I just think the fact that I was told not to be curious about the dark side, and it was such a religious-heavy upbringing made me interested in goth culture.

I never had that desire to start or join a rock band. Nor did I ever have a desire to see my idols in concert. I would have loved to see The Cure. I didn't understand the whole concept of: you love music, you buy the album, and then you go see them in concert. It felt like something that was so untouchable that I didn't even attempt to try and bring it to any place other than my headphones.

I just think the fact that I was told not to be curious about the dark side, and it was such a religious-heavy upbringing made me interested in goth culture.

I'm very nostalgic, and I spend a lot of time in the past, in my mind. That's part of my challenge, and what I really want to do is, I want to be present. I want to leave that in the past. When I say nostalgic, I mean my own life. I spend a lot of time reflecting on my past and not being able to process time.

For so many years, I haven't been able to wrap my head around the concept of time, just feeling like time is something that I don't have control over. It's such a release of control to finally accept that and then just be present. That's always been a big challenge for me.

It's really hard to be an artist and put out records and put your heart out there. It's such a gamble, and you're often spending so much time fighting for something that you really believe in and feeling like it's not really getting anywhere. It definitely can try your patience.

You have to go really dark and deep with yourself and get your hands dirty and go into territories that you don't want to go into and feel things that you don't want to feel, but that's what ultimately pushes out the good and gives you some kind of a message that you can take and channel into something better. That energy's really powerful.