Don't say yes to everything. Learn how to say no, because people respect a no.

Everyone in our generation lives in a world where you're surrounded by all sorts of music all the time. People's tastes are made of combinations of genres.

The only thing that deeply frustrates me is the slow speed [of major labels]. The more people involved, the slower the pace.

Playing to bigger audiences at festivals got me in the mindset of writing music that I would sing to a crowd.

You know how some trees have those ear mushrooms that just grow off, and you could live on one of those mushrooms and not realize that there was stacks and stacks of others? That's how I describe music scenes in New York. That's one of the trippiest things about living here - just how many parallel universes there are that you can be completely unaware of.

I was really inspired by this feeling of mania, a caricature of myself that I look down upon and see negatively.

Do not be precious about your music within your own world. Try everything you want to try; just because it exists doesn't mean it's done.