Mitski
I think my whole identity is formed around not knowing where I'm from. It might even be that I find comfort in that confusion.
I was one of those girls people called 'intense.'
I know for a fact that I'm problematic. I shouldn't be looked to for any kind of guidance.
Oftentimes, the most important decisions I make are the ones I don't put much thought into.
Being an outsider makes you a really good writer.
My personality's very obsessive-compulsive. I tend to fixate a lot.
I think music is supposed to be shared.
I think your ego gets in the way of making something good because it kind of blinds you from the actual art.
It's very tempting, when somebody says they like this about you, to want to do that over and over.
I think it's very dangerous as an artist to be comfortable.
I'm Japanese, and I'm also white American, and neither camp wants me in their camp.
Maybe this is a made-up belief to preserve myself, but I do believe that everyone has a purpose, and my purpose is to put out music that means something.
I've been very careful to always make clear that I am a real person. That's why I'm on social media a lot.
When you're young is the one time when you get to indulge in being morose and take yourself most seriously.
As a woman of color, I always have to be at 150 percent and better than everybody in the room to be considered competent.
I have a very conveniently photographic memory of emotions - it's overwhelming, because things don't fade for me.
Growing up, I never really felt like anything was my own. I moved a lot, and I never belonged anywhere.
I'd always been fascinated by death, which sounds so morbid. Especially being a woman trying to make music, I think there's a sense that you're never young enough, or your career is going to end soon.
On one hand, I think it's very important to talk about race and talk about gender, because if it's not talked about, then we won't progress. What I have a problem with is when it becomes another form of tokenization, of shrinking me into a symbol instead of a multilayered, female Asian artist.
When you are a minority, it's your job to bend, and when you love someone, you really want to make it work. Then you start to realise, 'Oh, I'm bending a lot,' and they're just standing there existing, and I'm bending around them. But you can't blame them: they don't realise it; that's just how they already existed. It's hard.
My father was obsessed with folk music from around the world, and I think the countless artists who performed them are my biggest influences.
I don't think I have the kind of creativity to write fiction.
I remember I took a music course in junior year of high school, and some girl brought in 'Teardrops On My Guitar,' and she was like, 'Isn't this song great?' And everyone was like, 'Who's Taylor Swift?' And now, every time I listen to Taylor Swift, I remember that moment.
When I started making music, I was like, 'This is something I can believe I was meant to do.'
I discovered I was an Asian American when I arrived in the U.S. I didn't identify as that before I came here. People started calling me that, and I started being treated in a specific way.
I didn't fit in anywhere when I grew up, but I was always American, so to survive, I created this 'ideal America.' Finally I came to the U.S. and realised, 'Oh, I don't belong here, either.'
Often I've had problems automatically bending to a lover's will, becoming what I know they want me to be. Immediately, I learn all the music they love, listen to it, study it, instead of being like, 'This is what I love!'
I think growing up the way I did has made me a lot more objective, and that's important in the process of writing and trying to look at subjective matter that way.
I think it's our responsibility as artists to not only fight for our art but fight for the communities that are the reason we're able to continue making art, especially since, in Brooklyn's case, we as artists somehow made it 'cool' enough for the bigger money-making industries to start taking over.
Miyazaki movies were what I was raised on. I've watched them since I was very young, and I've been greatly shaped by them.
I would love for Rivers Cuomo to listen to my music and see what he thinks.
I lived abroad most of my life in insular international communities.
When I record, it's this very precious and insular thing.
All I want to do at karaoke is sing Mariah Carey.
When I go onstage and am performing the way I want to... I finally feel like myself.
I'm not an innovator.
I don't care about making anything new. I make music to express an emotion, and if the emotion is nostalgic, so be it.
I'm punk, but I love gold.
Being an outsider at all times is both unhealthy and useful, because you become much more objective about things.
I actually love the summer. When I went to Miami on tour, I was actually like, 'I love this place.'
I think my real influences are out of my control, which are the things that entered my brain when I was a kid growing up.
I don't want to be a musician's musician. I want to be an everyone's musician.
It's nice to know there's a big world with many perspectives. I tend to get so stuck in my own small world easily, and going out into the world reminds me that I'm not the center of the world - in a good way.
Whenever I've tried to ingratiate myself to an existing community, I tend to give too much, to become whatever it is they want me to be. It's something I do automatically - I've learnt to immediately adapt.
I don't think 'bleak' is a bad thing.