I hope people hear my songs and realize that writing music is kind of easy, or that taking your sadness and turning it into a beautiful song is worthwhile.

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 started going to rock shows at a really young age, and seeing other young people make music definitely influenced me.

My music doesn't sound punk, but I see it as a punk action.

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.

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

My relationship to New York has changed a lot. I feel lucky to live here. A lot of times you walk through the city and don't notice that you're in a really beautiful neighborhood, or that you're passing a beautiful building. It's nice, as an exercise, to keep aware that you're in a really lucky place.