The way I work is mostly unconscious and instinctive.
Before I moved to Brooklyn to pursue music, I was a high school dropout and speed freak who'd been living with her dealer boyfriend in Bucks County, Pennsylvania at 16.
It is a good thing to let someone else's vision take over, and it has always been a good thing in the end.
After being in the creative, hermetic state I have been in, coming out has been painful, but it is getting easier.
I do have a lot of references coming out of the '60s, '70s, and '80s, but I don't consciously think, "I'm going to put this here and this there." It comes out of my unconscious, and I don't want it to be just retro.
I think that it's always more interesting to combine familiar sounds together in a new way and with newer sounds if you can make it work, rather than sticking to just one style too strictly.
I love the feeling of nostalgia vying with the present. That can be from song to song, or within the same song.
You always want an album to sound like its own little planet.
When I moved to New York in my 20s, I didn't have an obnoxious ego, but it was huge! I'll thought, "I'll never die and I can do anything."
The hard part was when I went into the studio with co-producer Eric Broucek, and he started slashing my demos. I always sweat that.
Most of the time, the creative part is like playing in a sandbox. I can sit here and work for 12 hours and not get tired of it.
Negative feelings can either lead to sinking into oneself and disappearing, or they can make you angry and want to prove that you're worthy to be in the conversation.
Certain people have the eye of the tiger, and I never was myself that kind of person, although I'm not a slacker.
I just love music, so that's what I'm always working on, and I try to say yes a lot. Maybe I'm more ambitious than I thought I was.
I was working as a cocktail waitress in a heavy metal bar. Then, my manager said I should try some acting, which led to an audition Satisfaction, where I played a musician in an all-girl band. That movie is where I met my future ex-husband Jody Porter.
I think I am a late-bloomer. My taste in music just keeps getting better.
It was definitely in my mind to do a solo album, but I didn't know it would take this long.
I tend to work on a song, generate ideas, and re-arrange it like five times, and I'm glad I take the time to do that, because I think my original songs come out better.
I went through a furnace and came out knowing who I am.
I was pretty tough and serious in my 20s.
