Bonnie McKee

“There are some artists that don't like working with other females, which is fine. They have their own thing. I personally love being surrounded by other females.”

“When I moved to Seattle in fourth grade, I joined the Seattle Girls' Choir. It's a world-class choir, and we competed, toured Europe, and went and sang at the Vatican, so it was a really awesome experience to have that young.”

“After struggling for so long in the industry and writing so many failed songs and hearing 'no' for so long - I'm so grateful every time I hear a song that I was a part of on the radio.”

“I'm kinda famous for my barbecues - I'm always hosting parties.”

“A line has to have a certain number of syllables, and the next line has to be its mirror image.”

“I feel like a lot of pop singers hurt themselves if they don't have the proper training.”

“My No. 1 is Johnny Depp, ever since 'Cry Baby.' He had my heart.”

“There's a lot of little 'Bonnie-isms' in 'Teenage Dream' that I was hoping to keep for myself.”

“I've always had a teenage thread running through my music. On my first album, I had a song called 'Confessions of a Teenage Girl.' It's about using your feminine wealth to get what you want.”

“I started writing my own songs from the time I was a little kid. I would write my own lyrics to other people's songs that I heard on the radio and take whatever song and make it about fairies and angels - whatever little girls sing about.”

“I've been singing since I could talk, pretty much. My dad was really musical and taught me how to sing harmonies and got me a karaoke machine with tape decks.”

“When I write for myself, I think about myself and draw from my own experience.”

“I always had the fantasy of Hollywood and Los Angeles and the beach, not realizing that Hollywood was so very far from the beach.”

“I've always had a teenage thread running through my music.”

“For 'Dynamite,' Max and Luke went to dinner and left me with a melody, and then I put it together.”

“When my parents were like, 'We're going to the Northwest,' I thought, 'You've gotta be kidding me.' I was so depressed. The cold weather really did not agree with me. When I moved back down to L.A. at 16, I felt like it was home - it was where I belonged.”

“I was born in Northern California and lived there until I was about eight years old. Then my parents moved me up to Seattle. I lived there from ages eight to 16. When I was a California kid, I remember running around in my bathing suit and barefoot all the time and getting a suntan.”

“The original title was 'Waking Up Diagonal'. It's the first line of the song. I just thought it was more interesting than 'I Don't Care', which is such a boring title to me. When I hear that song, it breaks my heart a little bit because it's my story.”

“I have a notebook of concepts. There are titles everywhere if you are looking for them. I pull from them. There is a secret list that I keep for myself about what I want to sing about, and those are the ones I know I am not going to give up for someone else.”

“I saw Tina Turner do 'Proud Mary' on TV, and it was so electrifying and such a unique experience. I remember crying out of excitement, and I knew that I wanted to be a performer and make people feel excited and moved, and that's why I gravitated towards it.”