Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't even listen to peoples' music… I'm really in-tune with my craft, I listen to me all day long.
It doesn't matter how big the shows are, as long as I'm making a living playing music. That's all that matters to me.
I'm born and raised Long Island. Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Ben Gibbard - melody-driven guys... They shaped me, molded my music.
I will keep playing as long as my body lets me, and as long as I'm wanted by my listeners. Because music is the only thing that keeps me going.
The thing is that I'm naturally curious about a lot of different disciplines in music, and I enjoy doing them. And as long as people are nice enough to let me, I'll keep on trying.
Reading music has opened up me up so much. I've been experimenting for so long and trying to make sense of things just from my ears. It takes forever. Now I can get where I want much quicker.
I'm not performing now. What I do now is listen to music all day long. Listening is very nourishing to me. I might go back to perform, I might make another record. I've got a record half finished.
Young people have decided they like to listen to music in a certain way, through ear buds, and that's fine with me as long as it doesn't bother them that they're not hearing 90 percent of the music that way.
If you ask me, rockabilly has had a raw deal for far too long. People never shunned the blues or jazz the way they do rockabilly. But it's the original punk-rock, and it changed the way people looked at music for ever.
My first performance was in second grade with my friend Rodney Fisher, and we worked up versions of 'Long Tall Texan' and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.' It gave me a little early confidence that I could actually do this music thing.
My mother and my great-aunt told me stories, like how when my grandfather first met my grandmother at a party, he noticed her long legs and was like, 'Woo woo!' I like to incorporate those stories into my music. They just seem to fit.
I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids!
For me, fiction isn't very cathartic. It can be a broad, long catharsis, but it's a whole different thing - whereas music is physical. Essentially, it goes in through your ear. Fiction is cerebral, necessarily. It can do emotional stuff. But they don't really compare - not for me.
I made music with my friend, who we called Isabella Machine to which I was Florence Robot. When I was about an hour away from my first gig, I still didn't have a name, so I thought 'Okay, I'll be Florence Robot/Isa Machine', before realising that name was so long it'd drive me mad.
I remember studying so hard for so long and saying to my parents, 'I will be a teacher.' And they were looking at me like, 'Girl... you just want to be on stage. Stop pretending.' So when I chose to do music, they were relieved. My parents were more intelligent and lucid than I was.
I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids! The judges were like, 'Very interesting interpretation!' I thought I was playing it right.