Aimee Mann may be a Grammy Award-winning troubadour, but she is no waifish singer- songwriter.

The 48-year-old, who will play her first show in Singapore at the Esplanade Concert Hall on Aug 29, boxes regularly.

'There is something about it that fascinates me,' she tells Life! over the telephone from her home in Los Angeles. 'It is just like exercise but it is also difficult to learn. I have been doing it for four to five years now.'

Being inside a boxing ring was probably not something even Mann could have imagined for herself when she started out in the early 1980s in punk band The Young Snakes followed by new wave group 'Til Tuesday.

The latter, for whom she was lead singer and bassist, won the MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist in 1985. A solo career followed in 1993 with her first album, Whatever.

Married to fellow singer-songwriter Michael Penn since 1997 (they have no children), Mann runs her own record label SuperEgo Records and last year released her seventh and latest album, @#%'&*! Smilers, which music magazine Mojo honoured as a 'masterpiece' with a perfect five-star rating.

She has had a bit of an adventure in the movies, too, earning Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe nominations for writing most of the songs in the 1999 movie Magnolia. She also had a small role as a German nihilist in the 1998 cult movie The Big Lebowski and has played herself in prime-time television shows The West Wing and Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Her current global tour sees her playing with just two accompanying musicians.

'I'm travelling and playing shows as a trio - me and two keyboard players. We trade off playing bass, guitar and piano. By keeping the number of musicians low, I am able to travel to places I'm usually not able to go to.'

Mann promises to dig into the vaults for long-time fans at her upcoming gig here, which also features opening act, home-grown acoustic singer-songwriter Ling Kai.

'I have been listening to my older songs and picking those that we don't usually play or that I haven't played live. I'm going to take some requests and be ready if anybody has any particular song that he wants to hear.'

1 The title of your latest album, @#%&*! Smilers, is rather provocative. What do you have against people who smile all the time?

It's not that. It refers more to people who try to make you smile when you don't feel like smiling and that is really more the issue.

Trying to make somebody feel something they are not feeling is not only impossible but also pretty annoying.

2 When you write songs based on people you know, do you tell them that the song is about them?

If a song is really a lot about somebody, I usually tell them about it. I just wrote a new song about someone, but to make it work into a song, I had to change certain details but that made it negative.

So I had to call up the person and say I was writing about this particular aspect but I changed it only for the song.

I do not want them to think that that was what I thought about them, that I was critical.

3 How do you feel about playing your first show in Singapore?

I am pretty excited, I have never been to Singapore and I don't know what to expect.

I am looking forward to seeing what the audiences are like and what the city is like.

I have played only a couple of shows in Japan and that is the farthest I have travelled. I do not think I will get to spend much time in Singapore, though.

4 You are embarking on one of your biggest tours and will be playing for the first time in places such as South America and Australia. Are you worried about the global flu bug going around?

I have a bigger fear of flying than I do of the flu. There have been a couple of plane crashes recently and I have a couple of really long flights.

5 In 2000, you were active with Artists Against Piracy, a coalition formed to tackle the spread of pirated music on the Internet. What are your current views on the issue of illegal sharing of music online?

If I have music I want to listen to, I would pay for it because I want to support people who are talented. It is tough to make a living even when people do buy your music.

But when people feel they are entitled to something, they just don't care. For some people, if they can get something for free, they will do it and they won't think about the consequences.

I'm not going to pass judgment on that but it is not what I do.

6 What is a typical day like when you are not on the road?

I go hiking with friends at 8am and sometimes I go to the boxing gym a couple of times a week, and I might work on my music or meet friends.

I have been doing a lot of painting in the last couple of months.

A lot of what I do is to take care of business that I cannot take care of when I am on the road, you know, going to the dentist or the doctor, getting things fixed, going to the drycleaner and doing laundry.

7 How long more do you see yourself making music?

Probably always. I don't think I will ever feel like not writing songs.

8 Complete this sentence. If I could live my life all over again, I would...

I would do almost everything differently. I feel like everything can be improved. There are a lot of relationships I would have avoided. I probably would have started boxing earlier and I would probably have started playing music earlier. There are things I would have practised better and I would have eaten better.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.