You know, people always ask, 'What are you like offstage?' And I always say, 'Well, I'm completely normal and mellow.'

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.

Touring, and being in a band, it's almost like the other stuff, the other parts of life, get put on hold.

When I first started, especially because I got the Critics' Choice before I'd released an album, there was a lot of scrutiny on what my character was, what my background was, what colour my hair was. I fought quite hard for the music to overtake the personality aspect.

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

When I'm singing I'm always trying to get to the highest point possible. I'd fly to the top of Buckingham Palace to sing to the queen.

When something really hits me, it makes me want to either jump off something really high or lie down and be buried. I want people to get hit and caught by my music.

There's such an extreme feeling to be in love, especially in quite an emotionally destructive relationship, where you're both kind of really bad for each other, but you love each other so much. Those extreme emotions, I think, can only be described with extreme imagery.

The aesthetic came along the way, I think - just through experimenting, and going on tour, and trying stuff out on stage, having fun with it, and not taking it too seriously. If I had a ballgown at home, I'd wear it onstage. If I found something in a charity shop, I'd wear it. That's where it grew from - just wanting to play dress-up.

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.

My room is like an antique shop, full of junk, and weird stuff. There's a big sword in there. And a taxidermy bird, and a couple of birdcages. And a lot of newspaper cuttings. I used to have a weird thing about cutting out morbid headlines from newspapers, and collecting them. I was fascinated with drowning, which is kind of strange.

I love Lady Gaga and I love Katy Perry and R&B and rap music... I love big, American pop music.

I love performing outside because it's as if the heavens are open and the elements become part of the stage show as well - you know, the wind and the rain and the thunder. It's almost as if there's a sense of invocation in performance.

Growing up, I always wanted to be in punk bands, so I'm really enjoying the harder, heavier element. It's always been my dream to have people moshing at my gig, kind of that really feral element of the music coming out more. I love crowd-surfing.

I quite like the drama of an encore. I think an encore is for those artists who are inclined to do dramatic gestures, and I certainly would say I am inclined towards them.

The Teenage Cancer Trust does incredible work supporting and caring for teenagers and young adults with cancer, and it's a cause that is really close to me and my family.

I'm down to bleach my eyebrows again. I tell you what, though - that didn't go down well with my boyfriend. Girls love it. Guys, not so into it.

I feel things in quite an intense way. I'm not actually the most intense person.

'Spectrum' is in part a disco song. But we play it hard, and it's a real euphoric, wailing tune. It's kind of like a total house anthem, in a way, but it seems to be going down really well. We've got all the grunge kids going mad for disco house raves.

I dyed my hair red when I was ten and when I was 11 - in my goth period - I dyed it black and I was really into witchcraft. I made mini shrines in my bedroom with candles and tried to cast spells to make the boy in the next class fall in love with me. I don't think he did.

When you play, it's like you know that there are people out there who are hearing it for the first time, and I think that's really important.

I think an encore is perfectly acceptable, but I find it so weird when people do two or three.

Going to parties usually makes me feel depressed, just because I have such social fear after meeting people.

I'd experimented with so many different types of music. I had these folky songs I'd written and recorded, but something wasn't quite right.