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Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued Olympia had bagels! We didn’t have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me – a place with so many vegetarians, the restaurants made special dishes for them?
I’ve never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller, and it just didn’t work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight, and they all had big voices too just different than mine.
I’m constantly thinking about what I’ll do next. I never count on music being a career of longevity. I mean, longevity is key, and I hope that it lasts, but you just don’t know, because it’s not in your hands, you don’t make the decision.
Starting out really punk came from not knowing any better and listening to music like that, not knowing how to play music – well, still not knowing how to play music.
It’s really hard for me to sometimes put myself out there, like ‘Hey, how do you feel about making music together?’ because maybe I’m afraid of rejection or I don’t want to put anybody out. It’s the Southerner in me, like, ‘I don’t mean to bother you but do you mind making a song?’
For me the greatest revenge of all is having a happy adulthood, waking up in my gorgeous turquoise bedroom in the morning beside a person who really inspires me. That’s the best revenge a girl-loving girl from the Bible belt could possibly have. And, importantly, it’s healthy.
Get a Job’ is about all the rich kids we knew when we were younger, kids who never had jobs but always had money for partying or getting their hair done.
I’ve had people ask me in interviews what it’s like to have money, but that’s not how it is. I have a middle-class life. I have a room in London but not a house, nor a BMW.
Aretha Franklin was a teenage mom, a musician who came from an incredibly Christian background, but there was a lot of love, which is really inspiring in a feminist way.
I was given baby doll toys myself, and they proved a stark reminder that my life was expected to revolve around childbearing – just as my mom’s had before me, and her mom’s had before her.