I do enjoy a beer. And a shot of vodka with some apple juice is what loosens me up before I go onstage, because I get really nervous. I wish I could say it was something more healthy, like Pilates.
I think love is one that can definitely make you go crazy, and it's almost like love can induce mental illness in a lot of people, or bring it out worse. It makes people make crazy decisions.
I think love and obsession are almost one in 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 always make music that's reflective of the mindset I'm in at the time, how I'm feeling.
I wear non-gender-specific clothes. I just look silly in girls' clothes. I'm quite tall, and they're never the right cut for me - T-shirts and stuff are always too low-cut or too short. I've worn boys' clothes forever because girls' stuff never felt right for me.
I'm more of a whiz on the guitar and drums. I hear certain sounds in my head, and I find it easy to translate them into synth sounds, but I'm not really technically-minded.
I don't want anyone to think that I've been lost to California.
I would be happier if it were a full audience full of drag queens. It would be my dreams come true.
I was living in the U.K. I was back in New Zealand for the New Zealand Music Awards, which is like our annual New Zealand GRAMMYs.
Lucy Lawless presented a couple of the awards. And, when I walked off the stage with her after one of them, she said "Oh, I want to introduce you to my friend Madeleine," and that's how I met Madeleine. I realize that's a ridiculous story.
“Money to Burn” is a fantasy. I mean, I would love for that to be a true story. Most of my songs are written in metaphors.
That song ["Money to Burn"] is me being a fly on the wall in situations in LA. I mean, I've seen the way a lot of people operate and I've seen that sort of thing go down. There's a lot of rich kids with a little bit of extra money.
“Let is Roll” is like - well, it was like me thinking of a human being in its purest form. That form being a baby where there's nothing there - well, unless I guess you believe that something comes along attached. It depends on what you believe.
Writing that sort of [songs like "Let is Roll"]made me try to almost sort of ingrain it in my own head every time I sing it live as well. It's like therapy. It's like "Move on, Pip! Come on. You can do this! You can do this."
"The River" [song] is also, yes, very metaphorical. Rivers are cleansing. As long as human beings have been on the Earth we've used rivers to cleanse ourselves. And, for me, the lyrics "something in the river," I think is - well, the river is a metaphor for where I was at the time.
I don't want to say I drank the Kool-Aid because I'm definitely not religious and I don't buy into any religion at all. I'm anti, because I don't like anyone being discriminated against. But, I do think that I very much needed a sunny place for me to feel happier, and living in LA was almost like that sort of cleansing experience like I was being baptized in a river.
Years ago I was in a band called Two Lane Blacktop - we deliberately named ourselves after the 'Two-Lane Blacktop' movie, 'cuz it's a car chase movie. All our songs were based on movies, every single song. I love movies, and that was something that me and the singer in Two Lane Blacktop bonded over - we were design students together, we did a film-class together, so we became obsessed with movies. It's followed me around ever since then, it's a constant theme.
