Valerie June
My music confuses people because they think I will sound a certain way because I look a certain way with the dreads.
I've been busy and need to slow my little tail down and sit and meditate somewhere. I do my walking meditations every day, but just to sit still. Just to be in one place and just to be quiet.
When I was writing 'Shotgun,' it's one of the first songs that's come to me as an image.
I just let the songs tell me what to do - they are my guides, and they are the boss. So I am subservient to the songs, and I let them tell me what to do. I don't judge them; I just write whatever comes to me.
As I try to get around with a guitar, a banjo and a suitcase of high heels and dresses, I treasure that little ukulele.
I'm not really into alternative country - I'm into Patsy Cline, who lived down the street from where I lived, and old Dolly Parton records, Kitty Wells and that old stuff. I like country music. I also like Eric Church, who has a great new sound but also holds onto that old sound.
I like performing live more than anything. I get a little bit afraid in the studio.
When I first moved to New York, I was still returning to Tennessee every few months to perform.
I try to write down every song that comes to me, even though I know that every song that comes to me isn't a song that I need to sing.
I met PJ Harvey when I was in England, and the first thing I want to do when I meet a songwriter I admire is to ask them how do they receive songs.
As soon as I could talk, I was bellowing at the top of my lungs. My parents couldn't get over how weird I sounded - like an old man when I was just a toddler! But no one was gonna shut me up.
I was working like a dog as a housekeeper, barista, nanny, cook, so I could save enough money to really sit with my instruments. Whenever I had 20 minutes, I would practice a new chord or write a new verse.
If I have something inside me that I want to get out, I'll just beat it out on the banjo right then and there.
Amalgamation is a good word that I like to use - musically and in every way.
When I was really little, I loved Whitney Houston. I thought she was the prettiest thing in the world.
My signature fragrance would be herbal - basil mixed with rosemary and coriander. Some big stars have got perfume lines that smell really bad. They've got it all wrong.
One day, when we were coming back from school, we saw this big cloud of smoke coming up, and all these fire-trucks in the yard. The garage was burning down. I was 14, and we'd lost everything.
When you listen to my music, you hear that there are all these voices going on in different parts of the song. That's because I was always around so many voices in church.
When I was 15, I begged my grandfather to give me this guitar he'd always had in the back of his closet. I promised him I'd learn to play it, but I never did. Then my grandfather died, and I felt so guilty. So I started playing.
I paid my dues. I have crawled to gigs. I have served people coffee. I worked hard selling all these records out the back of my car. Girl, I'm ready to sell one the real way now.
I am a boring loner. I enjoy Friday nights at home in my rocking chair with no arms, rocking and relaxing. It's not uncommon for Netflix to be involved. Records are a possibility, but most of it is spent in silence.
Saturdays are set for antique shops. Williamsburg in Brooklyn has some good ones. I get in there and start meddling around with dusty boxes and rickety, worn-in stuff. I like it when I find something with someone else's name on it.
My number one style requirement is to have fun getting dressed. Nothing is too old, expensive, cheap, cute or ugly for me.
I grew my dreadlocks 12 years ago because they give me the freedom to roll out of bed and not spend hours on my woolly, thick hair. I get tons of dropped jaws and compliments, so I reckon folks like them all right.
The challenge is how strange and different my voice sounds, so I have tried to sound like other people and tried to be something I wasn't. I have tried to be a soul singer because someone else thought that a good idea. Not because I did.
My voice is who I am, who I was when I was 3, and who I am going to be when I am 90 years old. When I hit the stage and people do not know who I am, they automatically assume, before I open my mouth, I am going to sing a Bob Marley song!
I must stay true to myself and take my own path all the way.
It is such a gift to be able to write songs in general, but when you can share it with somebody, it is just such a pleasure. It is such a happy moment when you finish a song, and you are just like, 'Wow - that was great.'
Every writer writes in different ways, and so some write the music first, while others write the lyrics first, and some write while they are doing other things, and it is just nice to see how other writers are writing.
I am always excited about playing in front of live audiences because I really enjoy it, for the most part.
I just love music, and I absorbed what I love.
When I was teenager, Britney Spears was it - that was the pop world that was happening, and I knew I wasn't in it.
I'm constantly being inspired by the old days and taking things from the past and allowing them to lift me up where I am now.
I don't care if you're Muslim or Christian or Buddhist or whatever your religion is, when you listen to a spiritual song and you really open your heart, you can feel it. You can feel the message of it. Just a simple story.
I don't marry bandmates just to go marrying bandmates.
I'm grateful that music has been a place where I've found freedom.Collection: Grateful
I love to read things that have moral messages, and I love to hear stories where it's not just a hook, you have to follow the story, you have to listen to the message of the song, and get it and use it in your everyday life.Collection: Song
I'm not religious, but I am spiritual and I am creating my own practice.Collection: Spiritual
They're all personal and self-created challenges that I think I've overcome within myself. Being confident enough to get on stage and play, things like that.Collection: Thinking
I just have to do prayers and meditation and affirmations to myself as I go throughout the day, and that's the only way I'm able to make it through some days.Collection: Prayer
When I think about singing, and music, I think about how the people who live on the East Tennessee side have more of a curve or yodel to their voices, and then you think about the curve of mountains.Collection: Thinking
Sometimes when you're in a more fast-paced place, with more to see and do, you miss out on things like nature and beautiful, God-made things. They call it "God's country"!Collection: Beautiful
Even though I like looking good - don't get me wrong - but if I don't want to, I don't have to.Collection: Want
Im constantly being inspired by the old days and taking things from the past and allowing them to lift me up where I am now.Collection: Past
I have a lot of different collections of cards at home. It's hard to say my favorite deck, but there is a deck called the medicine cards, and it's Native American animal cards.Collection: Home
I try to write down every song that comes to me, even though I know that every song that comes to me isnt a song that I need to sing.Collection: Song
Whatever people are doing, they're probably going to be doing it five years from now. You have your banker, your general store runner, the principal of the school, and things of that sort. It's nice to see that, and to get old with other people.Collection: Nice
I dont marry bandmates just to go marrying bandmates.Collection: Marrying
My challenges have not been around music. My hardest thing in music was just sitting down and teaching myself how to play and believing in myself.Collection: Believe
As a woman especially I've found a lot of freedom in music.Collection: Found