Carla Fowler had a chat with singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse ahead of her gig at the Cockpit in Leeds.

AW: Yes because I wouldn't think anyone would want to come and see me, but for my music no - I've worked hard on it and I'm proud of it. So no, I deserve to have people come listen to my music, yeah.

CF: How long have you been songwriting?

AW: From about 16, but I was writing poetry from the age of six or seven. As soon as I could read and write I realised that's not just it, that meant I could write songs and poems, but you don't apply that until you get to a certain point as a teenager. I wrote so much poetry as a teenager.

CF: Is there an element of catharsis in your writing?

AW: Yes very much so. It's cathartic to play a song that you've just written about a sore subject. The first time you sing it down with a guitar just to yourself it's like, wow, that's a song, that's a song right there. I push myself to write stuff and finish a song - that's an achievement because writing it I will have been really tough on myself. There's so much stuff that I have to apply.

CF: Lyrically the album's quite provocative and you come across as a very empowered young woman. Would you agree?

AW: I wouldn't say I was empowered, I wish I was a bit more empowered, but I'm an honest person and I see things in a straight ahead way. I'm quite masculine like that, things are never really that complex. So I guess maybe I am empowered, I don't really know what it means to be that.

CF: There's a strong jazz vibe on the album too. Was jazz a big influence as you were growing up?

AW: Yeah I come from jazz, I don't know why. When you get to 12, 13 and you listen to the music that you're going to grow with, it was jazz, it was always jazz. It was singers like Ray Charles. I loved and love music so much.

CF: Was it in the home, were your family into it?

AW: Not at all no. The one instance I remember of my family going to see a show was when my Aunty Mel and my Aunty Val were going to see Michael Jackson do the Bad tour and I cried and cried, I was like, 'PLEASE can I come, Please!' And I had to be sent to bed because I just cried and cried. I loved Michael Jackson, I wanted to marry him and be him and for six Christmases I wanted that black Bad suit, I wanted it every year for years. I loved Michael Jackson. But no my family weren't particularly musical. My dad would have music on in the car and was always singing. The first memory I have of me singing is my dad sitting in the bath and I'd sit in the bath with him and he'd sing a line of a Beatles song and I'd sing the next line. I must have been about three or four.

CF: Are you musically trained, have you been trained in your singing?

AW: No. It all comes from inside you know. It just does... it just does. You grow up in the city and you see things that aren't right and instead of being a bitter, f**ked up person you channel it and that's what songwriting is to me. What I try to do with my songwriting is try to be different, and I've heard a lot of music to be different from.

CF: There is a feeling from your music that you'd be singing those songs whether you had an album or a contract or not.

AW: Yes! Yeah, if I wasn't being paid for what I do I'd be doing it anyway. I was doing it anyway, I never thought I'd make money off singing. I never thought I'd end up with a record deal. I thought that I would live my life, have kids, be a waitress and be happy with it. I don't care. Life is not about achieving specific things at a specific age, it's about having people you love in your life and just having love as a person. Being a person who has love in them because that's what brings happiness in this life, is love.

CF: You presumably get a lot of that love back from your audiences on the tour?

AW:Yeah, I mean I dunno, I'm curious about them. They don't shout much or say stuff to me. I mean they are vocal but they just look at me like 'what's she going to do now?'. I get that vibe off them like everyone's like 'what are you doing?' like that. I dunno (laughs).

CF: Maybe they're concentrating, just listening?

AW:I dunno. They told me there was a boy right at the front yesterday and I was wearing this little white skirt. My boys told me that 'this boy looked in your eyes about twice, he was just looking at you like that (gazes dumbstruck), up your skirt'. I was like, oh that's nice.

CF: Have you ever been to Leeds before?

AW: Yes my stepsister studies here, lovely Caroline. This is her to me, her end. I have friends as well here and I like it here. I just don't like that fact that you can't smoke in the university, it's depressing.

CF: Finally, are you looking forward to the gig?

AW: Oh yeah, I can't wait. But back on the smoking thing, there's nothing better than being in a gig and watching someone light up cause you can't see the audience obviously, but when someone lights up you see it and I always think 'go on, enjoy that, cause I can't'. I can't do that on stage so I want them to really enjoy that cigarette!