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Its funny, because for females in general - not just in music, but the corporate ladder as well - anything we do has always been harder for us. When it comes to music, the industry wants you to conform, to look like this and to sound like this and do this or that. It makes it harder. It's harder for us to come out and be bosses and lead the pack.

People weren't even aware that I wrote my own songs. The media just promoted me as a female body. It's like I've had to prove that I'm an artist.

You can't explain the feeling of singing hit songs to an audience - it's like being a genuine sports star at the peak of their powers.

You have to keep fit being a singer - that's part of the job. You can't do it unless you have incredible stamina.

When I first started, I was much weaker of a singer because I wasn't used to singing so much. Now I've learned, when I'm singing on stage, not to go over. You can go over and mess yourself up. I used to do it all the time, wouldn't know how to preserve it for the next show.

For me personally, I just try to prove myself in my work. I'm just trying to get better at what I do, and hopefully that will impact women in music, and hopefully the girls in the crowd will see my up there as a bandleader and think, 'Wow, maybe I can do that one day.'

Most artists lose their voice, their hair, and their bands. That's not going to happen to me.

When I sang that song, I felt it was almost as if some force had moved into my body. Things like that have only happened to me singing jazz. It doesn't happen when singing pop. I get so deeply into the music, it feels like I've become someone else.

Being a pop-leaning, female artist, you'd think that I'd have my record company breathing down my neck and trying to control everything I'm doing. Actually, they've just kind of let me take the wheel.