21-year-old Londoner Patrick Wolf, the classical music scholar turned singer of gothic dramas, who opens his tour at Fibbers, York, on Easter Monday.

Where are you now, Patrick? I can hear bird song.

"I'm walking through Victoria Park near my house in Hackney. I've been making the video for my Wind In The Wires single, which will be out in early June."

You're as creatively busy as ever, what with writing, playing all the instruments, programming, arranging and producing your latest album yourself.

"It does feel like I've been at it for years. I woke up at 11 years old saying 'This is what I want to do' and it's been my obsession ever since. "I do think a lot of artists or friends of mine sit around complaining but I always felt that if no-one else could do the job I might as well do it myself, and I couldn't find anyone who matched my creative energy."

Describe your roots.

"Born in St Thomas's, Waterloo; I've got a bit of Irish heritage on my mother's side and my father's a Brighton boy. I stuck with London till I was 13 when I went to a school in the countryside Bedales after I was having bullying trouble. It was an old bohemian school, and it was the only place that would accept me, 6ft 4ins with pink hair, a bad attitude - and a violin scholarship."

You have a need for freedom of expression.

"My albums are like exorcisms. Lycanthropy was an exorcism of my fly-by-night existence in London; Wind In The Wires is an exorcism of where I fit into the world now. It's given me freedom to write pop music about things outside myself and introduce more characters. You have to go through things to come to this point about yourself."

Patrick Wolf plays Fibbers, York, Easter Monday. Tickets: £6 advance, £7 door.

Updated: 08:50 Friday, March 25, 2005