KatieJane Garside

"I layer myself in dirt because I want to be a child; I want to scream. Sometimes I'm unhappy with myself, so I want to look aesthetically unpleasing. At the end of tours I feel completely beaten and destroyed. I kick and scream and destroy myself. I cut myself—my legs are cut to shreds—and my chest. I get up and I shout. I truly feel it's like a purge."

"That was such a perfect childhood. Up until recently I thought I saw too much too young. But now I feel truly lucky. It showed me how nice life could be and how it should be better for every person."

"I get accused of many things, promoting pedophilia and stuff like that. I find that extraordinary. I dress myself like I would paint a picture. I try to use that to project how I feel inside. I'm a complete romantic as well, but within traditional romantic images you have so much blatant sexism. So it's all those contradiction mixed up. But that's OK. We should embrace all that instead of tearing each other apart for it. That's what I'm admitting to."

"Who's to say there'll be anyone here to remember me?"

"There are no answers."

"I know what turns me on, and it's that fine line, that point where you're falling off the edge of a cliff, where your stomach turns, [and] I'm always trying to find that point in music. You rarely hit it, and again, that's the joy of playing live, because there you can be just at that point where you've lost balance. I'm always walking between polarities, trying to find the opposing sides."

"You know, in a way touring is the most grounding thing you can do."

"There isn't anyone you meet that isn't absolutely peculiar. Everyone you meet is absolutely extraordinary. I've never met a human being that isn't, that doesn't have a fantastic story and is completely valid in their...you know, madness, really."

"I'm always trying to understand myself, but it's like there's a point in the centre of the room, and there's a hundred windows to look at the same point from. All I can do is give you different angles on the same thing. God, you know, if I could find one conclusive thing in anything I would probably have something to put an anchor down on. But I can't, and I haven't met anyone that can. You can pick out anything you like in my lyrics, I don't seek to be cryptic. I love words for the sake of words, for me they're kind of free standing, and they don't really need to be explained. I think every word has its own character and colour and picture and the result you get with lyrics just depends how you put them together."

"I think drugs can be a bit of a lazy way for creativity anyway, you're better off in the cold light of day in the mirror."

"I think taking the stage is one of the most unnatural things anyone can do. In a way, just walking on stage actually creates an altered state–it's not right, no one's meant to do that, unless you're a priest or a magician, or something like that. To put somebody who's very incapable in many ways in to that position creates a combustion reaction inside me. I know that, and I take the stage knowing that."

"I strain my voice doing bad work, [but] sometimes the impulse is too huge [and] I just have to."