One thing I've learned is I really want to work with people.
— Julia Holter
For me, the poetic decisions tend to be calculated, and the musical decisions inspired by the poetic decisions are free.
I don't fit into a group very well socially. And that might be reflected in my music.
I really write at home on my own, and the demos themselves are very similar to the final recordings in a lots of ways.
'Maxim's' was supposed to be on 'Ekstasis,' but it was very much in its own world.
I think my music is experimental, playful, challenging, focused, fun. I don't want it to be thought of as trying to appeal to a certain type of person or being very cerebral.
I say most of my music is very trial-and-error.
I don't think I'll ever become a pop star.
The meaning of the words in my songs are very important to me. But what's most important to me is that the music works.
I don't often meet with strangers and feel okay about collaborating with them.
I don't ever like to see paparazzi much, but I have seen them, and I guess anyone who's seen them knows how scary they are.
I listen to the timbre of the music, and I fit my voice to blend with that timbre.
There's a lot psychologically going on in boxing... I think I relate to some of it. I have a respect for it. It's like performing, but it's also this crazy, self-destructive thing.
I prefer to work with mystery, but that doesn't work well in an academic environment. They want you to analyze what you're doing, which is toxic to the creative process for people like me.
I really love working with Ramona from Nite Jewel. We've kind of grown up together.
To me, the process of art is very much a process of translation, of borrowing.
Putting my audience to sleep isn't what I'm going for.
I like working with students a lot and watching some of the amazing stuff they put together.
When I'm depressed is when I'm not interested in writing anything, whereas some people, I think, are spurred to creativity through their personal experiences and through depression. And for me, it's a very low place, and it's not fruitful.
I don't write thinking directly about what I'm feeling, usually. I just let myself write whatever comes out without it necessarily being directly a translation of what I'm aware that I'm feeling, you know?
If I'm kind of sad or depressed, it doesn't necessarily help me to write a song about exactly what I'm depressed about.
I was pretty scared of the idea as a younger person of being a musician on the road. It didn't occur to me as a possibility.
I don't think all music that is considered 'avant-garde' is bad, but it's definitely elitist. I hope my music is not that.
I don't know how well I work in traditions. I don't know if it's just the way I listened to music growing up and never having my foot in one particular world, and just wanting to do my own thing.
I try to not think too much about how people are receiving my music. And I'm not really famous enough that it's a problem.
'Betsy' is one of my favorites because it is the one to which I've imposed the least clear narrative. To me, it's so much more about the feeling - desperation - than any kind of story at all. There's very little imagery or character development; it's just about a deep and desperate search for something.
I thought I was gonna get a doctorate in composition or be a composer and be at a university for the rest of my life, mostly because my parents are academics, and that was the logical thing to do.
I like talking about my music.
I do develop characters for songs, and I think of everything as storytelling, in a way. But I don't plan out what they're going to sound like. I just sing over what I've done.
I don't use the harpsichord because it evokes a past time period: I use it because I like the sound.
If you've ever seen paparazzi go after a celebrity, it's really freaky.
I take music very seriously, but it's important to me that my music is - I don't know if 'intuitive' is the word, but there's a really important element of something kind of mysterious. It's not academic or esoteric.
I started writing music as a composer in school, in the classical tradition.
I don't thrive in a school or academic environment, I found out. I thrive better in the world outside the small academy because I find it hard to explain what I'm doing.
I just always make honest music. I just always kinda do what I wanna do.
A lot of my personal life feels very separate from my music.
Saying that something is accessible gives it this implication that people need something, and thinking that we know what people need or want is really unpleasant. I don't like to think that way, like, predicting what it is that the people want.
The Beatles, even Radiohead, all of my favorite stuff I'd play on the piano. But it was all very secret - for me, for fun. I wasn't going to record myself playing those songs, and it never occurred to me to write a song of my own.
I try to ignore people's opinions about my music - you don't want to hold yourself back because of that stuff.
I don't consider myself supremely talented, but I really like to try things and sift through it and see what mess I made.
One of the struggles that I have with classical music is the way one thinks about a recapitulation. There's always this idea of themes, and I have trouble with that.
David Bowie - I definitely knew some of his music as a teenager, but I didn't actually listen to his music as much until I was in my 20s.
I am very interested in the human voice and how we use it, especially when we aren't thinking, like the kind of stuff Robert Ashley was interested in.
I really like being home. I like being comfortable, and I'm not a very dramatic person.
When you make music on your own for so long, you get used to just doing whatever you want.
I was in school for four years writing music to please my teachers. That was not music I liked. And when I make music that isn't for something I want to make, and it's to please other people, it's - the outcome is really bad.
'Tragedy' and 'Loud City Song' are both inspired by stories from the past.
I think what's interesting in L.A. is that there's a lot of variety because L.A. is very spread out. I think there is a lot I don't know about, to be completely honest. It's a very mysterious town.
I started playing piano when I was eight, and I went on to study piano in school, so I have a background in classical piano and studied composition in school. Writing music came later.
In L.A., you can play forever, and no one around the world will hear you.
