God has been my number one inspiration. I also look up to Will Smith and Jamie Fox who are also personal friends of mine. They give me great career advice. I would also include Chris Stokes, as a filmmaker and music producer. I've been working with h...
For the longest time I was brought up listening to only two genres of music, pop and rock. So in the past few years I've been trying to expand my interests because I think that you can only write to the extent of your knowledge, and if your knowledge...
When I was a teeny little girl, I was in dancing school, and I sang. We had to put a dance to a song, so I went to the 10-cent store one day and looked at all the sheet music. It was all laid out, and I picked 'Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.'
I maintain that when I finally retire from my career in music, I will go and live back in Wales - when I am an old person, if I live to be an old person. The water I miss, and the air, there's something different about it. And I miss the simple life.
Maybe I've got to admit that what I did here was enough. I can make some more films. Maybe I'll direct a film. Maybe I'll have my musical put on stage. But nothing, really, to be absolutely honest, competes with making a very successful pop band for ...
I think, people look at me, and they say, 'You were very aggressive,' I say, 'Yeah,' you know, and I've made a better life for myself, for my son, so I should reflect that with my music now. I shouldn't still be rhyming like that; that would be me ly...
I dabbled in things like Howlin' Wolf, Cream and Led Zeppelin, but when I heard Son House and Robert Johnson, it blew my mind. It was something I'd been missing my whole life. That music made me discard everything else and just get down to the soul a...
I don't even know if I always entirely get what I'm trying to say right away with lyrics. I like a lot of things that are more subtext. I grew up mishearing lyrics my whole life, but somehow there's so much more, too, that's implied in vocal delivery...
I've always been attracted to the darker things in life. I was never one to go for light, airy stuff, even as a child. My whole aesthetic has always been one of the darker side. That rings true also in my tastes in music. It's just always something I...
I can go out raw with nothing, and my fans would still be happy, but I feel that I owe it to them to give them almost like a Broadway musical at this point in my life. I have to give them something more, so I do have to think of different ways to do ...
I write for myself; I'm trying to keep myself interested in the music. But at the same time, I want to make the songs relatable in a way; I want to keep melodies pretty simple and the lyrics open-ended so that people could maybe relate them to their ...
I took a trip in 2004, a year after the war started in Iraq. I played music on the streets of Baghdad for Iraqi civilians. I'd also play for U.S. soldiers at night when they were off duty in the bars. Then I would talk to people, and I would film the...
I suffered a bout of depression that pushed me to reevalute things in my life, and I learned a lot about myself and the world and my spirituality. I sat at a piano, and the ideas fell into my head. I started playing, and I felt comfortable with my mu...
I was always taught as a kid that if there's anything you want in life, you've got to work towards it. I guess that sort of stayed with me, really. But also, for me, from the time I was, like, 10 years old, all I ever wanted to do was be in a band an...
Singing is just another outlet to express what I feel and to show everyone who I really am. I really don't talk about my personal life that much in interviews because that's my life, but with music, the way I write explains who I am.
Music is a vital part of my life, and it has been since I was a kid. It helped me find my identity as a person, it helped me find my identity as an artist, and it helped me get in touch with emotions that I didn't know I had.
If I could distil the relevance of Bruce Springsteen's music to Australia it would be this: don't let what has happened to the American economy happen here. Don't let Australia become a down-under version of New Jersey, where the people and the commu...
Punk rock and skateboarding took the 'school' out of living your life, and I related to learning as I went, doing a lot of different things that I liked, when I liked. Consequently, I'm mediocre at all of the above, but still stoked on being a lifeti...
I haven't traveled in Africa nearly as much as I'd like to. I've been there a few times, and I'd like to learn more about the various cultures in Africa. But that's the basis point of where all of the music that I love is based upon, from Africa to C...
I've seen everything from 'Wicked' to 'The Book Of Mormon,' and I don't make any bones of the fact that I love both. But 'Les Mis' is not only my favorite musical, but it's also my favorite story. I love the book, which I read as a kid, and I identif...
Growing up, I always wanted to be in punk bands, so I'm really enjoying the harder, heavier element. It's always been my dream to have people moshing at my gig, kind of that really feral element of the music coming out more. I love crowd-surfing.
