Alison Mosshart

It's fun and super exciting to see how other people work, how other people write music, and how other people put things together. To me, it's an endless learning process, and I love doing it because everybody works so completely differently.

Every day, it's a different country, different time zone. If you asked me where home was, I've never felt like I've had that. My idea of comfort is to leave a place. Two weeks is sort of my max.

Everybody wants you to do this thing that you've always been doing forever. That's what they want: they want Martin Scorsese to make the same film two hundred times rather than trying to be something different.

When you're recording in the midst of touring, you get a different sense about you. Things are more rocking, darker, heavier and louder. You're thinking about the audience that you're seeing every night.

In the studio, you can always stop, rewind and do it again, but on stage, you can never do that - it's a different energy. It separates good bands from bad bands, being able to play, perform and really capture an audience. I think that's the hardest part.

I hate sunshine so much. I can only cope with it when it's bitterly, bitterly cold.

I'm inspired by being in a different town every day - all the people I meet, all the things I see. There's no way of compartmentalizing everything in my head; whatever I'm taking in is coming out in some way. I think I love painting so much because, for me, it's so fast. There's not too much thought in these paintings.

I love being on stage more than anything, and I think that's what comes across. I think the most honest representation of any music is to play it right there in front of people. It's a moment - it's all one of a kind, every little part of it. There's no repeat.

I love touring. I can't wait. Everything is just normal when you're finally on tour. I think, for me, it's my happiest thing; I love moving around, and I have friends and family all over the place. It's kind of my time. It's almost like home. It's when I get to see everybody.

People can be quite cynical. 'The Kills are too cool.' There's been an on-and-off relationship with the music press that loves us and then hates us then loves us again. I don't think any kind of press is reliable.

Lollapalooza, that was one of my worst shows. We just played at, like, 3 in the afternoon; it was like the hottest, most miserable thing. My shoes were melting. I just thought I was going to die. It was the most horrible experience. I lasted, what, four songs? In front of quite a lot of people. That was one of my least favorites.

I've spent my whole life in airports. I don't come home but every two and a half months, which is pretty crazy.