The band has been going four years. We're good friends - we started jamming in youth clubs. I'm the singer and I write the lyrics, but our guitarist came up with the name, Bleed From Within. It's like extreme metal, death metal, a lot of different types of metal mixed up. It's not exactly happy music. Old-school death metal isn't positive at all, but I'm not singing about the same things as, like, Cannibal Corpse. It makes me happy to be in a band. I don't know where I'd be today without it.

My mum passed away in November. I'd dropped out of college to play in the band and she stood by my decision. A scream can be positive when dealing with the death of someone. If people say what I do is just noise, then that's their opinion. I understand what I'm saying. Others do, too. I wasn't good at singing, and since I started screaming all the time, we moved to a more extreme kind of music. The scream is about how angry I am with the world, how I miss this person who meant so much to me. I'm angry that she was suddenly gone.

It helps having live performances where I can go for it. It makes it more meaningful. I'm screaming pretty much the whole set. I run about, stage-dive. For 30 or 40 minutes, I don't think about anything. I can blank out. It takes me away, so far away it's as if I'm somebody else. I'm quite shy as a person - I'm quiet when I'm not on stage - but I need this time when I can scream for the things I need to scream about.