I don't like to talk too much about my music; I like people to just experience it and not worry what I have to say.
There's definitely been a focus on the literary aspects of my music, and I always get a little cringey because I don't feel like I'm particularly literary. There's a sort of academic label that's put on me that seems inaccurate.
Amidst all the internal and external babble we experience daily, it's hard to find one's foundation.
The classic problem in a relationship is a person trying to control the other person. People just want to conquer somebody.
It's so hard to know where you belong, ever. You have to be yourself and let yourself fall wherever you fall.
I'm not, like, always focused; I'm very unfocused. I'm reading, and then I'm looking at my phone, and then I'm on the Internet.
Green tea is my main source of caffeine, so I drink it every day.
One thing that's really important to me in my music is mystery.
I like mantras and repeating things, like in pop music, where you repeat a line over and over again. It's just so beautiful.
'Have You in My Wilderness,' the title track, is about the idea of possessing a person, or saying, 'You're mine; you're in my world now.' I was drawn to that as an idea less from my own experience than from listening to music written by men that was kind of male gaze-y.
I basically just write stream of consciousness to a certain extent. I let the song kind of go where it wants to go.
Musical themes developing is a lot of what classical music is based on, and exposition and recapitulation - these kinds of things I find oppressive.
I'm not an unhappy person - I'm just an anxious person. It runs in the family.
Most records are usually not united by one specific story, but that seems to be something that I like and that I find easy to do.
All I ever know is what I want to do next.
It's hard for me to get shows in the U.S. It's that simple. I don't know what that means. I think it means there's not as much support here for my music?
I usually like to hide my vocals behind the music. I don't like to hide them consciously, but I have a tendency to prefer the vocal at the same level as everything else and put lots of reverb on it.
In high school, I would secretly play Joni Mitchell songs all the time. That's when I started singing and playing at the same time, and I got really into doing that.
If I feel like I'm myself, then I'm very uncomfortable.
I've never felt at home anywhere.
I don't thrive in a school or academic environment, I found out. I thrive better in the world outside the small academy because I find it hard to explain what I'm doing.
Putting my audience to sleep isn't what I'm going for.
In L.A., you can play forever, and no one around the world will hear you.
I started writing music as a composer in school, in the classical tradition.
To me, the process of art is very much a process of translation, of borrowing.
I started playing piano when I was eight, and I went on to study piano in school, so I have a background in classical piano and studied composition in school. Writing music came later.
I really love working with Ramona from Nite Jewel. We've kind of grown up together.
I think what's interesting in L.A. is that there's a lot of variety because L.A. is very spread out. I think there is a lot I don't know about, to be completely honest. It's a very mysterious town.
If you've ever seen paparazzi go after a celebrity, it's really freaky.
I prefer to work with mystery, but that doesn't work well in an academic environment. They want you to analyze what you're doing, which is toxic to the creative process for people like me.
'Tragedy' and 'Loud City Song' are both inspired by stories from the past.
There's a lot psychologically going on in boxing... I think I relate to some of it. I have a respect for it. It's like performing, but it's also this crazy, self-destructive thing.
I was in school for four years writing music to please my teachers. That was not music I liked. And when I make music that isn't for something I want to make, and it's to please other people, it's - the outcome is really bad.
I do develop characters for songs, and I think of everything as storytelling, in a way. But I don't plan out what they're going to sound like. I just sing over what I've done.
I listen to the timbre of the music, and I fit my voice to blend with that timbre.
When you make music on your own for so long, you get used to just doing whatever you want.
I like talking about my music.
I don't ever like to see paparazzi much, but I have seen them, and I guess anyone who's seen them knows how scary they are.