“I’m 90% performer, 10% musician. I’ve always said that Gossip are a band I would go see, not a band I would listen to.”

I don’t have a good attention span and can’t spend long in record stores or video shops or games emporiums without getting grumpy.

I really worshipped Mama Cass a lot. Mama Cass, who was really fat and she didn’t lose weight. Yeah, she went on diets but for the most part of her life and the better part of her career she was a big person.

Even talking, I’m super-loud. I could never have that kind of meek, little wispy whimsical lavender and lace voice. It comes from my body. There’s no way I can fight it.

I’m shameless, and I love a pun. There’s a lot of Beth puns.

I’m like cheddar: Yes, other cheeses are more ooh la la, but I’m strong, mature, and oh so delicious.

Because I didn’t have any queer, lesbian, female role models I hated my own femininity and had to look deep within myself to create an identity that worked for me. Pop culture just doesn’t hand us enough variety to choose from.

I’m naturally a mousy blonde, so I dye my hair, and my eyebrows would disappear if I didn’t get through at least a pencil a month.

A beautiful plant is like having a friend around the house.

Barack Obama was amazing, but he wasn’t perfect. We all know that. He was the closest thing to perfect America’s ever had. We were basking in the glow. We forgot that there’s always going to be a backlash within a movement every time.

Just like my straight friends, I am repeatedly asked when I plan to have kids, and have been told many times, by various branches of my bloodline, that “even lesbians can have babies these days.”

As with most phobias, the fear of flying does make some sense, but if ever there was a fear worth quashing then this is it. After all, life is short, and there’s a great big world to explore out there.

I never went to college and I was raised in Arkansas so there wasn’t a lot of academic language being thrown around my house.

I find inspiration everywhere. I love challenges and my favorite thing is to find something ridiculous and be like “if it’s all that I have available to me, I am gonna make it look the best that I can”.

I can take care of a house, and some people I meet, I think, ‘You don’t even know how to make a bed.

I’m on a diet. It’s very strict: all hot dogs. Just sausages, constantly. It’s working out – I’ve gained fifteen pounds!

High school wasn’t so bad though because, by then, I had worked out that there were far more nerdy kids and poor kids than there were rich, popular kids, so, at the very least, we had them outnumbered.

It was great being together as a band, but much more difficult being brothers than it was being in a band.

Most of the bands that I really hold in my heart – you don’t think about them as bands; they’re just the soundtrack of your life.

Most of the bands that I really like no longer exist. That might just be because I’m in my thirties or whatever. But I also think it’s the rare band that doesn’t, like, turn into something else.

When I was in top 40 bands, I always had to learn new material and new styles.

I’m very lucky; I have a lot of knowledge. My favorite band is The Beatles, so a lot of inspiration for my music comes from them, too.

You can’t live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.

The first songs I learned was ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline and ‘At Last’ by Etta James. I had been growing up with the Beatles, Pink Floyd, great bands.

I was in the Rockin’ Vicars, which was the first British band to tour behind the Iron Curtain.