When I was 3 or 4, I seemed to be bursting with music. They played Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra in the house, so I learned my vocabulary from song lyrics - I was literally singing before I was talking.
Anything I do has to have integrity, so if you just want to make music, it's not difficult finding support. The hard part for a publicist or manager is making a star.
I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and, at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scen...
People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.
I try to get the hip-hop aesthetic, most times without an MC. I don't use a rapper or a DJ to give it the hip-hop style; it's strictly the band that makes that music, which is a lot harder to do.
I've been playing music for over 20 years now. I started playing when I was 14 years old. To everyone who has said I was an overnight success... where have you been the last 20 years?
I don't have an iPod. I don't get the whole iPod thing. Who has time to listen to that much music? If I had one, it would probably have Sinatra, Beatles, some '70s music, some '80s music, and that's it.
Feminism is a word that I identify with. The term has become synonymous with vitriolic man-hating but it needs to come back to a place where both men and women can embrace it. It is particularly important for women in developing countries.
As a kid, I was always mad - just noticing the women at Thanksgiving, running around the kitchen, while the men were watching football. For one, I don't want to cook, and for two, I hate football. I was stuck in the middle.
If it's fast, no I don't have enough piano technique. In that case, it's probably been done on some kind of synthesizer or sequencer. Then the score can then be printed out and so forth.
I mean, Chris is, I'm sure, a wonderful guy. But in those days he also very, very late. For all appointments and departures and arrivals and sound checks and anything.
I do remember the whole thing as being very argumentative, hot blooded... a permanent state of friction between Jon and Chris, Chris and me, me and Jon.
When you hear a large symphony orchestra. for instance, in a concert hall, there's a big, sweeping sound that just doesn't get on to a record.
Sleep with your windows open. You can hear both the rain and boys drunkly singing Frank Sinatra on their deck. Both are equally good." via @messyheadss on IG
I wanted something that had the feel of a complete band and a variety of instrument. Apart from doing the album for musical satisfaction, I felt it was an important statement for other women - showing you don't have to rely on other people to do thin...
When I started to sing, my mother would have me engaged to perform at the Women's Christian Temperance Union national or annual meetings. I would hate doing this because I wanted to play baseball or go off skiing.
I can't tell you the number of times people have told me if I just lost 10kg, I could go much further in my career. But I'm determined to show them - and other average-size women - it is doable and possible.
There's not a lot of pretty, young female artists that's out. It's a lot of talent out there, but they don't know how to go about it. I feel like there should be way more sexier women in hip-hop and R&B then it is - more originality.
I like looking at the characters. Seeing them always brings up some voice or attitude. I am much more visual, and that works so much better than having someone tell me what the character is all about.
My father got a trade union scholarship to Oxford; he lived and breathed politics; he was always watching current-affairs programmes. But I have a five-year-old child's attitude towards the news. Mainly, that it absolutely turns me off.
My father was an engineer and my mother was a social worker, and they met as young socialists. That probably tells you everything you need to know about my attitude to money - I've never really been bothered about it.
