I wanted to make something that I wanted to hear that I wasn't hearing.

I feel like that when I read certain feminist blogs or feminist magazines, where it's not even so much we've gone backwards, it's that I'm bored. Or it's like, oh wow, kids today are still dealing with the same exact issues.

There are people who view their feminism in different ways. I used to beat myself up if I didn't react to things like I was supposed to.

I don't think I've ever had a woman yell that at me, but women have yelled mean things at me as well.

I'm sure if you see things you wrote when you were 19, you cringe. I saw stuff like angry poetry that I wrote when I was mad at my father, or photos I took where I smeared period blood on myself. It's embarrassing.

I made the decision that my contribution needed to be more musical than political. My music was enough, politically. Art matters. Art was enough. My music was enough to say what I had to say.

Most of my records are never going to be commercial successes, and I don't expect that. It's just all a learning process to me. If something appears as a failure, fine. If there's success, fine. I like the record, and my friends like the record, and that's kind of all I can really care about.