St. Vincent

“To be honest, because there's loud music in my ears probably three hours a day, between sound check and the show, I listen to podcasts more than I listen to music on the road.”

“I love Robert Fripp. You know what I really appreciate about Robert Fripp? He always dresses appropriately for the occasion. When he's on stage, he's a Dapper Dan.”

“The Lilith Fair thing was Bummer Town - hey, hop aboard the marginalizing train. I guess you had people come out of that and have careers, but I think there was a pretty intense backlash, too.”

“Musically, I have more things in common with tons of bands that have no female members.”

“I've always wanted to make music like people write plays, so I was inspired by writers as much as musicians.”

“I just love playing guitar, so that's what I'm going to do.”

“Well, I've been recording myself on a computer since I was about 13 or 14. So it's completely entwined with my creative process. Essentially, it allows you to make music that's better and smarter than you are, by using your ears to lead the way.”

“I was always just kind of obsessed with guitar, even before I started playing.”

“I only listen to my own music when I'm playing an hour-and-half set each night. I don't put it on recreationally.”

“I've been so entwined with technology since I was about 15, recording myself and multitracking and producing things on my own.”

“I think a lot of people who want to be musicians terrify their parents because they don't have a living example of it in their families, and I did. So I always knew that it was possible.”

“One of my favourite things about country music is that, at least until recently, you could always count on a solid story, a punchline and a pun. I think it has that in common with hip hop, where they're not afraid of wordplay and I really appreciate that.”

“I wrote 'Actor' all on the computer. I didn't touch any instruments until I was in the studio. So while I had all these ornate arrangements, I didn't have any songs.”

“I grew up in Texas and we used to go to Padre Island, eight hours in the car down to the beach.”

“I grew up around a lot of various religions, so it's a part of my consciousness in a way. Everything from heavy Catholicism to followers of Indian spiritual masters to Unitarian universalists - all in one family. Though the family aspect was stronger than any particular dogma.”

“I was a lusty kid who loved Tennessee Williams.”

“I remember looking at the sky and thinking that the universe is so big and it's all chaos. I call it 'the dark fear.' At any moment, the dark fear could come in.”

“Fashion, for me, is anything that's aesthetic and beautiful. Art, food, film. It's something that I appreciate and really like.”

“I think human beings have a really broad spectrum of traits, and I almost feel implicated when we say, 'Men are like this, women are like this.' Nobody was telling me, 'Don't get dirty, don't play in the mud, girls don't do that.'”

“I've always been pretty ravenous about pop culture, highbrow and lowbrow.”