When I was 13, I wasn't the coolest kid in my class, and that inner dork is a wonderful thing to have.

I don't like to plan harmonies too much, because there's something fun that happens when you just sing a pass, then sing another pass, and layer them on top of each other.

It can make you a little crazy when you are too connected to a product.

I've been writing music since I was about eight. I would write sporadically. I wrote a lot of music in high school. I guess the oldest song on the record ("I Thought I Saw Your Face") is about eight years old. It's the old "I had my whole life to write my first album and six months to write the second one." I did, to some degree, but actually, a lot of the songs that ended up on the record, I wrote really recently. So it varies.

Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep -feel it all. Look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love.

That people equate being girlie with being nonthreatening … I mean, I can't think of a more blatant example of playing into exactly the thing that we're trying to fight against. I can't be girlie? I think the fact that people are associating being girlie with weakness, that needs to be examined. I don't think that it undermines my power at all.

If I were to work with my mom, I probably would not want her to play my mom. That would get too real.