I look at performance clothes as setting the mood for the whole show.
— Borns
Hopefully I inspire people just to lose themselves a little bit. That's what I enjoy doing on stage: challenging myself with a new territory, like performing differently, moving differently, singing differently, just let people know that it's okay just to do something that they've never done before.
Half the time, when I first run onstage, I can't look directly at the audience just because of self-consciousness. It's human nature. Sometimes you feel like the man, and sometimes you don't. But sometimes that self-conscious energy is good for the show, it draws people in more.
I've gotten to play some cool venues, like at an aquarium in La Jolla, California.
I grew up with a big backyard that led to the sand dunes of Lake Michigan.
I don't wash my hair that often, to be honest.
My first CD started as a studio project and I record everything with one other guy, so I didn't have a band. That's kind of how I like to do it, though. I like to create it with one other person, this guy, Tommy English, who produces everything. And then I go out on the road with a band who interprets it live.
I really like small, intimate shows, but there's nothing like playing at a festival. It's a completely different experience. Everyone is just a little more primal; they can get away with more things.
The Internet is a crazy archive of a lot of old everything. Paintings, drawings, old, new, and everything in between.
When I was growing up, there were a few musicians who would have regular gigs at restaurants, and I always thought it was so cool and unexpected how they would spontaneously perform. Being the ambitious kid that I was, I got into it and really studied it. I was so inspired by it.
Songwriting itself, I don't think you can really teach that.
I always like surprising people and doing things at a young age and, I don't know, trying to do them at a higher caliber than what you'd normally think. I'm not saying I'm a virtuoso, but I always challenge myself.
It's all about the art, really, at the end of the day.
I do like how the music can be misunderstood.
I guess that's always the mystery of music. It's like why does this song make me feel so grey or why does it make me feel sad or happy or nostalgic and so I'm most fascinated by breaking that down in my music.
When you listen to music, you can tell if it's a real love song or not.
I have a short attention span.
I just love catchy melodies.
I don't really know what emotions are going to come out in songs when I'm writing them until I step back and listen to them as a whole.
I really like intimate venues because it feels like everyone in the audience is in on all our inside jokes.
Anything that makes life more of a dance party I'm very much okay with.
I'm fascinated by the yin and yang of everything.
I don't like washing away your body's natural oils and pheromones. Those are good. You have to keep those.
I always go thrift shopping wherever I am.
A lot of people hear things on the radio and try to make their own version of that.
I find inspiration from a lot of different texts and really old stories and folk tales - things I feel like no one else is reading.
The music scene in Michigan is really folky and bluegrass, but my parents played a lot of disco. They really liked to dance.
My music diet growing up was lots of sugar. Lots of retro-pop sugar. Motown, disco. A lot of English rock, like the Turtles, the Zombies, Bowie and stuff like that.
I never pictured myself as a professional musician.
I remember seeing an interview from the Bee Gees and they were like, 'The biggest competition to the Bee Gees is the Bee Gees.' They just kept trying to top themselves and write better songs, and I'm just always trying to do that.
I always found creative ways to make money since I was pretty young kid.
I feel very short-attention span for like accomplishment. It's like 'oh that felt really good' and then it's kind of like an immediate emptiness of I need to make something else - I don't like to dwell on things too long.
I grew up a huge Roy Orbison fan. He had such a crazy range. And I grew up listening to old jazz, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone. I remember trying to imitate female jazz singers because I had a higher range.
My folks would have parties and all I wanted was to be the entertainment.
My mom's really into astrology and she's always telling me about the moon cycles and stuff like that.
The more you practice something, the more you are aware of what you're doing.
I'm always trying to top the last show.
I did a lot of magic shows growing up. My dad is a graphic designer so he helped me brand myself and create a logo. So I was just rollin' with the magician crowd for a while. But I was really young, 10 to 13, doing table magic and balloon animals at this Italian restaurant.
I like to put coconut oil in my hair if it's looking dry. It's so unruly. It has a mind of its own.
A magic show and a concert are very similar in the way I like keeping things a mystery and not doing them the same way every time. The listener and the audience never know what's going to happen next.
I have a few friends who are amazing stylists, so I owe them a lot.
Performing is an exchange of a lot of energy and it can wipe you out.
A lot of people think I'm a chick. It happens the most at airports. The flight attendants will always say, 'Have a nice flight, Ms. Borns.' It must be the hair.
I like a lot of older, '60s or '70s-style songwriting.
When I first moved to L.A., I lived in the Hills in kind of a wooded area that was just really chill.
I feel like I'm always just trying to write better music and keep topping myself.
There's beautiful things about tour - you're seeing the world, spreading music and I'm able to call that what I do. But it's about living lightly and abandoning things.
I just like the obstacle course of figuring out something.
I kind of lose my mind a little bit if I'm not making something.
That's the worst and best thing about being in the studio, feeling completely lost and not knowing how to put the final touch on something. But once you find it, there's nothing like that feeling.
