That's why I ended up going to Lancaster University, because they had a visual arts course, and in the first year it was like a broad visual arts course in sculpture, painting, graphics - all of that.
Why isn't Tilda Swinton on the covers of tons of magazines? Well, she's not that. It isn't her thing. But I don't know. I think that suddenly a time came when models, after the Linda Evangelista crowd, and Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington, when the models for me became a bit bland. But I think more than that, the culture changed. The movies, television, music, and all of those things - those people were more visual and therefore more interesting.
I think that music and visual arts can complement themselves nicely. They do different things - the music forces you into a different mood and perspective whilst the visual stuff can engage you in a more direct cognitive manner.
In sound design programs now, you can literally sculpt the sound on visual graphs. Sometimes the visual programs are even more interesting than the music that's making them
Is there a gender gap in the music industry? It is true that there are more professional male music creators than female. For some reason, it's taking a lot longer in music than in literature and the visual arts to reach equilibrium. It was almost acceptable by the 19th century for female writers to be published, yet it's only in the last couple of decades, since about 1980, that historical female composers have really emerged.
The years I would have spent at University, I spent building Student Magazine and Virgin Records. For me that was far more fun and satisfying. I have treated everyday as the University education I never had and think I learnt more about business and life than I would have at University in the process.
Music is more than words. It's a visual experience, too, and people really feel my music because of the way I move and put on a show.
My favourite stuff is visual, and I always want to work with visual artwork. I think it depends on the person, but for me, photographs of an image of something interesting or inspiring is worth a lot more than words to me. I think every concept I've come up with and turned into films or that will be hopefully become a film comes from images first.
Evidently the arts, all the visual arts, are becoming more democratic in the worst sense of the word.
All the arts, music, the visual arts, acting and dancing arts, cooking arts, and I believe sports, will save the human race because they can leap over barriers, religions, leap over barriers of race, politics.
More often than not, whenever gossip has been written about me, the gossip is more interesting than the reality. I know some public figures hate gossip, but personally I like it because it makes my life sound more glamorous and interesting than it really is.
Drawing and visual pursuits were first. Music came and found me in a way. Really, what it's about is creative problem solving, and music is a lot more an expression of that than painting is for me.
Even more ominous ... is the fact that since the Second World War a new kind of intellectual has emerged in large numbers. ... he is only minimally interested in the proper intellectual significance of images and objects. Such people are not really intellectuals, but visuals ... A visual is more interested in style than in content ... A visual does not feel a rioting crowd being machine-gunned by the police, he simply sees a brilliant news photograph.
I don't mind either one [crowd that is more willing to interact or crowd that's more ready to just watch]. Both of them are forms of listening to what I'm saying so I can't ask for any more than that.
The music I'm playing now is the music I always imagined myself playing when I was a kid. It's been nice to use my instrument a bit more - play the guitar in a more fun way with riffs and stuff like that - rather than just propping up a whole song with a guitar and my vocals. There's so much more energy in the crowd as well; they've been bouncing around and having fun, and it's nice to feel like you're a part of something in a room rather than just performing for a crowd.
Every work is completely different. Sometimes the music is first, sometimes it's parallel, and sometimes the music is after. There's no rule. Music goes differently to your emotions. With music you can create different spaces and feelings easier than you can with the visual - maybe not easier, but in a way, it's more seductive.