Alanis Morissette
Ageism works in both directions. As a teenager in the public eye, people would talk condescendingly to me. When you get older there's this feeling that you have to start carving up your face and body. Right now I'm in the middle ground - I think women in their thirties are taken seriously.
As a kid, I was listening to Aretha Franklin, Etta James and hip-hop as well as music my parents were listening to, like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.
My main objective with every album is to capture a moment in time, which usually makes the whole process very relaxing. I only discover in retrospect when looking back at the songs how my life is going!
I think quite spiritually of myself. I feel like I'm here to support the human evolution.
The thing you can't underestimate is the true fan's intimacy. So Lady Gaga or anybody's true fan, I don't think they're going anywhere. There are people who are into commitment. If they're connecting with an artist, I think they'll be there over the long course.
Long hair is a security blanket for me. I cut it short a few years ago and I really never want to do that again. When I do cut it, I cut it myself.
Women are so powerful they're scary, and the incentive to squash this has been going on for so long that some of us actually believe we're subordinate.
A good man often appears gauche simply because he does not take advantage of the myriad mean little chances of making himself look stylish. Preferring truth to form, he is not constantly at work upon the facade of his appearance.
When people ask me who I'd want to have dinner with, dead or alive, I always say, 'John Lennon.' I just feel that he was an artist who was, in his own way, committed to wholeness and authenticity in a not dissimilar way that I am years later.
I remember thinking during those times that I wanted to write in a way where there are no rules.
I try to keep a low profile in general. Not with my art, but just as a person.
They're different kinds of challenges depending upon what phase of life I'm in.
In the past, I had workaholic issues.
I'm about 90 percent vegan. I think veganism is really well suited for training, at least for me anyway.
I just feel compelled to continue to be transparent. It just really levels the playing field and eradicates the shame that I have, or that one might have, about being human. So I'm going to just keep going.
But once I acclimated and really used fame for what it was offering me as a tool to serve my life purpose of inspiring and contributing, then it started to get fun again.
There were a lot of people who were a little afraid of the rage or blaming stance I was taking, and find what I am doing now more refreshing.
I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life, in therapy or through the lyrics of my songs.
I felt like I was making a record under the radar, and that is my favorite way to do anything.
Making a movie requires 20 to 500 people to make and a lot of money and the stakes are a lot higher.
I think it's child abuse to have someone in the public eye too young. Society basically values wealth and fame and power at the cost of well-being. In the case of a child, it's at the cost of someone's natural development. It's already hard enough to develop.
What I try to keep in mind is that there are going to be a lot of articles that are going to be misrepresentative of what I'm about as a person and as a writer.
I've been doing a lot of different cross-training and kickboxing and Capoeira and kite surfing, and I've just really been back to what I consider my original athletic self.
My favourite pastime used to be sitting on a park bench watching people. But after 'Jagged Little Pill,' the eyeballs turned, and I was the watched one.
It's when someone has an agenda of their own for the record that it doesn't work for me.
When I'm off the road, my husband and I recharge our batteries. It's a day of deep rest and connection with the spiritual, and that can be anything - going for a walk in nature, being in silence, burning incense.
I'm doing it because I choose it. And if it's not working, I can make a change.
And ultimately the people who produce my records, they know that they're here to serve the purpose of me expressing who I am at this period of time and augmenting that or pulling it forward and I love that process.
And I always laugh at that, because I think I've always been doing what I want to do since Day 1.
Well, as a kid I did not get Shakespeare. I just never understood it.
As long as I can say what it is that I need to say, then I'll fit whatever I'm trying to say around a melody.
When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.
At some point, I would like to write a book and other things, but I work best when there is some sort of deadline in my own mind, but not when fifty people or fifty million people are breathing down the back of my neck.
I was born in '74, so I missed out on all the great early '60s and early '70s.
I love songs that are very autobiographical.
At one point, I was just perceived as only being angry, but now I'm being perceived as angry, peaceful, and spiritual.
I think some fans want everything to stay they same because they want to stay the same.
The thing I always default to is that I'll always be here to write songs.
I'll keep evolving and put that into my songs.
I could write six songs in one day with everything that's going on.
Anything I do has to be directly related to my music. If it isn't, I don't really see a point to it.
I was motivated by just thinking that if you had all this external success that everyone would love you and everything would be peaceful and wonderful.
I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces, as opposed to what I see it being now, which is a way for me to actually communicate, and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.
I happen to be lucky in that I knew what I wanted to do as far as a career since I was nine years old.
I guess what people forget sometimes is that when I write songs, I write them sometimes in about 20 minutes.
Then I realized that secrecy is actually to the detriment of my own peace of mind and self, and that I could still sustain my belief in privacy and be authentic and transparent at the same time. It was a pretty revelatory moment, and there's been a liberating force that's come from it.
Breakups are a horrible thing for almost everybody I know. For someone who is a love addict, it's debilitating.
Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.
To me the biggest irony of this lifetime that I'm living is that for someone who thrives in the public eye in the creative ways that I do, I actually don't enjoy being in the public eye.