"I like situations where people don't know how to react," she says. "Back then I liked the fact that people were looking at me and wondering 'Is she serious or is she being funny?' To me dressing up was a natural form of expression but it was also a useful armour. I think I also saw my image as a way of covering up my lack of actual beauty. I didn't want people to see the real me."Siouxsie insists that there is no chance of another Banshees tour since she and her husband, the former Banshees' drummer Budgie, are focusing their energies on The Creatures. Stripped of the cadaverous make-up and with her trademark black hair pulled back into a high ponytail, she looks fresh-faced and girlish.

There is certainly no sign of the regal haughtiness displayed during live performances. She cackles endlessly throughout our interview and delights in recounting tales of glories - and ignominies - past.In the Seventies, Siouxsie arrived with a glamour and femininity that had previously been absent in punk. Obviously now I can't stand the sight of the poisonous old toad."Decades of publicity shots and album sleeves have depicted a sad-eyed Siouxsie, an outlandish cross between Cleopatra and Tallulah Bankhead. It may be a result of her precipitous cheekbones and sparkling eyes that, at 46, she looks a lot younger than her years. That would have been absurd."Now, 27 years on, the Banshees have announced their split Again.

The last one was in 1995, but then came the reunion tour, The Seven Year Itch, in 2002. "It suddenly seemed a good idea to perform songs that we hadn't played for 20 years," explains Siouxsie "And for a while it was fun. Me and [the guitarist Steve] Severin actually seemed to be getting on again I say seemed. "There was never any intention of doing it again and there was certainly no thought of making a living out of it. It was early in 1976 that the teenage Susan Dallion, one of punk's famous "Bromley contingent", changed her name to Siouxsie Sioux. In September that same year she appeared at London's 100 Club as the singer of Siouxsie and the Banshees, in a slashed T-shirt, her sister's pinstripe jacket and a black star painted over one eye. After singing a 20-minute set including a savage version of the Lord's Prayer over a wall of feedback, she threw down the microphone and stalked off stage.