Throwing Muses’ American tours were like driving away for a weekend, but when you do an overseas tour, you have to actually be on the road. That’s when you get hungry and unwashed. We had supported the Cocteau Twins in the UK before but, for this first real tour, we brought Pixies as our support.

Every show was packed, which was very moving, but confusing. I didn’t understand how we could be taken out of our American context and be understood at all. In America, they told us in no uncertain terms that we were not a party band. We had intellectual audiences who were painters or musicians or writers. Some of them would actually take notes at our shows. We used to call it “the sea of glasses”. Then we got to the UK and it was just a thousand sweaty boys, all drunk off their asses and jumping up in the air and screaming! We thought: “What the hell is going on? Where are the girls?”

We’d come off stage all sweaty and victorious, and Jez the tour manager would scoop me up in one arm and my sister up in the other and jiggle us around. “Great show, girls!” “Jez, put us down. We’re grownups!” Trying to take care of the Muses and the Pixies back then must have been like corralling puppies. We were such little tiny babies that we were homesick the whole time. During the night drives after the shows, we would actually sing folk songs together about being far away from home. My son wasn’t with us because of the arduous schedule, and that was brutal. It’s impossible to leave your child and impossible to bring your child. It was like going to war for me.