Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My two favorite parts of what I do are definitely writing the music and then writing and directing the videos to support each song. As well as doing my own makeup and styling for the videos.
I'm happy that I get to work with people that I enjoy being around. It's really cool when people understand and want to help your vision and are like rooting for you. I just, I love them a lot.
When I started, I was very unsure of who I was. There were a lot of things in the songs that I didn't realize I was saying. But more and more, it fell into place... I got more comfortable in my skin.
I had a lot of Barbies growing up, and a lot of porcelain dolls, but I was scared of them. I was so scared of them, I would try to turn their head away and would make my mom take them out of my room.
I think because "Dollhouse" was the first story that I put out. It was the first thing that people were able to listen to and find the aesthetic of my music, so I figured we could use that as a title.
I think, being emotional is this thing that people think you're not strong. They don't look at you as a strong person, and it's weird 'cuz honestly being emotional has nothing to do with your strength.
My favorite performance would definitely be "Toxic," which was my blind audition song. It was the start of it all and it was a song I had been covering before the show, so it was very dear to my heart.
I think honestly when I was younger I use to love going to carnivals in Long Island. I use to love carnival season; I would drive to every town going to carnivals. That was definitely a favorite memory.
I'm pretty excited for people to listen to the story of each song. It's definitely like a giant book with different stories in it. They are all very child-like but also a balance between light and dark.
Eventually, I started writing down a bunch of titles that related to childhood themes and would pair it with an adult situation that either I was going through or someone else in my life was going through.
It's just weird because like when I was writing Cry Baby I like...the only thing that I was thinking about, when writing it, was the concepts and the visuals, and the way that it sounded kind of happened naturally.
[Doing music] is time consuming, will drain you, and stress you out at times. But in the end if you love doing it, and you're putting out music you're proud of, it will never feel like work. It'll just feel like love.
I think if you're going to cover a song, you should definitely take it apart and put it back together as if you wrote it. I don't think you should sing it the same way that the artist sang it - that's kind of pointless.
I just don't really get to watch a lot of movies, like recently at least I haven't been able to but I did watch The Exorcist for the first time ever, recently, and it didn't scare me like I thought it was gonna scare me.
I'm probably the most proud of "Mrs. Potato Head," because I had that idea in my head for so long, and I tried writing that song one time and I just couldn't tell the story the way I wanted to, and I couldn't figure it out.
I think the transition between singing covers on a reality show to being able to do my own thing was really exciting. I'm no longer singing covers every second, and people are actually getting to hear my own original music.
I definitely feel like if I put out a song that was like me being super vulnerable, people would look as me as weak. I don't know if that has to do with me being a girl, or if that really has to do with anything, but I'm sure.
The behind-the-scenes kind of process at TV, especially live television - that was super scary, but I think it's made me more comfortable now. If I ever have to go on live TV, I at least remember what it was like when I was 16.
There are obviously so many artists that are very inspiring, but I can't say that they like - that I have someone in mind that is like a creative direction of where I want to go as an artist. I think I'm just doing my own thing.
I'm obsessed with the venue and the people so it's going to be really fun.The last couple of tours I didn't have anything like that because of the budget, so I'm super excited because this is really going to bring the album to life.
The Cry Baby character is so, like, based off of myself that it just really is just from personal experience. And when I was younger I was called a cry baby and made fun of for being super emotional and taking things way to personal.
The title is the first thing that I have. Then when I have that title, I have to make sure that the title...is like, so...I have to make sure I can tell a whole story from that one title and like make sure that it, from beginning to end it makes sense.
I'm insane, I'm emotional, but I'd rather be that than a robot. So that's definitely something that I wanted to get out there. Especially with Cry Baby's story, because the album is about Cry Baby but I realized that me and her went through the same change.
Everyone got to choose what they wanted to wear on stage, and by the third time going into wardrobe the stylists already knew what I'd love and what I would never throw on my body in a million years. They were fantastic, and it was so lovely working with them.
I've had a lot of people come up to me after shows and tell me that "Dollhouse" really helped them with whatever they were going through with their families. I thought that was really amazing, that it could mean one thing for me but another thing for someone else.
I got a lot of very bad hate on social media from some people from my school. I think people thought I changed because they saw me on TV. They weren't close enough to know that I was still the same human being... When I walked at graduation, I got booed. It was kind of stupid.
When I was 16, I was watching '101 Dalmatians,' and my mom never let me bleach my hair, so I told her I was going to dye my hair like Cruella De Vil; she didn't believe me. I came home with my hair like this, and she didn't talk to me for, like, a week. It was really hilarious.
It's very hard to be an artist, on my first album, and I'm like asking for money for a music video for every song - it's so hard to do. You have to pick your battles for sure, but I definitely want - and I've always worked to make it all connect - for all of it to feel cohesive.
I think that every decision I make in my life is based off of an emotion - and it definitely hurts me in some situations, and helps in some situations, like obviously writing and stuff is my favourite thing to do because I get to use all of my emotions and express them in that way.
I like pop music because it can really affect a large amount of people and if I tell stories and spread messages that I think are really important for people to be aware of, I would want it to be on the biggest platform and I feel like pop is that. I use it as a way to tell stories.
I was inspired a little while before The Voice to dye my hair half black half blonde by Cruella De Vil of 101 Dalmatians. One day I was watching it and I told my mom I was going to dye my hair like Cruella's, and she thought I was joking. I came home from the salon, and she didn't talk to me for a few days!
If you say something that is a little unsafe to say but you feel strongly and passionate about it, a lot of people can attack you and call you a bad role model just because they don't agree with your views, but in reality we're all different and we're all unique in our own way and we all have different thoughts.
I just think that pop music is very interesting in how it can reach so many people. I like that I can tell stories and I just wanted to be heard more, I guess. That's why it's pop, but in my mind I don't really view my music as pop, I don't really view it as anything. I just look at it as a picture, I like visuals.
I think that the next album is specifically for sure from Cry Baby's perspective, but it's not necessarily about her family-life or her love-life, or anything like that, it's more about this place in this town. The place has different characters in there, so in every song there's gonna be different characters that appear.
Basically it's the idea of celebrities being in the spotlight and just because you think that they should be perfect, that they're still human and they still have flaws just like everyone else. So that was the real meaning behind "Dollhouse", at least how it related to me because it's something I was annoyed with at the time.
I'm always going to hear people make that connection and I've just accepted it. It's alright. I'm just happy that I get to do my own thing now. I learned a lot from the show [the Voice] as far as being in the TV world and being in front of the camera, which is really great because I'm not as nervous in front of the camera as I was before.
A lot of people relate my success now with The Voice, and it has nothing to do with that. I've definitely worked my ass off for a year afterwards trying to get that off of my forehead. If anything, it's actually harder to get labels to look at you when you come off a show like that, and it's harder for people to look at you like a real artist.
The whole entire album is about Cry Baby, you know, being super insecure and kind of like going through her emotions until she finally realizes that she's comfortable with how crazy and insane she is and I think that I've made the exact same kind of progression , and the growth...and I don't know, like I feel like I've definitely grown into who I am and, like, I think Cry Baby is just me.
Probably "Mrs. Potato Head" or "Training Wheels". "Mrs. Potato Head" because it was the hardest song to write and it took me a while to finish it and feel good about the lyrical content. But I've had that idea in my head for so long, especially the visuals - pulling apart a Mrs. Potato face and how that doubled as a meaning for plastic surgery. "Training Wheels" because it's the only love song on the album.
Cry Baby is about Cry Baby and the next album [which I think I have a title for but I don't wanna say anything yet because I don't know and it's too early] is a place in the weird town that I'm trying to create and its Cry Baby's perspective throughout this album. You're not learning about her, you're learning about the place that she's in and her perspective. Down the line for sure I will think of other characters in this world.
"Dollhouse" was really insane. We shot it at this top house studio in Brookyln. It was really cool. I designed a mini dollhouse that we used. I made it all by hand and decorated each room, and we based the actual set off of that. The Dollhouse was just plain wood and I put roofing on it and everything. I got real carpet for it. It was crazy. It was definitely an interesting experience. It was the first music video I've ever made. It was definitely stressful but awesome. Everybody was really amazing on set; we just had a blast doing it.