You were raised by a Hollywood-loving mother and a dance instructor-turned-decorator father. Was that as arty as it sounds?
Yeah, it was a pretty arty house. My family was a normal working class family from Dublin. It was a real working class area with no money but a great community.
How did those artistic pursuits fit into that environment?
It was an antidote to hard times. My mother saw a lot of kids in the area getting into bad gangs and drug problems, so she and a friend set up a local music and drama group. That gave my mum an outlet for her ideas as a dressmaker, and my dad did the backdrops. So the house was full of all this stuff.
_How important is the visual side of your music? _
It was definitely the music that attracted me first, but I’m sure as a teenager the whole package had something to do with it. I mean Adam Ant, say, and Ian Dury were very visual onstage and I absolutely loved that. And I loved Siouxsie Sioux. I think I was always drawn to things that slightly scared me but thrilled me at the same time.
A man in Warrington had your face tattooed on his arm this year. And you punched him.
Well, it was more of a slap than a punch! He lifted his arm and showed me and I went: “Oh, Jesus!” and punched him!
