CORNISH singer/songwriter/keyboard player Rosie Vanier found her first modest taste of fame and fortune fronting three-piece band Rosie and the Goldbug.

Now, after the demise of the band and a two-year hiatus, Rosie returns as a solo artist and is launching her new EP with a 35-date tour of the UK, stopping off at Ride Café next Thursday.

Hailed by the Guardian as "Kate Bush on crack with Goldfrapp on synths" she is back, firing on all cylinders and already starting to make her mark.

She says: "I'm doing more sit-down venues than rock venues and it's been very intimate, but I've done four dates so far and it's been a real joy.

"It's taken a lot of deconstruction to be able to just play on my own with my piano.

"What we did with the band was dress things up with glitter and theatricality – which was fine, Goldbug will always be a part of me, and it was great fun, but it's not the way I want to be for ever.

"It all boils down to having great songs – then there's nothing to hide behind. What I'm doing now is an expression of myself. I feel that everything makes sense and it's very rewarding."

The split came just at the point of take-off for the band.

"All my life had been leading up to that point where everything was about to fall into place – there was just the one last hurdle. It was the worst break-up of my life, ten times worse than any with boyfriends, and it really knocked me for six.

"It took a good two years to recover and fall back in love with music."

Music had been her life and the wild theatrical inventiveness of her output stemmed from growing up in the wilds of Bodmin – "the place has a magic that is a huge part of me," she says – before moving to Launceston.

She also remembers early encounters with The Cure. Paul Thompson, a member of the band, had bought the vicarage at Alternum and her dad, who specialised in restoration, went to work on the property.

"My sister and I used to love going to play at the house, from the age of about four to seven and I remember very clearly these weird men with big hair and make up-hanging out there – I'm sure some of that got into my blood from a young age."

Rosie still keeps a couple of Goldbug tracks in the set but the tracks on the new EP, Neon Nightmare, which was included on industry mag Music Week's cover mount compilation last week, has far more introspective lyrics.

"The title track is about going to New York with the band and during the taxi ride from JFK to Manhattan, seeing graves set against that movie skyline.

"I wondered who these people in the graveyard were – it was as if the city had chewed them up and spat them out. And I was anxious and curious about what the city was going to do to me, a country girl from Launceston."

Coco Rosie is about being bullied while at Launceston College, while Subway Stars is a love song: "I don't write many of those, in fact I try to avoid them, but this one just came about."

Rosie is supporting Brother and Bones next Thursday at Ride Marquee.