The other thing that was very noticeable on that tour, not so much in the video, was the new young element that were coming to our shows... I started to see some very young people in the audience... maybe 14, 15, 16 years old.

I always wanted to be a fashion designer and I learned costume illustration in high school. That was an incredible high school. It was more like a college. I'm moving more in that direction, just kind of merchandising my name.

It's the first time I have returned to my roots - like going back to be a trio. The fans really wanted me to go back on stage and do the Supremes music, so I went about trying to make it happen. We'll go on tour in the summer.

The thing that influenced me most was the way Tommy played his trombone. It was my idea to make my voice work in the same way as a trombone or violin-not sounding like them, but "playing" the voice like those instrumentalists.

I don't know what other singers feel when they articulate lyrics, but being an 18-karat manic-depressive and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an overacute capacity for sadness as well as elation.

I've always thought that whether I'm writing or not, I've gotta pick the best songs, whether or not they're mine. I'm not gonna sing them just because I wrote them. I've gotta find the best songs to make the best record I can.

I do remember seeing Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar, one of those. It was a liberation theology venue. Anything radical seemed to be accepted there. I definitely picked up the idea there that you should question authority.

I had a bartender friend once tell me about a $14.00 shot of vodka, this was years ago it's probably more now. I thought that was crazy. From what I understand, vodka has no taste. I think people like the taste of their money.

Everyone loves a comeback story, and everyone loves the underdog as well. I kind of feel like I've been the underdog. Hopefully that inspires people to not give up on themselves and their lives and not give up on their dreams.

A lot of the best acting training I had was in junior high and high school. We had very demanding directors and did real plays. You put our plays up against any theater troupe of any age, and they usually did pretty damn well.

The light dims a little bit as you get older and new generations come along. But it's around the holidays when I am remembered the most. It is very special, and I get a kick out of it now as much as I did when I first started.

Paste just might be my favorite music magazine. They have shed light on many incredible, under-appreciated folks over the years, helping me find new tunes to accompany me through life. We were honored to give a song in return.

One of the reasons - I stopped doing films for about a year and a half because I felt that I was being somewhat used by producers that were trying to get their movies made within a certain budget range and not take care of me.

Boom Bang a Bang was a huge part of me, maybe a part that I didnt relish, and there might be psychological reasons for that - I was a child being made to do things I didnt want to do. I was perhaps an elitist, a bit of a snob.

I had a band called the Sound Of Love, and that was R&B songs about girls in my high school. I played in some other indie bands who were trying to make it big; those sucked. Then I started Makeout Videotape, and that was that.

I can make it through the rain, I can stand up once again, on my own, and I know, that I'm strong enough to mend, and every time I feel afraid I hold tighter to my faith, and I live one more day and I make it through the rain.

I definitely feel like if I put out a song that was like me being super vulnerable, people would look as me as weak. I don't know if that has to do with me being a girl, or if that really has to do with anything, but I'm sure.

Writing and singing does give me some kind of release from the demons of my past, it is a therapy of sorts, but to be honest, my marriage played a more important role in the acceptance of myself than performance has ever done.

I was reared in the church from the age of three. I've played piano since I was three. I performed at revivals and for my people around North Carolina for several years. People around town collected money to send me to school.

My father was a headmaster in England and then the dean of a college in Australia. We moved there when I was about five, so my education was in Australia, and I always felt I was Australian even though my passport was British.

I recalled how a lot of my older siblings would go to a friend's house and borrow records to play and sometimes borrow a turntable because we didn't have a turntable in the house until I was 8, about the same time we had a TV.

It's kind of odd when you think of Loretta Lynn, when she was first traveling and recording country music. It was all built through word of mouth. If you pleased the fans, they would pass it around to their friends and family.

Everybody nose dive, hold your breath, count to five. Back slap, booby trap, cover it up in bubble wrap. Room shake, earth quake, find a way to stay awake. It's going to blow, it's going to break, this is more than I can take.

I think one of the things about writing in the studio is that the song hasn't matured, if you like, so quite often the vocals are early attempts. Whereas once you've taken it out on the road a bit, you learn more about a song.

Opening for certain acts after so many years of headlining obviously made us resentful. It was kind of hard watching all these bands, who I really believed didn't deserve to be on top musically, going ahead and pushing us out.

Youth. The fact that, in the mid-'90s, guys like Lee Fields gave me and all these young people the chance to do backup. I was in my 30s, but some of those guys were still teenagers. Others were 22 and 23 - babies, all of them.

I don't think anyone doubts my motives, really. I do what I do and it's not very complicated. Of course, you might hate the music that I make, but I don't think people feel threatened by me just getting on with what I'm up to.

It is said that the American vocabulary has declined by half in the past few decades. It's a tragic instance of desertification following upon monocultural commodity production, the clear-cutting of written and spoken English.

We have no general conceptual thrust for the band, other than trying to make music that keeps our interest. When things are novel, they are probably things we have discovered by accident or investigation rather than by design.

I'm feminine: I'm wearing a skirt, I own a bra. I think that whole big blonde look has been taken over by transsexuals now. I'm a natural blonde, but that blonde hair, big tits idea of what men want, it's now really unfeminine.

Meditation, especially for people who don't know very much about it and think it's this very hippy dippy thing, can really be powerful, terrifying even, as it lifts the rug up on your subconscious and the dust comes flying out.

I really do listen to all types of music, not only rock, but everything from good pop music - which is usually older pop music - to RB and indie rock. I love indie rock more than a lot of the commercial stuff that you'd expect.

Music does a lot of things for a lot of people. It's transporting, for sure. It can take you right back, years back, to the very moment certain things happened in your life. It's uplifting, it's encouraging, it's strengthening.

Paul has more, I think, of a feel for the stage. Whereas I have it more for the notes themselves. I love record making and mixing, arranging, producing. That I love. I love to make beautiful things, but I don't like to perform.

When Paul and I were first friends, starting in the sixth grade and seventh grade, we would sing a little together and we would make up radio shows and become disc jockeys on our home wire recorder. And then came rock and roll.

'Can't Stop Dancing' is this other side of me that I was ready to introduce to my fans, which is like, after you hang out with me, you start to see that I can be chilled and relaxed, and I'm a little bit more mature for my age.

You were able to sing something they related to instantly, because it was part of what you felt. It was part of what you had already traveled through. It's part of the people you were associating with daily. It was all of that.

I do believe we should push each other to write better songs and make better music. We do ourselves a disservice if we sit back and float along the river instead of trying to paddle and guide ourselves to a more creative place.

When I was studying in secondary school, a teacher recommended me during a singing contest. I took the championship because of my voce that I take proud of. Then I thought maybe my voice is not bad,then I wanted to be a singer.

I have three girls, and I say the same thing to them. I'm not involved in their careers because I've learned that it's important for them to stand on their own two feet. They'll feel better and prouder of themselves if they do.

People can take your name and write a book about you and they make money off of it. How is the public supposed to know you're not authorizing that book? As soon as you make a big stink about it it only makes the book sell more.

I don't give advice. 90% of the time nobody takes it anyway. I will give encouragement and if asked a question as to how, or why I did certain things and if I think this will help whomever is asking the question I will do this.

Go on, now, go. Walk out the door. Just turn around now, 'cause you're not welcome anymore. Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with 'goodbye?' Did you think I'd crumble? Did you think I'd lay down and die? I will survive.

There will always be a replacement coming along very soon - a newer version, a crazier version, a louder version. So if you haven’t got a long-term plan, then you are merely a passing phase, the latest trend, yesterday’s event.

There will always be a replacement coming along very soon - a newer version, a crazier version, a louder version. So if you haven't got a long-term plan, then you are merely a passing phase, the latest trend, yesterday's event.

My audience is the baby-boomers, the bulk of the population. This is also a group that is being ignored by most record companies because they're not the Top 40 hit singles market. They forget these people still listen to music.

Yeah, if someone's selling downloads and collecting money for our songs I would be unhappy about that but if they're trading it I don't mind, obviously if I make a thousand records or CDs or whatever, I like to sell a thousand.

I'm a victim of my own insides. There was a time when I wanted to know everything. It used to make me very unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn't know what to do with it. But now I've learned to make that feeling work for me.

Some of the stage outfits I've got are ridiculous. I'll lay out clothes to pack, and it'll look like Polly Pocket clothing - because it's all stretchy, it's tiny. I don't need a case when I tour; I can fit it all in my handbag.

Getting drunk . . . you're in complete control up to a point. It's your choice, every time you take a sip. You have a lot of small choices. It's like . . . I guess it's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation . . .

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