kate Bush at around the same time, when I was 18 or 19. My friend at school introduced me to Hounds of Love. I liked the drums, and the freedom of expression. You get an amazing sense of things being free, but it's all very tightly-wound - quite an uptight sort of sexuality. I love that juxtaposition. But yeah, I'm obsessed with a good drum sound. And the male choir [on Hello Earth] was a stroke of genius. What I would give for a male voice choir...

I try to write lyrics so that they won't age, which sort of leaves you with the big subjects like death and love and sex and violence.

I ended up deciding to drink less while I was touring. It was for my voice. It's really hard to sing and keep up the pace that we were going at. It's OK for the first bits when you don't know where you're going. But now that I have more of an idea of the longevity of it, I'd like to have a career like PJ Harvey or Björk, who are still producing albums and have these voices. I realized if I wanted to have a career like theirs, I'd have to temper my indulgences.

Ceremonials is a big-sounding album? I guess there's no getting around that. I'm attracted to that sense of being overwhelmed by something. If there's a chance that I might respond that way while these songs are playing around me, then someone else might too. And that's surely the point, isn't it?

I'm a choir girl gone horribly, desperately wrong.

I've got my ideal job. I like to sing, I like to dance, I like to bang drums and dress up, and someone pays me - it's incredible.

I did everything backward, but everyone's been so supportive. I'm not really sure what's next. There is no plan.

I started off singing in church as a child. The sound of voices coming together, that was my first moment of touching something outside of myself.