I felt that I really couldn't be creative with opera. You're supposed to sound this way here. You're supposed to crescendo here. You're supposed to do that. I had no sense of identity while singing that kind of music.

I went from living in my dad's basement to moving to New York. So I never had that middle ground of easing into adulthood.

I grew up listening to a lot of that stuff, Motown and Stooges. But also early rock-and-roll like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. I feel like as I grew older, I've been working with different musicians, people that have are constantly showing me different things.

The influence is really all over the place. Detroit, definitely because of Motown and Stooges. When you come from a place like Detroit, you're really proud of what you have there.

I tried to take a few community college classes, but it got in the way of music, so I stopped. I had real life college and traveling on the road college. It's like a segue into adulthood, like living on your own for the first time.

I hate saying I'm a new musician, because I've been doing this forever, but they like to put new musicians on a lot of weird bills.

I felt that I really couldn't be creative with opera. You're supposed to sound this way here. You're supposed to crescendo here. You're supposed to do that. I had no sense of identity while singing that kind of music.