The truth isn’t simple; I’m trying to get to the truth. I need all these complex tensions to get anywhere near it. I always felt that back when I came into it, turning up in my daywear – t-shirt and jeans – would’ve been just as much of a fake. In the ‘90s, it was very serious in the music industry. Grunge and music from Bristol like Massive Attack didn’t chime with me as a truth.
Alongside the outfits, I even fiddled around with different characters in the music. In Moloko’s first albums, I try out different voices as if I’m trying out clothes. After Moloko, I could’ve easily put on the cloak of this sad, broken-hearted, confused person, and people might’ve bought it. But it wouldn’t have been true. Granted, there is more of the serious singing than there used to be. My voice has made a journey towards the truth that has been a valid one. It’s been valid for me not to jump straight in at nineteen years old and say, ‘this is who I am and who I’m going to remain’. I’ve always left as much space as I can to surprise myself and really find myself through what I’m doing. It’s just not that simple.
But then, I was brought up around people who weren’t simple. My parents were different to the people around them: they were non-religious in a time where everyone else was religious in Ireland. They were forward-thinking, they were party people, they had their own businesses, they were independent – they were modern. They were poetic as well. There’s a great saying in poetry in Ireland where nothing’s that simple, everything can’t be read, and there’s this kind of acceptance that everything’s not as black and white as it is grey.