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When I was a teeny little girl, I was in dancing school, and I sang.

I truly thought I was going to be in pop music. And then I joined a choir to meet girls, and everything changed in the first rehearsal.

When I started singing, I was covering Lauryn Hill, Brandy, and all the girl groups of the '90s. It's just what I would listen to and what I was singing when anybody asked me to sing for them.

I was always that girl who loved music and thought of music as an escape route.

Growing up, my sisters were both into dancing, so I went to a lot of dance recitals, mostly because there were always pretty girls in leotards.

I tried to sing 'What's Going On' with Amy Winehouse once at an old cinema in the West End. There was a funk band that had members of both of our bands playing in it, but it was the worst kind of place to sing bad karaoke because everyone there was an amazing singer or musician.

I always sang after every dinner or when we had people over or when we had a show in school. I just loved to be on stage and sing in front of people.

In my early shows, I wanted to put myself through a new childhood, disintegrating my whole identity to let the real one emerge. I became a human jukebox, learning all these songs I'd always known, discovering the basics of what I do. The cathartic part was in the essential act of singing.

I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.