Alison Mosshart

If I acted like I did onstage in normal life, everyone would probably hate me.

Being on the road, I think, is the most organised part of my life. You know where you have to be every day; you know what your job is every day. I crave that tiny bit of stability, which anyone else would think is the most unstable way of living, ever.

Painting is almost like a sport. It's like this action thing. When I do it, I'm really not thinking. The paintings are like a diary that I might not want to read again.

When you do music, your friends are writers, actors, painters. It's all under the same roof. So anything creative is interesting to me.

I get along great with my family. My parents are really proud of me and my brother, who's a chef here in New York. I don't see my parents often, but they're very supportive, especially as I get older.

You have a physical human reaction to something that another human being made. When you remove the human from it, and you chop it up, make it all perfect, you have a different reaction. Something is not there. You can feel it when it's there.

I'm not saying I'll never go solo - never is a long time - but I've always been onstage with someone else. That way, you're in it together, and you can feel, together, when the songs are right.

Every time I do a project, it always comes with a level of discomfort and not knowing how to do it.

All of my art is suitcase-sized. I always paint in mediums that dry pretty quickly because I've got to throw them in my suitcase and go. And I have so much because of that, because it's what I've always done to pass the time, and I like it.

Touring can be repetitive at times.

I do always want to be creating something; I can't help it. I don't know why that is, but I'm certainly not gonna knock it now, at the age of 36. It seems to be working.

I love Tokyo, I've been several times. The first trip was just weird; it was a weird time. It was in the '90s, and it was different then.