Frankie Cosmos

“I've played Frankie Cosmos shows where the promoter or whoever sees that I'm the lead singer, and then they go up to David, the bassist, and are like, 'So, do we pay you?' And he's like, 'No, you pay her; she's the boss.' Those are moments where I'm just like, 'I'm clearly in charge.'”

“You meet a lot of people in New York who are different than you and have different stories, so I see everyone as super individual. I feel like I can be infinitely inspired because New York is huge.”

“I don't even know how people managed without the Internet years ago. Having to mail a cassette tape of your music to strangers over the course of months... I just can't imagine having to do that.”

“There've been times on tour when people have said to us, 'Yeah, your band is really simple.' But it's really not.”

“I'm not just going to hug every person that asks to hug me.”

“When I was 18, I borrowed my parents' car, and they are super supportive. They might give us snacks for the road, but it's not like they are paying clubs to book us.”

“I go through phases sometimes: 'I'm a genius; they get me,' and sometimes I'm like, 'Why does anyone want to hear me?'”

“I played my first show when I was 17, and that was a big moment. I realized it was something I could keep doing.”

“The first music-learning thing that I took seriously was piano lessons when I was a kid. I guess that was probably the only time that I was forced to perform music, because I had piano recitals, and my school also had mandatory music classes that had some performing required.”

“What I really care about is writing... Some people feel about touring the way I feel about writing, which is, 'Whoa, I can't believe I get to do this as a job.'”

“It was a really long process, dropping out of college. I was there for a semester, then I would take a semester off and go on tour, then I would go back for a semester.”

“My Bandcamp had a lot of bad and good music, but I relied on that to sort my feelings. My sadness will always be there, even in the happiness.”

“I knew that 'Next Thing' was an angry album while I was making it. But I thought that it was angry the way that you get in a fight, not angry as a huge life change.”

“Sometimes I'm really mean to someone who just hugged me. I never thought that I would be like that.”

“I'm always the one sitting at the merch table and talking to everyone at the show - and I think it's because I have this deep fear that if I'm not approachable or I'm not there, people are going to think I'm a brat.”

“I feel like I can't write something that has a real emotion in it if I can't connect to that emotion.”

“I was seeing kids my age playing shows at their parents' houses or the couple of all-ages venues that existed. I feel like I saw so many different kinds of music that I wouldn't have discovered on my own.”

“My brother was 13 when people started telling me that he was a 'hipster.' I was 11 and thought it was so stressful, like, 'How do you not be called that?'”

“I feel like touring is a man's game. And I don't think that's sexist; I just think, on tour, you can't really take care of yourself the way you want to.”

“I definitely think that touring is a really crazy lifestyle and makes it hard to live a normal life and have relationships and friendships.”