Duffy: I'm borderline on a nervous breakdown

Though many see Duffy as a more stable, second-rate version of Amy Winehouse, that impression may not last. Not because Duffy is about to embrace a new musical direction – rather because she's not so stable. "I'm borderline on a nervous breakdown," she told the Western Mail in a recent interview. "Can I handle this? Do I want to disappear?"

2008 has been the Year of Duffy. In a matter of months she went from nobody to VIP – making the headlines, topping the charts, and playing arenas on both sides of the Atlantic. But in the Western Mail interview, the Welsh singer seemed shell-shocked by her sudden rise. "I'm not feeling very calm," she said. "I'm never really calm any more."

"I just need to get things right because if I take my finger off the pulse I immediately feel the quality isn't as good. It's a full-time thing I have on my hands. I can't just turn up, sing and then go to bed. I have to be so hard on myself."

"All the doubts I have are of myself," she said.

Though the 24-year-old is about to embark on a US tour with Coldplay, she has not exactly been reassured by previous experiences. "I spent 80% of my time in the US playing shit-holes, and when I say shit-holes I mean it," she said. "Two thousand tickets sold but the toilets don't have a seat on them, or they don't have a shower – and I flew a long way to be there. You stand there thinking 'Wow, this thing that I created is changing so much of who I am.'"

She misses "going to the fish and chip shop, going to the beach, seeing my mates and being able to speak Welsh and have a pint of Guinness in the local".

But on the bright side, well ... loads of money? Maybe not. "I don't know if I can afford to buy a new pair of tights," she told the Western Mail, perhaps bamboozled by label advances, contracts and paperwork. "I just do it ... Maybe for Christmas we can go on a big holiday, and buy a big turkey from M&S instead of Aldi this year."

For the time being, Duffy's only reassurance seems to be her fans. "It would be wrong for me to disappear," she said. "I have to go and play for the fans. It's not about selling the product, it's about doing it right for the people who have bought it."

And, hopefully, not killing yourself in the process.


Original article here