Women artists need to break barriers in order for women's experience to be valuable.

I wear clothes that most people in the Midwest would probably deem inappropriate at my age. And I rock a bikini all summer long. I know that it's not normal, but I just don't care. I live once.

You have to do what you need to do as an artist. You have to have that courage.

When it's me in my living room, it's pretty pure, and then what gets recorded involves more people, and it keeps escalating from there.

Composing gives me a chance to work in multiple dimensions and helps me pare down my melodies into what is essential. Learning new skills has always energized me and scoring has opened up a world of sonic possibilities.

I mean, I kind of remember... I'm 36 now, so it's kind of hard for me to relate to what it was like when I was 25, or 24, but I do remember a period in time when that's how I defined who I was, by the music I listened to and the movies I went to.

Like, I kind of developed my musical style in a vacuum. Even though I listen to a lot of stuff, the way I wrote was in my bedroom, really privately. It's still the way I write, actually.