A significant event for me was learning Hank Williams, reconnecting with his music's simplicity, which inspired me to inhabit the same territory. It's different, because I grew up on Led Zeppelin, The Stooges and punk, so in that sense I'm mutating country and folk more than a few degrees.
Everything about Hank Williams interests me. His music, his life. His death. His impact.
There were only 75 people in my graduating class at the school I attended in Hannah, S.C. It was a small school and that translated into not a lot of opportunities when it came to music. We had academic and sports programs but we never had a consistent music program. We would have a band one year, and a chorus one year, but nothing ever lasted.
I've always wanted to be a PC Music girl, like Hannah Diamond or SOPHIE.
'Hannibal' is not reality; the whole show is not reality. It's heightened reality: they want music the entire time.
I always liked the stress, the real high-stakes, get-the-orders-out line-cook job, as well as the ordering of the produce and everything - it's really similar to making music for a show like 'Hannibal.' It's like cooking; it's just like owning a restaurant.
With 'Hannibal,' it's almost like the music is part of the furniture, so as a character goes from one room to another room, or we go from one place to another or whatever, the music is just going with it the whole time the same way that the audience is sort of tracking it and following along.
I'm the haphazard engineer of my own music.
I loved TV, and I watched anything with music - 'Hee Haw,' 'Happy Days,' anything like that. So I loved the Monkees.
My ideology was, if I just make very happy music, very happy music, then people will forget about whatever their problems are. I will forget about my problems.
If you are already happy, music heightens your joy.
I want to make some happy music.
I gravitate towards happy music. I love the Beach Boys.
Happy music doesn't tend to move me much.
If you listen to most of my songs, the lyrics are pretty kind of dark, but I like to put it behind happy music because then it evens it out... I'm really happy, actually. Obviously I have my bad moments, but I always challenge myself to not put negativity out there because there's already enough.
Because of this high status of the object in our culture, something has to be a thing. Live efforts are almost marginal. I think dance, for example, is just as much a thing, and I want for it to have the same status. I don't want it to be the thing that comes in the evening and is, like, the happy music.
So it doesn't have to be happy music to be inspiring.
We play happy music, and we make people happy. That's why they like us.
I remember listening to the radio as a kid and finding that the songs always made me feel more peaceful. Funny, but the more hurtin' the music was, the better it made me feel. I think of that now when I write my songs. I may not be feelin' the blues myself, but I'm writing them for other people who have a hard life.
I think what I'm going to do is get more balance in my life to still be able to go out and play the hard rock 'n' roll and do what I like to do in music.
