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" There are two ways of dealing with being odd. One is to really try and conform, and the other is to do the opposite and really make a thing out of it. At school, it wasn't that I was bullied, but everyone was very aware that I was different. I was kind of the token weird person that people accepted into their group, almost like an accessory. "

Shura

Group

Kind

" I love scarves and hats and coats. I love it. "

" I read interviews saying women can bring a femininity to a song, a delicacy, but some women make really aggressive music. "

" After putting out songs with 26 million views on YouTube, your life changes a little bit. Suddenly everyone's like, 'Where's the album?' "

" A lot of people think I popped out of some pink cloud fully formed, ready for action, but I've been putting songs on SoundCloud since I was 16. Five people would listen and like them. I never had any expectations for myself. "

" I'm really freaked out by time. How, for instance, what I did last week is not real in the sense that it's happened. It's just a memory that's filed away in my brain. "

" I started playing when I was about 13, mainly because Dad had guitars lying around the house. My dad taught me my first three chords, and I taught myself from there. "

" It's just as important - if not more important - to take the praise with a pinch of salt, just as you do the criticism. "

" Do stuff that is true to your own experiences. "

" The best thing you can do is having to say no to putting out something that's good, because everything else is better. "

" I've had relationships before where you break up, and you think you're going to die, and then you realise you're definitely not going to die, and actually, you're probably better off without them. "

" I didn't really want anyone to know that I wanted to write music or make songs because, in a way, I didn't necessarily know if I wanted to do it for a profession. I wanted to do it to express myself. "

" A lot of people start by learning other people's songs, but the idea of singing someone else's music didn't excite me. I just wanted to write my own. It was really bad to begin with. It's improved slightly since. "

Shura

People

Learning

" I want to explore my boundaries. I want to push myself and go right to the edge of what I am capable of. I don't want to ever be comfortable. "

" I love being in the studio. "

" If you told teenage me that I would end up supporting Tegan and Sara for a month in North America, my head would have probably exploded. "

" I'm actually really impressed with everyone at Polydor. "

" I'm a bit of a geek: I just love being able to play with dials and buttons. "

" I think it's much harder now with the Internet to hone anything. It's easy to share things: you do one track, and it goes on Hype Machine; people are being exposed a lot earlier. "

" Producing albums is 100 per cent where I would love to be, later in my career. "

" Pop music for introverts is an idea I wanted to explore. "

" I take inspiration from so many places. I think, more than anything, it would have to be the music made by others that I've then fallen in love with, whether it's Madonna, Blood Orange, Fleetwood Mac, or Pink Floyd! "

" I love PJ Harvey, Patti Smith, Pixies, Portishead, and Massive Attack: a lot of what I would describe as alternative and indie music. "

" I'm 23, and if I wanted to release a record when I was 17, I could have released a record, but I'm really glad I didn't. "

" My dad used to do a lot of music when he was young, so he had an 8-track MiniDisc recorder, and when he realized that I was getting on with it, he brought it upstairs to my room and showed me how to record and how, once you finished eight tracks, you can cut it down to two and have another six tracks to play with. "

" People like Prince or Madonna, they're kind of superhuman. You can't imagine them burning their toast, and there's something really exciting about that. "

" I'm massively inspired by Janet Jackson, and I adore Whitney Houston and Madonna. "

" Being part of a crowd and not standing out is way more frightening than being the person that stands out. "

" I was obsessed with 'The Lion King' as a kid, and I really wanted to go work in an animal sanctuary and have my Lara Croft moment. "

" The hardest thing is having to do selfies even when you're on your period and you're queuing at Superdrug to get ibuprofen. That's when I'm like, 'You know what? I don't feel like Shura today.' "