As I was growing up, French was the language in the house, so when I started school there were lots of words I didn't know in English.
As you get older, your windows of opportunity close. I needed to make a record once and for all that could prove I was a good artist.
Cutting down Yazoo was a negative thing for me. I was forced into a position of becoming solo and it was never something that I had an ambition to be. I always wanted to be in a band.
I came from a small town and at school in one class there was me, a member from Depeche Mode and someone who went on to join The Cure. That was all in one class of 30 kids.
I chose not to work. It was one of those sticky things that happen in people's careers when you have been around for a long time.
I grew up through punk and progressive rock. We grew up with cutting edge music. I wanted dark, neurotic music.
I had been with the label since I was 21. The label wanted shiny pop but I didn't. I found a little independent and we've got all these great reviews in England and now it has gone gold.
I have never done any other job. I have sung in bands since I was 15. I left school completely unqualified. I have no other training.
I have never had another job and I don't have a mortgage.
I love singing in French. I don't think in French. Sometimes when you sing in another language because you can think about the sound you make.
I was a single parent, and I was prohibited from working.
I was writing and I have three kids. I was occupying my time with them but it was difficult.
I wasn't an easy person to be around in those manic days, and Vince wasn't interested in what it meant to be a front man.
I wasn't good at being affable. You get beyond that and realise the attraction in any human being has more to do with what they give to someone rather than just being face candy.
I've had pop success. I started in thrash punk bands and was doing dirty blues music. I did it because I could.
In my house you wouldn't see evidence of me being a pop singer. There is no evidence I've had a career in my home.
Instead of thinking that's a nice tune, you start thinking is it the right pace, is it the right tempo? That is the death nell for artists.
It has been a really difficult bunch of years.
It is always with hindsight that we can judge more easily someone's contribution.
It is interesting seeing young people these days and watching how unimportant music is in their lives compared with our generation.
It is not about writing those hits again. I am sure I could write them, but it is about the sensibilities.
It wasn't like I felt I was on a wave. It was just so easy. It is only afterwards that I thought I really had a bit of good luck going on there with Yazoo.
Massive Attack and Portishead was dark bit-melancholic. The Insects are quite incestuous. They don't organise themselves based is what is trendy in London.
My mother was an au-pair living in France, also a French teacher. My parents came over to England only a few years before I was born.
Sometimes it's easier to feel attached to records that others discard. I'm like that.
The press gave me a voice too quickly, and that could have unsettled a man who had every right to feel he should be in control of the thing he had created.
The press Yazoo were receiving were focused on the voice, This obviously was about trends.
There are a lot of people who can now see me as an artist for the first time.
There has always been a feeling with people that they love my singing but not always the choice of material.
When people ask, what's your favourite song, it doesn't work like that. It is more like chapters in a book that tie into one story.
When you find yourself on stage singing and you are embarrassed about what you are singing in front of your peers, then you have to think about your priorities.
When you have a creative mind it doesn't stop going.
When you have kids, it limits you. That was a choice I made.
When you make a lot of money for a record company, they don't want you to evolve. Growing older, you naturally do.
Within three months I had gone from being this black sheep of the town to suddenly becoming a pop star.
Yazoo was Vince's sound ultimately. At the time Vince and I got together he had only recorded one album with Depeche and Depeche were to go on to greater things.
Alison left school when she was 16.
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