Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I love fashion. I like dressing how I feel, and my music shows how I feel - they go hand in hand. My performance style is pretty much the same as my everyday style.
What people would qualify as R&B is, for me, just soul. And I love honesty and soul and heavy, crunchy beats that move you and make you breathe a little bit faster.
One of my favorite things is to try delicious different fruits from different places, in Japan or other places that have different fruits you can't get in the States.
Once I discovered music and that you don't need to just use words but can add a growl to the melody, that releases so much more. I never want to make music for any other reason.
I grew up in L.A. I actually grew up in the Valley, which was a pretty amazing place to grow up because everybody has nice, big backyards, and I was kind of a little nature being.
It's funny because everyone says, 'Oh you're reclusive; you don't do social media,' but it's not about being reclusive. I like direct contact, and I like contact that's purposeful.
It's that beautiful thing to love your weaknesses, your insecurities, and then put them all on blast. That's why I started writing, and that's why it was so hard to do it in public.
My music is 100-percent me, so it's just who I developed into as a woman. I feel really grateful that I waited until I did because I feel like I really found who I was by doing that.
I love grey. My mom told me that when I was younger, I would get mildly depressed when it was grey all the time. I'd be darker when it was dark out. But as an adult, I really love it.
I'm very moody, so I dress for whatever mood I'm in. Sometimes I want to be a little more boyish and flowy and comfortable. Sometimes I want to feel a little sexier and more composed.
My approach to beauty is all about moods. If you want to feel sexy, if you want to feel feminine or, I don't know, boyish - it's all about how you feel at that point in time. My mood changes.
It's a powerful thing to be able to write a song. Even the least powerful feeling - like insecurity - that makes you feel weak when you experience it, when you write about it, you are powerful.
I listened to pretty much anything that I could really feel, where I felt like the artist had to write those songs, where you can feel their soul and the pain and the happiness and love and everything.
L.A. is a really good home base. I've grown up here, and so sometimes I have wanderlust even though I tour. You think it would be cured by touring, but sometimes I feel like I want to be somewhere else.
I get so many questions in interviews about feminism, and I think the second you start separating femininity and masculinity and giving one more power than the other, that's like - everyone is a person.
A lot of times, people are ashamed of feeling weak and being rejected - so it's liberating to be able to sing about those things. And it's amazing when other people don't feel alone because they hear it.
A role model for me is somebody who is really empathetic and has a calm strength to them. Sometimes you meet random people and they're really inspiring because they seem wise; they've gone through things.
I think social media is an interesting beast - you can't get too caught up in it. People can get caught up in it sometimes, but I think it's important to live in the present and not on the computer screen.
It's so inspiring to be around other people who have ideas you haven't thought of, and all of a sudden you're like, 'Wow! That's so amazing!' I definitely want everything I do to just get better and better.
When I do things that don't feel pure or make any moves that I don't feel like represent me or who I am, it makes me feel like I wanna throw up. So I just do me, and I guess people just take that how they do.
When I'm writing, it's the weirdest thing: it's not even a conscious process. I'm not even thinking when I write, and then all of a sudden, I'll have a song that makes me feel so much better than I did before.
I have freckles; I don't like covering up too much. I like things dewy and natural, and I think that having moisture in your skin is really beautiful and youthful - sometimes that's more important than coverage.
Fashion is a huge part of music and of who you are. It really sets the mood for a show, and it's fun to play around with it. You can get really creative in photo shoots as well. You know, just having fun with it.
I got into writing music when I was, like, 14 or 15. It was a very private thing for me because I used it as an outlet and emotional release. I kept it very close to myself and didn't tell too many people about it.
My voice has always been kind of distinct - even when I was four years old, my mom told me that people would be like, 'Why does your daughter always sound like a chain smoker?' I've always had this deep, raspy voice.
My parents are divorced, and seeing that was really painful for me. Really painful for me. But that's also a big part of why I'm intrigued by the dynamics between people - because I was close to something that fell apart.
Once I discovered how important writing music was to me and just what a huge weight it lifted off of me, I knew that it was going to be the biggest part of my life, the biggest love of my life, the biggest thing in my life.
I have a really feminine voice, but I also feel quite powerful when I write. So my songs feel heavy, and that's how Banks sounds. It's a really short, powerful sound. It almost sounds masculine, and I like having that dichotomy.
I have a very feminine voice when I write, a very womanly point of view. My last name feels strong and powerful. To me, it's almost a bit masculine. I like the dichotomy of the two. Two sides perfectly represented within my name.
I feel like my dream animal would be a mermaid that could fly and also live in the trees. She has a nest, almost like a bird. She feeds her babies like a bird, like, chews the food first and then feeds it to them through her mouth.
I have a memory of listening to Tracy Chapman and just being intrigued by her voice. Even as a young girl, I wanted to know more about her and her story. I felt I was learning about her through her music. That was a revelation to me.
Music is almost like a therapy for me. It helps keep me centered and think straight. Before I discovered it, I was walking around, and it felt like there were 25 extra pounds of gravity on my shoulders. It's like you're mute or something.
'Before I Ever Met You' was the first one to come out and that just dives into the grit, and it's pretty graphic about a relationship. For my first song, it was very special the way it happened, because I didn't really hold anything back, and people responded to it.
With 'Someone New', I was at my rawest, and I didn't want to cover it up. And same with 'You Should Know' and 'Under the Table.' I wanted it to be the lyrics and the chord progressions, and the intricacies of the guitar of 'Someone New' are so delicate, sometimes that's all you need.
I think, probably when I was 15 or so, I was going through a really hard time with my family, and I just felt really helpless - I didn't know how to put anything I was feeling into words, and I was really confused, and I felt like nobody would hear me, but I didn't even know what to say.
Growing up, I listened to a lot of everything - I fell in love with music, when I discovered people like Lauryn Hill and Tracy Chapman, people whose voices I could really feel, people with a lot of soul. That's what I'm drawn to as a musician: Anybody that has their own voice and their own point of view.
It's a big theme throughout my music to just embrace everything about your own mind and to always feel powerful. It's not just a feminine thing, but for men, too, whether they feel weak, or strong or crazy or reclusive. I want everyone to feel powerful no matter what little beasts they have in their head.
Making music is an emotional thing. And when you're on a video shoot with 50 people there, you have to somehow, in a non-emotional way, say what you want and not feel guilty for it. And that takes growing up and that takes... not caring how people perceive you as much. And it just takes experience, I think.
I'm just gonna keep growing as an artist, and I'm excited to work with different people and learn from all these other talented, creative people that I've been around. It's so inspiring to be around other people who have ideas you haven't thought of, and all of a sudden you're like, 'Wow! That's so amazing!'
I'm not religious in any way but I am very spiritual. Music is holy to me. It's like my religion. It's sacred. It feels unearthly; it makes me feel a way that talking to somebody doesn't make me feel, it's something you can't even wrap your head around. It's not abstract, you can't even grasp it - that's what music is to me.