I'm just gonna keep growing as an artist, and I'm excited to work with different people and learn from all these other talented, creative people that I've been around. It's so inspiring to be around other people who have ideas you haven't thought of, and all of a sudden you're like, 'Wow! That's so amazing!'
— Banks
Growing up, I listened to a lot of everything - I fell in love with music, when I discovered people like Lauryn Hill and Tracy Chapman, people whose voices I could really feel, people with a lot of soul. That's what I'm drawn to as a musician: Anybody that has their own voice and their own point of view.
I want people to feel the times where they don't feel good. You should dive into those emotions, because that's what I do with my music.
A wounded healer, I think, is a lot more powerful than a healer that has not been wounded. In 'Weaker Girl,' I was coming from a wounded healer's perspective.
I think every person is so unique. I think every woman is so unique, every man is so unique, every artist is so unique.
I just think it looks so cool when a woman has a dirty martini. She looks so powerful.
'Before I Ever Met You' was the first one to come out and that just dives into the grit, and it's pretty graphic about a relationship. For my first song, it was very special the way it happened, because I didn't really hold anything back, and people responded to it.
One of my favorite things is to try delicious different fruits from different places, in Japan or other places that have different fruits you can't get in the States.
I have a memory of listening to Tracy Chapman and just being intrigued by her voice. Even as a young girl, I wanted to know more about her and her story. I felt I was learning about her through her music. That was a revelation to me.
James Blake, Jai Paul, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Sohn, Kwabs, Sampha, Lil Silva, and Brandy, always. They all have soul. Deep soul.
My approach to beauty is all about moods. If you want to feel sexy, if you want to feel feminine or, I don't know, boyish - it's all about how you feel at that point in time. My mood changes.
On tour, there's dry shampoo - I use the one by Bed Head.
My music is 100-percent me, so it's just who I developed into as a woman. I feel really grateful that I waited until I did because I feel like I really found who I was by doing that.
I feel like my dream animal would be a mermaid that could fly and also live in the trees. She has a nest, almost like a bird. She feeds her babies like a bird, like, chews the food first and then feeds it to them through her mouth.
L.A. is a really good home base. I've grown up here, and so sometimes I have wanderlust even though I tour. You think it would be cured by touring, but sometimes I feel like I want to be somewhere else.
Fashion is a huge part of music and of who you are. It really sets the mood for a show, and it's fun to play around with it. You can get really creative in photo shoots as well. You know, just having fun with it.
My music is inspired by my life: the people in my life, the people I have relationships with, the people I love, the people that make me feel something.
I haven't even had to learn, but it's just this natural thing to be able to express any emotion I have through the tone of my voice.
What people would qualify as R&B is, for me, just soul. And I love honesty and soul and heavy, crunchy beats that move you and make you breathe a little bit faster.
It's a big thing in my music to highlight being human - being emotional and powerful, like a goddess.
Real pain hurts so bad. When you've gone through something and you've overcome it, you're able to heal other people.
With 'Someone New', I was at my rawest, and I didn't want to cover it up. And same with 'You Should Know' and 'Under the Table.' I wanted it to be the lyrics and the chord progressions, and the intricacies of the guitar of 'Someone New' are so delicate, sometimes that's all you need.
Once I discovered music and that you don't need to just use words but can add a growl to the melody, that releases so much more. I never want to make music for any other reason.
When I do things that don't feel pure or make any moves that I don't feel like represent me or who I am, it makes me feel like I wanna throw up. So I just do me, and I guess people just take that how they do.
The most personal thing about me is my music. The most honest, pure thing in my whole life.
I have a really feminine voice, but I also feel quite powerful when I write. So my songs feel heavy, and that's how Banks sounds. It's a really short, powerful sound. It almost sounds masculine, and I like having that dichotomy.
Femininity can be a powerful thing.
I definitely drink lots of water. I use this Decleor Neroli Oil to moisturize - no matter what the climate is, it always makes my skin really moist.
I think doing things that scare you a little is a good thing. A little bit of fear is never a bad thing. A healthy amount of fear makes everything taste better.
Social media overwhelms me.
I like wearing oils. Perfume makes me nauseous sometimes. It's too strong.
The song 'Stick'? That needed to be chunky and sexy. It's human. It's human to be the girl in 'Stick' and feel spicy as heck.
I think social media is an interesting beast - you can't get too caught up in it. People can get caught up in it sometimes, but I think it's important to live in the present and not on the computer screen.
I get so many questions in interviews about feminism, and I think the second you start separating femininity and masculinity and giving one more power than the other, that's like - everyone is a person.
I think, probably when I was 15 or so, I was going through a really hard time with my family, and I just felt really helpless - I didn't know how to put anything I was feeling into words, and I was really confused, and I felt like nobody would hear me, but I didn't even know what to say.
Twitter and those platforms just didn't feel natural to me.
I've felt real pain, and sometimes I channel the exhale coming out of that to write, and those are the songs that give me the most power and the most strength.
Music is the most private place in my life, but it's become the most public part of who I am.
Every human is so layered. And 'Brain,' that theme is about - I'm just such a sensitive person, and I can pick up people's energies.
It feels really good that people are connecting to my music so much.
I like feeling fresh and having really dewy skin. I like feeling moisturized and having a good brow.
It's a powerful thing to be able to write a song. Even the least powerful feeling - like insecurity - that makes you feel weak when you experience it, when you write about it, you are powerful.
I found music because I felt different.
I found music when I was very dark. I felt unheard, with inner dialogues that I didn't know how to express.
I like a kind of dark, bronze-y brown smoky eye with maybe some mascara, some contouring and stuff, but I don't like wearing black or pinks. I like it more tonal.
I listened to pretty much anything that I could really feel, where I felt like the artist had to write those songs, where you can feel their soul and the pain and the happiness and love and everything.
My identity started developing through the songs I was writing.
I like Australia, but every time I'm there, I feel like everybody's being sarcastic because everyone's so nice.
There's no separation between electronic music and acoustic music. It's all one thing. Each song has its own heartbeat. Each song has its own soul.
There are definitely a lot of creative people I want to work with. I wanna work with Drake!
