‘AI isn’t going to have any beneficial influence on humans’: Beth Orton on creativity, craft and the inspirational power of David Bowie

Ahead of her new album, the singer-songwriter answers your questions on big 90s nights out, financial survival and the time a whole tube carriage serenaded herI’m curious how you found out you could sing, how you developed your voice and what singing means to you? VladimirSI found out I could sing while I was doing experimental theatre in 1989 – it was a cultural crossover between Ukraine and the UK. My biggest fear was singing in public and I wanted to do something I was afraid of, so I turned a Rimbaud poem into what I imagined was a blues song. And I loved it. Afterwards, I met this producer, William Orbit – I was 19 and he was 37 – through one of the women in the play whose husband was the manager of the Pogues. William decided: “She can sing. I will make a star of her.” He hooked me up with a wonderful singing teacher. But I probably will never see myself as a singer. Even last week I was like: “Oh yeah, I guess I am a musician, that’s ended up being what I do.”