"I don’t remember making a decision about music. I just always knew it was what I was going to do."
"My songwriting is very personal. The music that influenced me was so impactful that had I grown up somewhere else, I know I would still write the same way I do because of those influences."
"I played at Room 5 a lot, which is probably the smallest capacity venue in Los Angeles. I begged my friends to come see me."
"But me writing sad songs doesn’t mean I am a sad person."
"Boygenius' was the first time I produced without a producer-producer in the room. It’s been crazy."
"I love a good chorus, you know? I consider a lot of what I love pop. I consider Mitski pop."
"I do the least 'working on myself' in our band."
"A lot of my close friends are musicians and are consumed by the idea of death; their heads are like a torture chamber. I’m not like that - I don’t have death anxiety and I don’t think about it all the time."
"Doing stuff on my own terms and making a record without being signed to a label - I credit that all to my commercial work."
"Often people have to wake me up from a nap to tell me to go on stage."
"Sometimes I’m so exhausted and I don’t really want to play."
"I wanted to talk about how stupid music is. I wanted to talk about how awesome music is, and how depressing it is, and why we all make music if it doesn’t last forever."
"We’re all guilty of slacktivism, or of feeling like a savior for taking two seconds of your day to think about someone else."
"I feel like in pop music and even indie music, there’s this weird thing where women have been pitted against each other."
"I think the longform email is exhilarating and exhausting at the same time."
"When I first picked up an instrument, nothing really happened. I played piano when I was a little kid. I hated it so much, I actually don’t play piano now."
"None of my family are musicians, but there was a lot of classic rock and country going on. I always wanted to sing. As soon as I expressed an interest my mom was super supportive of me."
"My form of rebellion was starting to play guitar. I was 13. The first song I played was 'Lovesick Blues' by Hank Williams."
"For every single person who’s struggled with depression, there’s this weird part of your brain that tells you you’re the only person who’s ever felt like that, even if you know for a fact it’s not true."
"The Replacements don't sound like The Replacements half the time!"
"I’m not afraid to have a really weird idea or, you know, take a really bad guitar solo."
"I was planning to go into the studio in the summer of 2018, and then I started two bands!"
"I think the main thing which boygenius and I talk about ad nauseum, is that I feel like I just apologise for myself less."
"I’ve never really been afraid of how people were going to define me, as long as I didn’t write some cheaper song because people like that I’m depressed."
"Twitter is an extension of every dumb thought I have, firing it off - Instagram is a little more methodical."
