9. MelanieThe Very Best Of

Melanie had a huge effect on me, even how I sing. I even covered a lot of her songs when I was singing in hotels, like ‘I Really Loved Harold’, ‘Christopher Robin’ and ‘Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)’. There’s a musical theatre called Stone Free, set up like a festival – everybody sat on stage but there was a stage on a stage, it was like an old rock festival – and when I was about 18 I performed in it. I had to put lots of wigs on and be lots of different people, but I got to choose a lot of the songs that we were singing and Melanie was played a lot. She’s really up there for me. There’s something about her music that’s really comical, there’s this undertone of humour and hilarity, and I really like that mixture – when there’s a comedy and a tragedy together.