With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive.

To me, that ugliness, that grotesqueness - that's the essence [of life]. That's where you realize, it's not about all the consonance and the harmony. It's all the parts that are wrong that help explain why we're drawn to something - what the mystery is - just as much as the beautiful things.

I will say, as a woman, when you put a mustache on, you find out a lot of things about yourself.

I've mostly been focusing on writing, and I've really enjoyed not playing music. It will always be part of my life, but I don't feel the immediate need to be playing for people.

I don't think I would live outside of the Northwest. I think the quality of life in Portland is really good. People move from intense, high-powered jobs, and move to Portland, work half as much and live twice as good.

I've never been in another kind of midlife crisis. I don't know what it feels like when you're through that, but I definitely feel that changing a few things, like being on a different label and having things kind of settle back into a sense of normality, helps to feel grounded.

I've never understood people who play up the artifice of music.