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I do like structure, and I'd love to be better at it.
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I'm convinced I got signed because of who I am. And it makes me sad.
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More than any other place, New York is where I felt I belonged. I prefer the Lower East Side to any place on the planet. I can be who I am there, and I couldn't do that anywhere I lived as a child. I never fit in when I lived in California, even though that's where my roots are.
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I am very observant of people's character.
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I'm sick of all these labels and these manufactured subdivisions of music that don't even exist. And even though I'm pierced myself, I'm sick of everyone equating body piercing with musical courage. If you ask me, it takes a lot more than that.
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There are thousands of great artists that wouldn't be doing the same kind of work if there were no music business machine. The ones who are popular would be doing much different work, too. Michael Bolton would be pumping gas.
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I've already created my own thing.
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The thing about a music career is that it ain't over until the fat lady sings. Look at all the times people threw in the towel on Dylan - or Neil Young. Remember when Young was doing things in the '80s like 'Trans' and the rockabilly album and being completely lambasted by critics who now think he is wonderful again?
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I don't want my reputation to take me over, I just want to be judged on my songs. I want people to come and see me because they want to, not because fashion dictates it.
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I like a spirituality with a God that knows how to drive a car, that knows how to take his girl to the dance club, dance all night, have a little drink, kiss the kid when they come back in and go to sleep. God doesn't need a chauffeur - he needs to drive himself.
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There was a time when I stopped singing, between 16 and 19, but that was done on purpose, maybe as a punishment, maybe as a cure.
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Everything I ever projected New York to be, it was-even the stinky, ratty, vomity part of it. Everybody has to do the subway. Everybody has to smell the same smells. And people get mad all the time. When people don’t like something, like ‘Get out of my way you blah, blah, blah.’ But in L.A. it’s like, ‘How ya doing? Let’s do lunch! I love you!’
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And what do I want people to get from the music? Whatever they want. Whatever you like. Somebody asked me what I wanted to do. I just said I wanted to…just to give back to it what it’s given me. And to meet all the other people that are doing it…just to be in the world, really.
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Words are really beautiful, but they're limited. Words are very male, very structured. But the voice is the netherworld, the darkness, where there's nothing to hang onto. The voice comes from a part of you that just knows and expresses and is.
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I have a lot of my mother in me, but I was just born with the same parts as my father. I don't sound like him. I mean, I can do an impression of him right now, and I do not sound like him. I sound like me. My sense of rhythm I learned from my mother. My melodies, I think sometimes, I get from my mother.
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Thinking so hard on her soft eyes and memories of the signs that it's over. It's over.
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If you're going to write, then write a novel with a Haitian woman in it and try and describe her accurately. When you can do that, you can write about people.
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I started writing when I was 13. I got my first electric guitar when I was 13, but I'd always been singing. I had my first little acoustic when I was six. But I started being in bands when I was 13.
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Fuck off! Just fuck off!
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That’s what I wanted to do. You know, 2 hours. It’s like long-distance running or playing in a football game when you totally run out of steam and the moves you make after you run out of steam, because you’re totally unselfconscious, you’re not even thinking about the mechanics anymore. The moves you make then are incredible.