Being in New York, and meeting really amazing, talented, eccentric, and bold people, and just feeling really excited about life, got me really revved up and I just felt like everything was at my fingertips - that I could try anything. I really felt invincible. It was such a shift.

I'm always looking for people to feel connected to me and inspired in their own right.

For the name Lion Babe, we are a little avant-garde, a little left. And with bands like Blondie, Pink Floyd, or Jamiroquai, you don't know they're bands, you just kind of hear the name and you're like 'What is it?' so that was the kind of thing we wanted to do.

Even now, it's so funny how much we do have in common and how much her experiences were similar to mine. But I just wanted to be like 'If I'm going to do it, I'm going to write all of my own music, every lyric, and all this stuff.

I definitely listened to Lauryn Hill - her's was like the first album I bought myself. Brandy's Never Say Never and Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill were always in rotation for a couple of years.

I think, more importantly, it's about who is your core team? Who are the people around you that are going to fight for you and make sure that's all protected?

Making that statement of 'I'm not afraid to be untamed.' It's just kind of the marriage of those two things.