Often I’ve had problems automatically bending to a lover’s will, becoming what I know they want me to be. Immediately, I learn all the music they love, listen to it, study it, instead of being like, ‘This is what I love!’
Sometimes when I perform, and it’s obvious the audience is just there to party, or if I feel a wall between me and the audience, I get existential about it.
With solo shows, you have complete control over the set list. If you feel like you want to do something different or do a new song, you can just work it in. You can talk to the audience or not talk to the audience. There’s nothing that’s set.
I was a film major because, for some reason, I thought that that was a creative job that had more job opportunities. I don’t know what logic I was following, but that was my impression at the time.
I took a few piano lessons as a kid, but it didn’t last; I just learned piano from doing it over and over on my own, because I didn’t have many friends, and there was always a keyboard in the house.
Whenever I’ve tried to ingratiate myself to an existing community, I tend to give too much, to become whatever it is they want me to be. It’s something I do automatically – I’ve learnt to immediately adapt.
I think it’s our responsibility as artists to not only fight for our art but fight for the communities that are the reason we’re able to continue making art, especially since, in Brooklyn’s case, we as artists somehow made it ‘cool’ enough for the bigger money-making industries to start taking over.
