We are always in a state of flux, and taking risks is important.
Driving in Chicago wins over New York; people are so fast. It's almost like there's a subliminal street racing culture here. They drive like comic book characters.
I really like when the lyrics in the music have an interesting relationship between one another - where they contrast each other.
But I wanted the karaoke-style lyrics in our music videos for two reasons: first, cause nobody has lyric booklets anymore, and when I was growing up, lyric booklets were like little bibles. I want people to be able to access our lyrics without having to go to some gnarly website with banner ads.
'Ashes Of Love' has much more hot-blooded vocal than what PC Music is known for, and a much harder production than what I usually do, so I was fully prepared for people to hate it.
But synthesizer music has been accepted as emotional for long enough that it isn't a huge reach, conceptually, to think of a fake voice as 'emotional', especially since there's a human composing it.
Yes, when I come up with ideas on my own, it's almost always a melody, just as often an instrument or bassline as it is a vocal. But it is a single, linear, monophonic thing. Something you could hum or whistle.
I used to obsessively draw. I was really good at it.
Low' was probably the album that influenced me more than any other, because of how it combined humor and impressive, glamorous, driving energy with this totally surreal soundscape production.
I have an opera coach who I went to as a teenager, when I was 15 and 16 years old. When I went to college, I forgot about it.
The men's dance style in dancehall is territorial, but it's also flirtatious and it's also showing off strength by way of smooth movement that you can only do if you're really strong. It has so much attitude.
As soon as we wrote the beat for 'Romeo,' I knew it was a running song. I was thinking about it in terms of the body. What do you want to do? It's not a song you want to dance to.
I was born in New York, but I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut - that's where I went to school. I remember begging my way into choir in the 3rd grade, because you're not supposed to get in until 4th grade.
I was into music from a very early age, and I was also - I don't really talk about this that much - really into horses. I learned a lot about rhythm and about voice from that.
Growing up, I was so compelled by artists whose looks were inseparable from their music. Bjork was my hero.
Before I play a show, I put on lavender oil - it's sort of a ritual.
I almost gave up on 'Door' so many times. I couldn't crack it. It started out as a simple song with just a chorus-verse-chorus. I felt like it needed to transform more.
I've definitely been in that situation many times - staying in a relationship longer than I should. I think there's so much of your identity that comes from a relationship.
I think that's a big trope in pop music: the blaze-of-glory breakup. It's not one that I particularly identify with, but it's definitely possible.
But I never imagined that I could ever have a career in music. I always thought it was like a mafia, that you had to sell your soul and know the right people and be in the right place.
