I'm very sensitive - I'll cry during every movie or commercial - but when it comes to my own feelings, I don't really think about them that much unless I'm making music. Otherwise, I'm either checked out or laughing because that's how I do regular stuff. I have a hard time talking about my feelings.
— Perfume Genius
I like when I tweet about Tony Hawk. A lot of times, people think it's true; like, I've tweeted about having lunch with him a lot, and people are like, 'Oh, how was he?' or, like, 'Do you have a pic?' I don't know how to explain it. He's right at the level where people could almost believe it, but it's also a really weird pairing.
Whenever anything 'gay' comes along, everybody wants that thing to somehow be everything to everybody. And usually, it is too gay or not gay enough. There's never the right amount. I think that happens a little bit in the media.
I like Yoda. I like the Ewoks.
I love Twitter.
I have this idea of myself that I decided when I was 12 about who I am and how I come across and what the world is like. And if I have changed or the world has changed, I don't even notice sometimes because I'm holding on to these old ideas. I am more confident - the music is proof. But I can see the change there much easier than I do as a human.
I'm pretty sure I would have managed to over-share no matter what time period I was born in. It's a family thing, too.
On the first two albums, I essentially began with lyrics and placed the music underneath or around the words.
I get in my own way a lot. I feel a lot more confident than I... am.
The thing is everything is good at the Cheesecake Factory. Everything's good. It's science-based. It's a formula; there's math. It's all good!
I feel like I've figured out the way that I can talk about things that are important to me and have my music and the way of performance be healing and be helpful.
I'm fairly dramatic.
I sort of trust myself as a musician to experiment more and to know when things are more effective when they're spare and when a song can hold up to a lot of different instrumentations. So I'm more willing to go for it.
I don't think art matters as much as keeping people safe.
I started writing songs later in life because I just couldn't commit to it before.
I saw this Facebook video of a boy, probably around seven, wearing a dress he had fashioned from a blanket, sashaying through his house while his mother applauded and cheered him on. He was so proud. It was such a beautiful thing but bittersweet because I knew his spirit would change soon: that he'd become self-aware and ashamed at some level.
Hymns have always sounded like sung spells to me. I never felt included in the magic of the God songs I heard growing up - I knew I was going to hell before anyone ever told me that I was. People found comfort in this all-knowing source, but I felt frightened and found out. I developed some weird and very dramatic complexes.
I feel trapped in my body. I want to be like like Scarlett Johansson in 'Lucy,' when she unlocks everything within her - I want to do that. I want to be the alien in 'Arrival' - a spitty, infinite-time-loop creature.
I'm really into gay stuff getting funded: having it be on TV and having a show.
I think people have a hard time dealing with a bunch of things at once. They can't have something be disturbing and funny at the same time. They can't have that kind of combination. Which is weird to me because I feel complicated about most things.
I don't dislike 'It' or 'Stranger Things,' but I'm just not as super into it, because, like, I've seen 'E.T.' a lot. And I've watched 'The Goonies.'
When something is heartwarming and triumphant, and not corny or preachy, it's such a powerful thing.
I felt like an outsider, so listening to a bunch of outsiders' music like Bjork and Patti Smith made me feel better. But at the same time, I didn't have anyone singing specifically 100% about things I could relate to.
Any tragic memory I have I also think is really funny. On any given day, I can think about how horrible something is and also how ridiculous and over-the-top it is.
Usually, like, anyone that would adopt, like, 'masc,' period, to describe them - it's a very phony, stereotypical masculinity.
I don't ever necessarily feel masculine or feminine. I just feel... I don't know. Like, when I'm wearing women's clothes, it's not like I'm dressing like a lady, a woman; it's just like I'm doing whatever I want.
I don't think I've actually ever had cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. I've had the Steak Diane. I don't like cheesecake!
I've definitely met some people that cultivated a masculinity that they taught themselves. I don't know how they figured out how to do it, but I couldn't.
When I watch alien movies, I want to be the alien. I don't want to be the people that make first contact or anything; I just want to be that creature.
I feel kind of limited and locked into my body and brain - I'm not super into it all the time.
I play a lot of role-playing games on the computer. And I always have.
I don't feel like I make sense in the world. I don't feel like I look right. I don't feel like I act right or do right. It's very frustrating to me that I just walk around with this all the time.
I was scared of the devil starting around age nine. Before that, I was gathering every family member in the living room, slipping a shirt over my robe so the bottom hung like a skirt and performing Gloria Estefan songs with feverish intensity.
I think all gay men are used to people saying no to them, to people not giving them choices.
Taking care of myself is not instinctual for me. It feels very weird.
I'm just doing what I want. I'm not thinking, like, 'Today I'm going to dress like a woman.' I'm not even thinking about that. I'm just thinking, 'I want to wear this today; I want to be this today.'
I have a really small and strange job history.
Loved 'Get Out,' super good from start to finish. I mean, it had everything you'd want in a movie. It was funny, scary, and it wasn't stupid. It was a smart movie but not in a fussy way. It was so good.
Everything I do is rebellious. Sometimes even against myself.
Music helped me, growing up: it very much felt like a companion and made me less lonely.
Honestly, I just wear what makes me feel good. It becomes political when you leave the house without changing.
To me, when something's really funny, there's, like, a wildness to it, and it's very close to the wildness of something potentially tragic or gross. It's all very close to each other when you have that extreme level of feeling.
I think if you know one direction, then you can feel the other one. I don't think you can be truly, insanely joyous if you haven't ever felt the flip side of it.
I have ended up on so many weird Men's Rights Twitter accounts filled with weird anime. I don't know. It's so bizarre to me that people can think that way, and so I feel like I can decode them or figure it out. But you can end up so grossed out.
I'm just very self-conscious about the way I look. I really am embarrassed of it, because I wish I wasn't like that.
When I started to allow myself to not be locked into wearing men's clothes, things kind of opened up. It feels very kind to drape yourself in something that feels special.
I've known that people were racist and misogynistic and homophobic since I was very little.
It used to be enough for me to get on stage and sing. I kind of crave the performance part now. I write knowing it's going to happen, which I didn't do before.
I think people come to my music just to feel less lonely.
It took me a long time to not think of the universe as a judgmental debit-credit system. I haven't completely shaken it, but I no longer think that I am overdrawn with God. Grace is not something you earn; its always there. I find this idea a lot more fun.
