Former Cocteau Twins vocalist Elizabeth Fraser has opened up about the battles with self-doubt and drugs that led to her hiatus from the music industry.

The 48-year-old, who will perform her own songs for the first time this century at Antony Hegarty’s Meltdown Festival in August, told The Guardian that she blames the demise of the dream-pop outfit in the mid-90s on their drug use:

"I resisted it for a long time. I thought they would get tired of all this soon, and we will be back to normal but, of course, that didn't happen, unfortunately. Then, weirdly, I got into this pot smoking. I guess that was the part of me saying: 'Right, if you are going to let this slide, you might as well do it properly.’ I should never have smoked pot. That was the end of the band really.

The Scottish singer, who provided the vocals for Massive Attack’s Top 10 hit, ‘Teardrop,’ also confessed that a series of tumultuous events in her life led to a crippling bout of self-doubt:

"I just got so depleted and exhausted by everything. I was in a horrible place. I had always thought of myself as a sanguine person, quite light and airy. But for a long while, no one could have possibly made me laugh or smile. It was awful."

But despite remaining apprehensive about her return to the music scene, Fraser says she’s glad she made the decision to say yes when asked to perform at the Southbank Centre event:

"Well it wasn't an immediate yes, of course not! But part of me was saying, you know, 'Come on, Fraser! This is it! This is the one you have to do!' But then there is always another part saying: 'What are you thinking? You can't do this! You are really going to need the rest of your life to think about whether this is a good idea...'

“I find making decisions really very difficult. The torture of deciding about something is almost too much for me. That's why I'm so excited to have made this decision to play. I need that commitment! I'm honestly not as bad as I used to be."