Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I grew up on Loretta Lynn and Dusty Springfield. I remember lying about it; it wasn't cool to listen to country when I was 12.
I come from a duo, actually, quite literally. My parents are Linda and Eddie, and they had an act in Vegas called 'Love's Way.'
I'm a huge reggae fan. I want to go to Jamaica and make, like, Bob Marley 'One Love' positive songs. That's what the world needs.
It's funny how a song can start in your mind, and then when it goes through all the filters, it ends up in a totally different spot.
I am a child of digital generation. I have done most of the records with Rilo Kiley on computers, on Pro Tools or other digital programs.
I wouldn't call it a faux pas, but I have about 12 tracksuits. I always travel in a tracksuit. I feel it makes people happy when they see me.
You can find me at three in the morning in my living room with a glass of wine and really bad '90s trip hop beats blaring from my headphones.
I demo all of my songs on Garage Band, where I pretty much play everything - not very well, but I manage to hammer out a drum beat and a bass idea.
When you're in a band, inevitably, someone is siding with someone else, and you're fighting over something that happened in the band five years ago.
Some shows suck, but I always - the show must go on. I learned it from my past as a child actor. The show must go on. You have to just keep on with it.
I can't imagine how people will react to my music. For me, it's a really fluid process from one record to the next, but it's really up to the listener.
My favorite days off on the road are typically nowhere, like Bismarck, North Dakota, and you find yourself in a mall, and you're like, 'This is awesome!'
Maybe love won't let you down. All of your failures are training grounds and just as your back's turned, you'll be surprised... as your solitude subsides.
I think it's always an adjustment for me, but I do feel like, ultimately, I can kind of write anywhere. It just takes a second to get back in to the groove.
I think the idea of opening up for a massive band is always better than actually doing it, and having your name on the ticket means more than the actual set.
I tend to work well within a deadline. If I know I have to get something in three weeks, I tend to A, enjoy myself a little bit more, and B, really work well.
I'm constantly dodging people in L.A. There are some people I don't ever wanna see again, but if you live where you grew up, you're running into people constantly.
I'm a control freak with regards to certain aspects. I think you just have to be when you're making stuff in the world. You have to have a clear idea what you want.
The Rilo Kiley song 'A Better Son/Daughter' is my most requested song - especially for people who are at the age I was when I wrote it. It's sort of a mid-twenties lament.
In the past, like for the last Rilo Kiley record, 'Under the Blacklight,' I wore exclusively hot pants because the themes in that record were the underbelly of Los Angeles.
I'm a late bloomer. It's taken me a long time to find my voice, and I think all the records I've made over the years, I was finding my voice, and that's part of the process.
When you're in your mid-thirties, the cult of people who have children around you all want you in their cult, and they constantly ask you, 'So when are you going to have a baby?'
I don't feel unlucky in love anymore, and it's not all emo. It's a scary place to be in when you're like: 'What am I supposed to write about now? I don't feel heartbroken, so now what?'
When I was a teenager, I went to Europe on a backpacking trip by myself, and I met a woman who was following Sebadoh. It was the early 1990s, and that was my introduction to indie rock.
If you're a songwriter, you have to do homework. You can exist for a while on the inspiration, but at some point, you have to sit down and have the discipline to write - to finish the poem, as they say.
When I sit down to write a song, there is no filter. I'm not trying to write for anyone or anything specifically. It's just trying to capture a little piece of your soul - even if it's a really ugly part.
I am in a constant cycle of selling my clothes at Wasteland and buying from Goodwill. Once or twice a year, I go through my closet and donate everything to Goodwill. It feels like I am recycling my fashion.
I think I have a hard time expressing myself in my relationships. I use songs to tell people how I'm feeling. If I can't say 'I love you,' I'll write a song about it and hope that the person figures it out.
You never know how things are going to turn out in a movie. You can imagine a scene one way, and it can turn out to be completely the polar opposite of what you expected. You just have to roll with the punches.
I think Chris Martin is younger than I am, but when I met him, I felt like I was talking to my father. It's so strange, that feeling when someone is that famous - you assume that they are either older or better.
When you're talking about your own music every day, listening to bands, going to festivals, you can kind of lose sight of your initial connection with music. Instrumental music - especially jazz - helps me refocus.
After Rilo Kiley broke up and a few really intense personal things happened, I completely melted down. It nearly destroyed me. I had such severe insomnia that, at one point, I didn't sleep for five straight nights.
When you make a solo record, it's you. It's your name. It has to be the right songs for how you feel. It just took me a really long time to get to a place where I felt comfortable with the material and the recording.
I felt like hip-hop was my music, it was like my outsider music... but then my mom started answering our phone, 'Yo, what's up.' She was hearing me talk to my friends. I was like, 'No, mom, don't cop the hip-hop talk.
I've gone through terrible periods of depression. But, at the core of my being, there's a strange, out-of-place optimist. Despite what I'm feeling, I'm always able to get up and do my job. Which means the world to me.
I felt like hip-hop was my music, it was like my outsider music... but then my mom started answering our phone, 'Yo, what's up.' She was hearing me talk to my friends. I was like, 'No, mom, don't cop the hip-hop talk.'
Being in a band is a really magical thing because you've got a family and you operate as this one entity. It's very democratic; everyone is involved in the output. But within that, there can be a lot of disagreements and strife.
It's interesting how songs can evolve. Sometimes I'll write a song that feels relevant in the moment, but four years later, I don't want to sing it anymore. Then something will happen in my life, and the song becomes relevant again.
Sometimes people come to my shows and think I'm a Christian artist, and they put their hands up in the air, like they do. But first of all, I'm a Jewish girl from the Valley, and I'm from Los Angeles. It's funny to be misinterpreted.
Sometimes things feel hopeless. Not always within my own life - but looking outward, it seems like rough times lie ahead of us. The world seems to be kind of caving in on itself in a lot of ways. But I try to look on the bright side.
I didn't know anything about music when I started a band. I barely knew how to play a guitar. I didn't know how to produce records. I learned how to play bass guitar and keyboards in Rilo Kiley. I picked up a lot from my collaborators.
When something is coming off of a Neve board and being laid down on tape, it's like a warm blanket for the brain. When you're working in a digital form, it's so harsh; it's almost painful. Your ears get more fatigued if you're mixing all day.
Certainly, we all wonder what is beyond, and when you lose a loved one, I think part of the grieving process includes where that person might have gone or if you'll ever see them again. I think it forces you to look up to the sky, to the cosmos.
When I'm sick of myself, and when I don't know what to say as a solo artist, I can write a song for a movie. When I don't know where to turn musically, being in a band - Rilo Kiley or Jenny & Johnny - the collaborative nature is really exciting.
My mother's records were formative for me, but when I became a teenager, I wanted to find songs that she wasn't hip to. She was so hip, though, that I had to go outside rock n' roll - so for about 10 years, I only listened to hip-hop, house and techno.
For me personally, I just try to prove myself in my work. I'm just trying to get better at what I do, and hopefully that will impact women in music, and hopefully the girls in the crowd will see my up there as a bandleader and think, 'Wow, maybe I can do that one day.'
It's pretty amazing to write under any circumstances when someone gives you an assignment to write a song, even if it doesn't get accepted. I've written songs a couple of times, some for Disney, that haven't actually ended up in their films, but then you're left with a song forever.
I felt like onstage I have to have a certain amount of anonymity, like, personal anonymity, to feel loose and free. When you're up there with people who've known you for a decade, and you make a bad joke and you hear the cackling behind the drums, it's hard to get lost in the moment.
I think a lot of musicians play for the playback. I mean, that's the joy of recording - you want to hear what you've done and what you've contributed - but never listening to that playback kind of removes the intellectual part of making music, and it removes the tendency to be revisionist.
My mother had a great vinyl collection, and she was constantly playing female singer-songwriters. I first learned about classic song structures by listening to them, and Laura Nyro particularly stood out. Her voice was outside what you'd usually hear on the radio; that really appealed to me.