Usually the song is totally done. I'll do absolutely everything, backing vocals - everything - but in gibberish. A lot of times its based on the mumblings that I sing. Even though I sing in gibberish, it kind of makes sense.
In political sense, it doesn't really matter what I do on my own, but it's so important to rally some sort of collectiveness and reignite a collective vision, and I think that's something you can do effectively through art and music, and through writing and entertainment - and just through like, pop culture. It's about spreading ideas and making people think differently, essentially.
As a songwriter, I was really into pulling away from the melodrama and the overdramatic type of writing that I was previously always doing. I think over time my songs have become more and more restrained.
I was listening to a lot of really early house music tracks. Like Chicago house and Detroit. And Marshall Jefferson has a track probably from 1980 - somewhere around there - that doesn't actually have any electronic instruments, no drum machines, nothing. Just a drummer and a piano player and they're playing this house music, but they're actually playing it. I really love that aesthetic and wanted to bring that into the album.
When I was growing up, until I was 18 or 19, I was totally invested in the classical music world. I had no concept of anything else. The closest thing to a cool band I listened to was Radiohead. Radiohead were the only band I liked in high school. I was just obsessed with classical music, opera, Claude Debussy, and that kind of stuff.
I think Nine Inch Nails was a really big one for me, when I was 18. They really inspired me to start making my own music.
I wanted to try to make songs that worked as songs, not just as productions. People wanted me to do a solo acoustic session, they were like "Can you play song on the piano?" and I was like "Not really. It doesn't really work." I wanted to write songs that would work in a variation of instrumentation.
I love playing the new songs live. I hate playing a new song and then having to play an old song again, it feels really boring.
