The make-up and the costumes were me being scared. I needed to create a boundary between me and the audience. To project this bigger version of myself. Outwardly, it looked good, but inwardly, I began to feel horrible.
— Maggie Rogers
It's not like I see colours. It's just, for me, an incredibly strong association between music and colour.
The only thing I wanted to do in my music is be human and communicate all the aspects of that, which often means being vulnerable.
As a producer, as a songwriter, I've spent a lot of time either in my bedroom or in studios, alone.
I'm a feminist, so it's just a really nice creative energy to work with a lot of women.
'Alaska' was filmed at my family's farm in Maryland; 'Dog Years' was filmed at the summer camp I grew up going to in Maine.
I do play a lot of instruments. I started with the harp when I was young and then sort of moved to guitar and piano.
Musicians have been political literally since people were writing songs.
I grew up in a really rural area in Maryland.
For me, it's important to ask what are you making, and what's the public's relationship to that. And I say public relationship because I don't really care so much about any sort of reception.
I didn't decide on what college I was going to go to until the day I had to.
I know some artists who write every day, and for a while, I felt really guilty that I didn't.
The craziest thing is I didn't know I could sing like this - ever. My voice has changed, or I've grown into it, woken up.
Ask about music growing up, I'll tell you I grew up playing classical music, and I didn't grow up in a musical household.
What I love more than anything in the entire world is making music. It's what I studied in school.
Folk music usually romanticises the road. 'Back in my Body' tells the opposite story.
Writer's block is your self-critic getting in the way, because creativity will just flow otherwise.
I never doubted the music.
I listened to birds and crickets, looking for the ways that rhythm appears most naturally in the world. I listened to the Smithsonian's field recordings of pygmy choirs from Africa.
The Pharrell video cut my body and soul in half.
I've always been a very visual creator. I make mood boards or sit with coloured pencils and scribble and try and figure out what I'm trying to work through musically.
I reached a place where I wanted to make more music, but I didn't know what I wanted. So I stopped labeling music by genre and just got into a studio to be creative. Now I write whatever feels instinctive.
Bjork - she wears really weird stuff, and it's amazing.
You need music that is compelling and intellectual, but you also need music that just feels good and you can laugh about and dance to, and I think I'm trying to marry the two in some way.
I just didn't really know who I was, so I didn't really know what I sounded like. And so I did a lot of writing, and I studied abroad, and I fell in love, and, like... I got to be like any other college student.
When I write songs, it happens very quickly, sometimes 10 to 15 minutes, and I draw inspiration from everything.
Something really intense happened to me during the 'SNL' performance. It felt like the person I was made to be faced the person I'm becoming. It was the first time I felt like I was able to make any sense of ownership of my work.
I only get compared to women, which is crazy because often the women they compare me to... we just have a similar hairstyle. Whether it's Joni Mitchell or Florence and the Machine - our music doesn't always sound anything alike. But we just all have long hair.
The thing about fans is you don't get to choose your own. But every time I meet a fan, I'm like, wow, we would totally be at the same house party.
I've never made R&B. I've never made gospel. I've never made hip-hop - I don't think I'm going to, but I just want to keep challenging myself.
Ask me my influences, I always talk about Bjork and Beck because they're independent voices in the music industry.
I dress as a combination of space cowgirl and San Francisco art teacher.
It's interesting because all I want to do is make music. I want to sit in my room, play the guitar, make beats, sing... And I have never made less music than when being a musician became my job.
When I was little, my mum would take me to see the orchestra, tell me to close my eyes and think about the story the music was telling. I always spoke about colours. I'd talk about how purple the oboe was.
It's funny because, based on the music I was making before, if you'd asked me who was the one gatekeeper or influencer whom I'd want to hear my music, I don't think Pharrell would be the first person I'd pick.
Part of success is having a good story, and as a journalist, I totally understand. But it meant that my many, many years of focus and hard work got kind of prepackaged into a Cinderella story. I'm super grateful that it happened, but it left me feeling like I never got to be a full human in the experience.
In terms of my voice, I'm very clear about who I am as a person and what I think.
I like songs that you can have both the physical release and an emotional release.
I've always wanted to play violin.
I love pop music. It's just fun, and it feels good, and it's easy.
I love being outside.
I'm kind of a funny writer because I write very sporadically.
New York is so strange. Every time I'm there, I very rarely see someone who's dressed cool.
It took me two years to write 'Fallingwater,' but it's one of my favorite pieces I've ever made, and it was worth waiting for.
The reality is my career started with a song that wasn't finished and a video I didn't know was going on the Internet. It happened so out of my control.
I just kind of, like, know who I am. I think that comes from having an incredibly strong sense of purpose for a very long time.
I'm a private person. I am quiet.
When I'm joking around, I'll say I'm a pop star, because it's silly.
Graduating from college and starting your life as an adult is a giant transition no matter what.
