I do always write from a personal place.
— Natalie Prass
I get kind of nervous in crowds, so a musical festival would never be something I would go to, unless I was playing.
It is like an addiction: I get addicted to performing and touring. I get itchy and think, 'I've got to do this.'
I'm such an emotional person that when it comes to songwriting, I can click into whatever zone I need.
I've always been very driven and am also very stubborn.
I love how controversial pink is. Men still feel uncomfortable wearing pink. It's ridiculous.
I'm a very loyal and compassionate person.
I've always been in this weird indie world, and for a long time, I felt that it was not okay to be girly in that world.
I do what I want to do instead of what other people think I should do, and I'm kind of stubborn that way.
Music is what makes you feel joyful and makes me feel like I'm not alone. It's everything.
I'm pretty picky about what I do and who I work with, for better or for worse.
I've always been very shy. Now I don't care anymore.
Break-up albums are the best kind.
Gospel talks about life's struggles, but you always feel like it recognizes these struggles and that you can overcome them.
I'm a real musician's musician: I get really geeky on chords and arrangements.
I come from the most normal family. I've always been the oddball.
I blindly loved music and never once questioned if I was weird or not. I didn't care. Still don't!
Who doesn't love a Disney princess, and who wouldn't want to be one? Belle is my favorite. She's the smart, awkward, and adventurous. She doesn't have too many friends - goes off and hangs out with talking silverware. I think it's great.
There are a lot more variables with festivals than just playing in a venue.
If you want to make something of yourself, you have to just do it relentlessly.
You go through so many changes, especially in your twenties.
When I was growing up, my dad would always be playing Motown around the house. He loved Stevie Wonder and the Supremes and got me into Dionne Warwick. It was the best music I'd ever heard. It was just that extremely deep, human, thought-out stream of ideas. You can always hear something new when you listen to that music.
I want to talk about things that are actually important.
I wasn't taken seriously being the only girl playing in band growing up.
I think it's just my personality, or maybe just because I've been playing music for so long and working so hard at it, that I don't expect anything from it anymore. I just do my work and then hope that it works out.
I'm not really a trend person.
I had to do so much self-searching and self-work and learning how to navigate in a world that seemed very mean.
I was poor. I struggled big time, living hand to mouth so I could be the kind of artist I want to be.
Stevie Wonder is obviously the master at political music that's for everybody, that's still joyful.
That's what's so wonderful about collaborating: your idea can explode and become something else.
Like Lenny Kravitz, I wanna make the world a better place; I wanna unify people.
I try as hard as I can to write from a personal place and be genuine.
Music is all I've ever done.
I used to come home and play piano all day by ear and make songs up or figure out my favourite Elvis songs. I'd make up games by blindfolding myself and singing the harmony to whatever notes I'd play.
I've always liked playing with somebody else and collaborating, just to get out of my own head all the time. Everybody does, but artists especially, we torture ourselves. So it's good for me to immerse myself in somebody else's work.
I'm the kind of writer that, once I get into writing mode in my brain, I'm non-stop.
If you want to be a songwriter, you've got to obsess over it.
When you're that age - that middle-school age, early high school - you're changing. You're going crazy. So I put all of my energy into pretending I was someone else, battling and screaming and all that stuff - casting spells and getting into a whole fantasy world. It was really healthy for me.
I've struggled with self-esteem and depression, like most singer-songwriters. I listen to my EPs on Bandcamp, and I can just hear the pain and the self-esteem struggle in my voice.
It's an artist's choice to speak up about social issues, but I think it's really important, and my favorite artists have spoken out.
Women are against women, and men are against women. Like, women have to rise above so much to get ahead. I feel guilty that sometimes I hate being a woman. I hate it because there's so much weight on your shoulders at all times. Maybe I'm just really sensitive.
My kind of retro-sounding songs, or whatever you want to call them, aren't for everybody.
Music, for me, has always been a community thing. It's always how I make friends and hang out with people, because I didn't know how to do that. This is what makes me special.
I'm one of those people who don't want to share anything 'til it's a done deal.
I got offered publishing deals to write country music, but it was not what I wanted to do.
We still have so far to go as a country. People don't like to listen to women or take orders from them. I feel that a lot as a woman playing music.
There came a point when I was thinking, 'I'm now 26, 27, working on music every day, but I'm not making, like, a lot of money. What's happening? I guess I'll just start making dog clothes.'
My path has been a little weird. I hope that it can inspire people.
I've never wanted to be like anybody else. I'm me.
Growing up, I had a natural love for women like Diana Ross, Mary Wells, Ella Fitzgerald. Then I got into Dionne Warwick, Nina Simone, and Patsy Cline.
