It's amazing. Being clearheaded for a show, for starters. Not being reflux-y because of the amount of beer you've drunk.
I feel like in every song I write, I always write a little darker bit.
I am a fan of the true crime and horror genres! So, I've got a dark side too.
You can't always be like 'sunshine and roses'. I like a little bit of darkness.
I'm still always a country girl from New Zealand.
Stupid things like that which I never took into consideration – that I never thought about before like "Oh, maybe I'm hindering my singing by drinking all this amount before I go on stage. Maybe it's making me not project my voice properly."
Since I've stopped drinking I'm way better at singing. I can project my voice better. I can actually walk on stage and make eye contact with the audience, which I never used to know how to do in the past. So, it's made a huge difference for me.
A few people said to me on the UK tour 'that feeling you're feeling is natural. Everyone feels nerves. But, you've got to use that to your advantage. You've got to use that nervous energy and pull it into your performance’. And, I'd never thought of that before.
I have these thoughts. I think "What if the show doesn't sell well? What if it's a half-empty room?" These are the paranoia thoughts that go through my head on a day-by-day basis.
It doesn't matter if there are 20, 40, 100, or 500 people there. It doesn't matter how many people. You've got to perform to those people because they've come.
That's always been my main anxiety - the people in the room. That's my massive stress - thinking that these people in the room are judging me. And, this time around, I've been able to think a little bit more clearly about that. I've been able to think "Well, no. They're here to enjoy a show," and I want to give them that. I want to give them their money's worth – for starters.
It's crazy in just the difference it makes turning up to sound check without a hangover.
I don't drink anymore. That's a huge - that's a massive - difference in my life. It's made a huge change in my touring.
You don't say "Maybe I should go to bed early tonight" or do any of that stuff. It's almost like you know you're alone and you have to get through it by whatever means - distracting yourself. Because, the more alone time the worse, you know?
I always make music that's reflective of the mindset I'm in at the time, and how I'm feeling.
I remember writing a song when I was about 15. This is the one I can remember. I know I'd been writing poetry for a long time, since I was about eight, but I remember my first one that I put to chords. I was really trying to be like the psychedelic era Beatles, I was obsessed. All I could think about was Beatles and Hendrix. So I tried to write a psychedelic song, and it was the worst. I couldn't even... If I read it now - I still have the book somewhere - it makes me cringe out loud. It was just about psychedelic stuff.
I think love and obsession are almost one and the same thing at some times. Because the person you end up falling in love with, there is an element of obsession in the early days - it's all you can think about.
I guess, a lot of people think is a long time between albums. It was needed for me. I went through a lot to get the album ["Wild Things"] finished. I actually went through a lot to even get the album started.
With the first record (2008’s Ladyhawke) I was quite naive, but very excited and happy.
With the second record (2012's Anxiety), I was quite jaded, and exhausted, and tired. With this third record, I feel that I've come full circle. I had gotten to the absolute pinnacle of how bad someone could feel.
I got to a happier point and then started making a record [Wild Things]. I don't mind at all that it sounds like LA, because LA was integral to me feeling better. Seeing the sunshine and all that other sorts of stuff was definitely a huge part in why the album sounds like it sounds.
I think I've got a lot of dark lines in this record [Wild Things] that I've hidden quite nicely among the nice things.
When I say “when you’re always almost lonely, you forget to take it slowly,” I mean that you don’t always take care of yourself.
You can be surrounded by people all the time, but you feel so alone. I think that's when you can lose perspective and lose control of what you're doing. It's almost as if you have no fear and you don't really care about what happens to yourself.
I'm just a small-town New Zealand girl. But, I do think it was incredibly necessary for me. Wild Things wouldn't exist if I hadn't have made some dramatic changes and that all happened in LA.
