You can't please everyone. There's always going to be someone disappointed, so you might as well make yourself happy and Be You.
If, through my own personal journey, I can inspire someone else to self-love, that would be the biggest accomplishment.
I didn't know that women go through a vocal change, which is called 'thickening'. Basically, it's like when your body gets ready for childbirth, and so it just grows in a weird way. When I figured that out, I was frustrated with it.
I go back to the rock n' roll black leather jacket, red lips, smoky eyes. I like my high heels, maybe some leather pants or ripped jeans, things that have never really gone out of style. Again, it's very reflective of who I am as a bandmate in our band.
I had, like, a keytar. I was always attracted to the guitar, but I never really thought that I could be good at it because I was trained on piano, so it was kind of a jump.
I think that's one of the beautiful things about this genre is that everyone who's in it isn't in it to make a million bucks and be popular, because that's not always our M.O. Really, I think the last time that rock was truly in the mainstream was probably a point in time in the '90s when there was a lot of alternative that was on the pop charts.
We're so humbled and lucky to be in a position where we've been a four-piece for over 15 years. We're signed to a major label. We're on our fourth record on a major label. We've won a Grammy. We've toured the world.
I've been in the songwriting circuit as well. I've been in a couple writing camps where there are seven top writers or whatever, and they're writing songs for a young girl or a young guy that are coming up, and they're kind of nuts.
I can count on less than five fingers the things I can do well, so I'm just going to stick to those. It's crazy; it's literally all I've ever wanted to do in life is sing and play and get out there and rock.
I keep changing my stuff. I used to play through a Marshall JCM800, and then I also had a Randy Rhoads signature amp. So before I was playing EVH, I was playing an ODB pedal. I still have my Dunlop Jerry Cantrell wah pedal because I love that.
It's important for people to realize that music is gender-less. We are proving that every single day. On this tour, there are more women than men in the audience, and it's beautiful to see these girls own these hard-rock moments.
What I love about Zeppelin is that you can listen to their entire catalog and kind of see where they were at in the moment.
I think that's a big part of what I love about the boys in the band, too, and what I find attractive in men in general is, really, the ability to not take everything so seriously because it is rock n' roll after all; it's a freakin' circus. We're not accountants here.
I don't think I'll ever do a record that's just the same song over and over again because I'd like to think about it like it's an album and a snapshot of everything that makes you who you are and where you're at at that time in your life.
As musicians, we are quite literally singing for our supper. Don't get me wrong, I love touring, but the reality is that our idols from the '70s and '80s never toured this hard. They'd do a record, have one big world tour, maybe two, then break to do another record.
I like to sew, and I am into bending metal and making industrial jewelry. I sew a lot of my own clothes and customize stuff.
You're so used to being on the road and having a schedule that the insanity seeps in when you're sitting at home and there's nothing going on that day.
In my efforts to better my stamina and career, I find myself becoming more monk-like. And I'm not talking about the 'holy, praying, create awesome Trappist beer'-type monk. I'm talking about the 'go to bed early, no drinking, no talking, and no having any fun'-type monk.
In my world, before I knew about Eddie Van Halen, I was playing piano, and at that point in my teenage life, I thought he was just a guitar player.
I remember one tour with two male-fronted bands, and they had a fight over who could use the bathroom first. Then they just ended up having a beef with each other for the entire rest of the tour.
