I think my own personal style always ends up seeping into characters that I play. I’ve always had a very distinct idea of fashion for myself, and what a character should wear.
I feel there are tone singers, and there are more vocal gymnastics singers. And I think that’s amazing when people can do that, but I think there’s room for the tone singers. And there aren’t a lot of them.
Oh my God, there are so many songs I wish I had written. ‘Waters of March,’ I wish I had written ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me,’ I wish I had written ‘This Will Be Our Year,’ I mean, there’s millions of them. ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice?’
I just feel like growing up in Los Angeles, you learn, ‘Well you’re never gonna be the prettiest girl in the room, so just don’t even try.’ I mean, I care about being pretty, but it’s not my most valued thing.
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.
My sister and I do to what we love to do and do what we want to do, so that sort of started us off having a sense of ‘Do this because you love it’ not ‘Do this because you want to be famous.’
Well, my piano’s really beautiful. I actually have two pianos. I have a Yamaha upright from the ’60s that’s blond, wood, and black, and I also have one from the ’20s from Chicago – not a well-known brand or anything.
In making a record there are so fewer people involved – at least in our case. There were no more than three or four people in the studio at once. So I really feel like I can stand by everything on the record and say this is something that I personally endorse.
For those of us who try to keep remembering, Try to do our better than our best. Think of all the children in the drifts of snow. Winners never quit, but winters never rest.
