Feisty songstress Kate Nash has had a no.1 album, toured the world and is adored by thousands of fans but her passion for music began in a Rickmansworth classroom.

The 26-year-old songstress says: "There was a very enthusiastic music teacher, Derek Birditch, at St Joan of Arc Catholic School.

"He just loved music. I remember lessons where he would ask if we had heard or seen something and if we said no he would scrap the lesson plan and we would watch Cabaret or listen to an album.

"He was a super music fan and encouraged us to join the choir and learn an instrument.

"I was lucky to have someone that really encouraged me and parents who allowed me to be creative."

Born and raised in Harrow she first began to seriously write songsaged 17 when she was laid up with a broken foot.

Success followed quickly and her debut album Made of Bricks went to number 1 in 2007 and My Best Friend is You was released in 2010.

She is now back with new album Girl Talk and says she has ‘learned to scream’ for it.

But that doesn’t mean she wants to be pigeon-holed as angry.

"Because I’m opinionated and outspoken and express anger, sometimes I get put across as angry crazy woman," she says.

"It’s annoying that if you express anger, women are seen as crazy. I’m not an angry person I just have an opinion."

Her trademark frankness is evident on Girl Talk which has a ‘heavier’ punkier feel than her previous two and is based around personal experiences.

It was written in her Bethnal Green rehearsal studio in 2011 on a bass guitar and she was on a ‘proper mission’ to get it finished but fell out with Fiction Records which didn’t like the ‘heavier’ sound. So she left and set up Have 10p Records to release it and paid for the production through crowd funding on PledgeMusic.

She says: "It’s been difficult and a learning experience and liberating and exciting. It’s cool to start fresh with people I want to work with at this time in my life.

"I’m really proud of it."

Before she even says so it is evident Kate uses ‘music as therapy’.

Latest single Fri-end, out October 7, sends a strong message to a former acquaintance saying ‘Well the way you dress was more important to you than it was being my friend’.

"It’s about bad friends and realising someone is like not good for you and deciding to cut them out of your life"

But despite jetted off to L.A. to record the album and performing for thousands at Reading and Leeds Festival last weekend, she still regularly comes back to Harrow to see her mum and dogs and get a home cooked meal.

And her nine date UK tour in October includes a homecoming gig at Shepherds Bush Empire in London.

"I still have a good group of friends in Harrow, " says the 2008 Best Female Artist BRIT Awards winner.

"Pearse Grady, who put on my first ever gig at Trinity in Harrow, was at Reading and him and my sister were dancing in the pit at the front.

"There is an old school Harrow crew. Harrow’s got a really nice sort of bunch of people. Everyone still meets up at Christmas in Trinity and there’s no judgement. "Everyone is really excited for everyone’s success."

North London has also produced Gallows and Enter Shikari who joined Kate to play sets at Reading Festival and she says there has been talk of a collaboration with the Shikari lads - so watch this space.