Music is a place to take refuge. It's a sanctuary from mediocrity and boredom. It's innocent and it's a place you can lose yourself in thoughts, memories and intricacies.
It is the artist's responsibility to be the oracle, to abstract where you are - that is our responsibility - we're not there to look glamorous. We're there to tune into the frequency of the Earth and the connective tissues of those things that we are responding to - language, colour, costume, literature, poetry, cuisine, perfume - these are the things that make up the desire to throw paint on a canvas, these are the things that create the excitement for building a new language!
The words are in my own internal language, and mean more than I could ever explain.
There's something extremely fragile about musicians, and that's their strength.
Silence is so important when you're working, You must have periods where you don't hear anything, just to reflect on you've already done. Otherwise you traumatize your relationship with the piece that you're working on.
The second and sometimes most important part of the creative process is performing it live, so that the work can evolve to a different level and it is also important to make that connection with your audience as they are the reason why you make this work in the first place.
Years ago I sang on a track using that voice and someone asked, 'Who is that terribly depressed man?' But Patrick loved it. He said, 'You sound like a young boy, like a child, like an old woman, like an old man,' and really, we all have all of those things inside of us. I don't do any vocal gymnastics to make the voice better as I age. If it comes out rougher, then it's true to what's happening. Singing is who I am. I didn't train for it, any more than I trained for anything else I did. I probably should take better care of myself physically, but it goes against the grain.
A true collaboration is trickier than a marriage because you can't hide.
We always have a basic structure for a piece of music, but we encourage the musicians to elaborate on whatever they feel at that particular moment. There's a definite conversation happening on stage. I think it is very important for us as creative musicians, to instantaneously describe any energy that is visible at that time.
There's fatigue but also a deliberate desire to want to reach absolute perfection at every concert.
I suppose musicians have the kind of arrogant attitude that they can actually offer the world something, because through their passive power, they're able to be the strongest arms that they can be, incredibly strong. That's what keeps us going.
There's the false security of feeling a great force of love from your audience one day and then the next morning you wake up and you're exhausted, and that love is something you have to reach for the next day.
I feel connected to every other creative element because I have a creative soul. My isolation is not through the work it's through not being able to connect with mediocrity. When I was younger I was a punk and then when I got married and had children I became a mother. They are the only two memberships to any clan-like cultures that I have ever embraced.
With touring, it's like you're in this car and you've got this much fuel. You know that if you drive carefully and take your time and search your way so that you don't take the wrong turn, you'll have exactly enough fuel to go where you're going. You are empowered as you go by your audience.
