I feel like so many people get into that place where creating for someone else is selling out and it is so not about that. It is a stupid, kind of pretentious way of thinking.
When I come up with something that I feel like people will connect with that makes me happy because I know that it would be something that would just go beyond me.
I feel like writing music is a great chance to create something that extends beyond yourself.
If we all knew how to make that jump from good to great then I think every song would be great.
Something like film, I guess there are so many elements to it, like the dialogue and what makes sense culturally.
There is a balance in between where you can still make art, but it does not have to be insular.
I'd gotten to a point where I would write a lyric and then delete it because I was worried about how it sounded. Pretty much, I was a dreadful person and It was just a way of dealing with feeling kind of guilty about that.
I think my first song ever was when my cat died. It was this awful, dreadful black cat who was angry and hated everything. Yet I was so upset when it died.
The thing is, is that I hate theatre, but it was how I learnt to sing.
I love to act, so the only way I could act was through community theatre and they would just do musicals. My musical upbringing was show-tunes and it sucks and I have been trying to get away from it ever since.
My Dad played the trombone and I think my Mom played the piano for about two years. It is very self-driven. They pushed me to do piano lessons, but they were never forceful about anything. They never pushed me to sing or anything, it was something that I did myself.
Acting is fun. I enjoy it, but there is just not many opportunities to do it on a serious level. It is kind of either bad community musicals, or if you are lucky enough to be cast in something serious. I feel like you really have to be going after it, and for me I am a little bit distracted.
It is one of those things that is universally connectable, people can connect to it from everywhere; music is like that universal language.
You don't make a film and then be like I am only going to play it in my house and no-one is going to see it - that is ridiculous.
I feel like it is only music where people are like, "You can't do this for other people, you have to do it for yourself." Which I hate.
I write in a bunch of different ways, but my favourite way is to walk around my neighbourhood at ridiculous hours, like 2am. I feel like the movement helps me clear my thoughts so I can just get all of the words out and type them onto my phone.
I sit at the piano for a couple of hours and tinker away until I get something. I am a nocturnal spirit, like an owl.
In terms of melody, I am really into great 90's melodies. I feel like there was a great focus on melody in the 90's, like 90's pop-hooks and 90's R&B hooks; I just love them.
I mainly get my inspiration for writing from everyday situations and I come up with hypothetical scenarios and I can usually write a lot about that.
I am a big nut for kind of weird musicality things. I love key-changes and random tempo things and polyrhythms - music geek.
As cheesy as it sounds, I feel like I do write a lot, not necessarily for a message to be taken away. I feel like it is a little bit egotistical to be like, "I hope they are a better person after listening to my song."
I love making music. I feel like people often get into that 'you should only make music for yourself' kind of place, where they say things like, "I don't write for other people, I write for myself," and I feel like that misses the mark so much because music, especially pop music, is so much more than yourself.
Sometimes I just get into the zone of the song, but in the outset I feel like I love to cater to people - but not necessarily at the expense of my artistry or anything like that.
I just chuck a bunch of words down and whether they find themselves into a song... I have lots of weird notes on my phone. I often come up with a phrase that I really like, I write it down and it stays in my notes folder, and when I'm writing I will scroll through and see if it kind of fits and if I can mould a verse around it.
I feel like a good song is one that ticks all the boxes, but a great song is one that has this kind of special quality that just resonates with people.
