The first song I wrote, in fifth grade, was totally ripped from Jeffrey Lewis. My aunt's boyfriend gave me bass lessons, and I played drums for a year in sixth grade. Around seventh grade, I got a guitar and forgot everything else.

There are some people I've met and it's stressful just speaking to them, because they're really pretentious and I don't know how to talk to them without being pretentious back.

I'm trying to do what Frank O'Hara did and remind myself there there's a lot of good stuff. I write about New York for my own mental health.

When I was younger, my view of New York was really wide-eyed and excited. I've lived here all my life.

I was thinking about New York and realized how much I hate walking around in the winter and how much I dread getting on the train.

Writing songs about it is a really useful way for me to love New York more, and stay observing it, and not just zone it out.

I played piano for a lot of my childhood and stupidly quit. I wish I hadn't - I could have been a great classical pianist!