No one has a better idea of what Chvrches is than we do.
— Lauren Mayberry
We were overwhelmed by how much the first album connected with people, but I wouldn't put us in the 'pop star' realm.
People have said it's hypocritical for me to call myself a feminist and make the kind of music we are making, because we signed to a major in the U.K., and that system objectifies women. Or people have complained that I don't dance. But I like the idea that I can stomp around the stage if I want.
Objectification, whatever its form, is not something anyone should have to 'just deal with.'
I never want to be the woman that's telling other women what to do.
The music industry isn't unionised in the same way Hollywood is. If I've got a problem, who do I go to?
Every conversation we have as a band is about gender in some way, and it's been like that from the beginning.
I'll scroll through Instagram, but I have to take Internet breaks.
The bands that we've found we have something in common with are bands like The National or Tegan And Sara, and I feel like that's because all three of us come from more alternative rock backgrounds.
We're a band that's never been okay with the status quo. In a way, it's allowed us to be more open and confrontational in our music.
First time we played in New York was in 2013. It was all very eye-opening. A very bright lights, big-city sort of vibe, and we played the Mercury Lounge.
I wouldn't want to do a solo project.
Just because I get to coast around in a nice, cushy little bubble, that's not how it is for everybody.
I find it quite boring when you're listening to radio, and it's the same kind of voice that's on every song on the radio. You can't really tell a lot about that singer as a storyteller and about the singer from what they're singing.
I would rather write something that's authentic to me than something that'll be likely to get played on the radio but doesn't have any substance to it. People can see through that really quickly.
Some musicians don't have strong opinions, or they deliberately don't have strong opinions because they want to try and sell as many records as possible.
If people are really hateful and disgusting in the way they treat other people, that probably came from a hurt place - but then, when does it stop? When does this spiral end? Sometimes you can get pretty melancholic about that.
Moving from a first to a second album is an incredibly transitional time for any band because you never get to make one in a vacuum like you did with your debut.
If you were 12, and Beyonce was up onstage saying to you, 'You get to do exactly whatever you want to do,' that would be awesome. I wish she said it to me when I was 12.
We come from a more alternative rock band background, and it's interesting to see the things that people think we should or shouldn't do since our music is a little bit poppier.
There's a difference between criticism and hatred.
We're in entertainment. We're supposed to be making music that communicates with people, but ultimately, it's supposed to be something that people can enjoy. Sometimes you just want to escape for an hour and a half.
There will never be a job that I do in this industry where I don't have to talk about being a woman. I will always be a female artist. People will put that in front whether you like it or not.
You can't believe everything you read in a newspaper or everything that's coming out of the president's mouth. And you can't believe when someone posts a picture from their personal life, because most of the time, it's staged - we're showing each other these idealized versions of ourselves so that we seem better and other people will feel worse.
Makeup and clothing and all that should be a fun way to be creative and express yourself. Just like in nature, where birds have all the colors. But instead, it's all focused on the aesthetics of being attractive to men. Even if you really don't think it is that, that's what we're doing.
I don't want to write the same song over and over again.
Cacie Dalager's voice is beautiful, and her lyrics break my heart.
A relationship can be deeply damaging without anyone leaving marks on you. So many people - especially young women - end up trying to maintain those emotionally abusive relationships because we don't think it's that bad and that we are really some of the lucky ones because we haven't experienced 'real' abuse.
After the first album, I spent a lot of time being like, 'I'm not really a singer.' That kind of mentality doesn't help.
When people say stuff to us casually in reviews, if they write about it in a condescending way with really gendered language, that's not really about me. It used to hurt my feelings more than it does now. That's not about us as a band or me as a person. That's about how you feel about women, and that's a societal thing.
I guess I have a weird habit of writing body part metaphors.
Somebody said to me once that Chvrches was an emo band in disguise, but nobody had figured it out yet, and I thought, 'You're not wrong!'
When people say, 'Stay in your lane; you're a musician, so you should only talk about music,' what do you think songs are written about? I connect with music because what somebody has said has resonated with me in one way or another.
Margaret Thatcher was a lady. I suppose she was a woman in a man's world, but that's about the only nice thing I have to say.
Just because I front the band or we play bigger stages now, it doesn't mean we somehow suddenly changed the way we approach things. We all still view what we do as indie and alternative in terms of how we execute it, even if the actual music we make is more pop than our previous projects.
Some of the most powerful female performers I've seen balance the feminine and the masculine and are incredibly strong. Like, I think Hayley Williams is one of the best rock performers.
It's nice to squash people's expectations.
Ultimately, what we're striving for is people being allowed to do what they want and not feeling they should or shouldn't do certain things.
I get this weird, existential crisis when I'm looking through Instagram - and then I'll realize we work in entertainment. We know all the smoke and mirrors.
I'm conscious of what bands we tour with and what companies I want to be associated with, even in the small things: if I'm going to buy stage makeup, I want to get it from companies run by women. Those are little changes that will make a difference.
If you give me half an hour on the Internet, I can hate myself completely by the end of that 30 minutes.
I don't buy into this idea that pop has to be frivolous or vacuous, and we've never subscribed to that.
We were quickly labeled as an outspoken feminist band, which I'm totally fine with.
I worked in a lot of cinemas when I was at college, and I'm a movie dork, and it's a nice thing to do while you're on tour. Everything is different a lot of the time - you're never in the same place - but I like going to the cinema because it feels like no matter where you are, the experience is really the same.
Making sure that we interact with the fanbase in a way that feels right to us has been really important.
I discovered the idea of feminism when I watched the film '10 Things I Hate About You.' It's a classic.
I've come to terms with the fact that standing and screaming in someone's face about how wrong they are is never gonna make anyone change.
Growing up in Scotland and living in Glasgow, you see the heritage that religion has had and how something that, in theory, is about kindness and community and caring for each other is used to persecute people.
If Radiohead made a video where Thom Yorke was featured more than the other members, nobody would say anything.
If we just stand at two opposite ends of the spectrum screaming in each other's face, we're never gonna get anything done. I don't agree with a Trump voter, but why do they feel like that? Yes, some of those people are racist and have hateful opinions, but some of those people voted for him because they felt completely left behind.
