My big influences are Joni Mitchell, and a lot of classical and Indian music, as well as Nina Simone and the personal blues and jazz of Billie Holiday. Other influences for me include Bjork, Nick Drake, and Sufjan Stevens.
Generally, I like Indian music because the melodies are usually not too complex, which is how I like music, and that's the way I write music.
The Indian music market is very film-oriented, and any other creative music venture doesn't receive enough support. I'd rather do singles and put them on my website.
I listen to a wide range of music, from country to pop to alternative rock, as well as Indian music. You know, what excites me are new ideas. And with a lot of the international hits - from Lady Gaga to Rihanna and others - you'd find excellent production and groundbreaking ideas that lift the music to a greater realm.
I gravitate to rhythmic music, so I listen to jazz, world music, Indian music, Hawaiian music, all kinds.
Lataji defines the sound of Indian music, and I always had a secret desire of recording with her at least once.
I was very sure I did not want to be the stereotype of what Indian people are seen as, which is Bollywood and henna. That's all great! It's what we are, and I love it. I love saris; I love music. I love henna; I love dancing, but that's not all we are.
I think there are so many ways to become interested in music. I believe signs of sustained interest gives a sense of the right time. Music, if thought of as a language, would perhaps indicate that as early as possible is not so bad. I do believe that a really nurturing first teacher that makes the child love something is crucial.
I guess my music taste is pretty predictable: I like new indie rock stuff, older stuff.
To a degree, rock fans like to live vicariously and they like that, music fans in general, but when indie music sort of came into prominence in the early '90s, a lot of it was TV-driven, too, where if you saw the first Nirvana video, you're looking at three guys that look like people you go to school with.
In British music, you have indie, rock... Grime is now one of those pillars. It's a foundation of British music.
Some artists and indie musicians see Spotify fairly positively - as a way of getting noticed, of getting your music out there where folks can hear it risk-free.
When I was a kid growing up in the '60s, music was an outlet for enlightenment, frustration, rebellion. It was more about individualism. Today it's just like a big business.
I hope that what you take away from my album is not just the music - which I did want to be fun, and I did want it to be about individuality, but please also take away from it that there's no dream that's too big.
I'm inspired by a lot of things. I came from Indonesia. I grew up watching a lot of YouTube videos and was inspired by all these other things. I just love making music. I don't think I'm trying to profit off anything. I just like creating stuff.
I was mostly an indoor girl at university. Where other students did drama or music or sport alongside their degrees, I wrote. I used to work on essays and classwork during the day and 'The Bone Season' in the evenings.
Drugs have nothing to do with the creation of music. In fact, they are dumb and self indulgent. Kind of like sucking your thumb!
Some of my favorite music in the world is Haydn. I had a sabbatical one year and made myself one promise: to play a different Haydn piano sonata each day - they are inexhaustible treasures.
Jazz and Cuba are inexorably tied together; it's not a branch from a tree. Latin music is part of the root of jazz.
When you listen to a song, it should make you sit up and wonder, 'Hey, what is this!' or give you an inexplicable feeling of joy or relate beautifully to the music in you.
