It takes a lot of courage to be a performer.

Making music is so much more self-motivated. It's my own music. It's my own time. I don't have a team around me that's helped me make everything.

The classical music scene was completely unfamiliar to me. A lot of people think of older generations and stuffiness. But it's not. You listen to the Overture of 1812, and you can hear a rock n' roll catharsis.

I had no kind of work ethic and I always felt that music - especially rock 'n' roll - was a more for boys.

Aligning my music with something that feels morally and politically passionate to me feels good.

As soon as I saw myself beginning to be way too comfortable on a film set or TV set, and not stimulated by it the way that I had been that had brought me to want to be there professionally and creatively, was the moment that I started getting really, really sad. I decided, "Okay, I just want to actually be here, how can I make this be interesting for me?"

When I have no idea what to do with how I'm feeling, I generally make a song out of it.