Growing up, I loved the imagery I saw from America as it celebrated being the land of the free and home of the brave.

I was really sheltered growing up, with six brothers and sisters. We played together all the time, and I was living in a fantasy world, like most creative people.

When I was growing up, David Bowie was my idol. I grew up in inner-city London, and he was from Brixton, which is even more urban.

My memories of London Fashion Week are of starting out and not getting many tickets for fashion shows, but wanting to see them so much that I'd sneak in with my friends, people like Pat McGrath and Craig McDean.

As a bandleader, I try to pass on the same family values that I grew up with: help people, hang on to your sense of humour, be tolerant, and keep your judgments to yourself.

The distinctive feature of my family was intolerance of sensitivity and emotion - 'Everything's great, it all has to be great all the time and why do you have to spoil it?' Whereas probably the most fundamental and important thing to me has been defending my right to tell the truth about how I feel.

I thank God, Jesus, and my Grandmother for being able to support myself and my family.

My father was an army officer who left the forces when I was six and never really fitted back into civilian life. My mother had five children and a mother with Alzheimer's, who lived with us, so I imagined that she had a lot to do.