I took four years of violin, but got bored of it - over the years, I've been ADD with instruments. The only two that I've really stayed true to are guitar and piano.
The music is not the truth.
Back in high school, about two years ago, I was in this silly punk band called Ballet for Athletes. We were all trying to take it seriously, and then I realized that "punk" and "serious" aren't really two words you can put in the same sentence - at least, in my opinion.
Anonymity was nothing more than me wanting to make it about the music and not necessarily the image. Of course, you realize later that by going anonymous, there is an image, and it's mysterious. So that kind of backfired. But it also worked to my advantage, since it certainly got people's attention.
There are so many artists these days that are trying to imitate other artists and go for a certain style; there's a lot of bullshit in the music industry. I don't want to deviate from anything else other than the music, cause that's why I listen to my favorite records - not because I like the way the artists dress.
My music has to do with imaginary things, so I took that concept and used the whole "the music is not the truth" mantra as a way to market myself.
All my favorite artists are downtempo - Portishead, Burial, a lot of 1990s trip-hop. Some people are saying that I'm trying to help with the trip-hop revival that's possibly going on, but I'm not aware of other artists that are necessarily doing that. But if they are, that's fantastic. It's a great medium of electronic music. There's a lot of emotion - it's good for soundtracking a late-night drive.
