Valerie June

“I try to write down every song that comes to me, even though I know that every song that comes to me isn't a song that I need to sing.”

“As I try to get around with a guitar, a banjo and a suitcase of high heels and dresses, I treasure that little ukulele.”

“I like performing live more than anything. I get a little bit afraid in the studio.”

“I must stay true to myself and take my own path all the way.”

“Amalgamation is a good word that I like to use - musically and in every way.”

“I've been busy and need to slow my little tail down and sit and meditate somewhere. I do my walking meditations every day, but just to sit still. Just to be in one place and just to be quiet.”

“When I was 15, I begged my grandfather to give me this guitar he'd always had in the back of his closet. I promised him I'd learn to play it, but I never did. Then my grandfather died, and I felt so guilty. So I started playing.”

“The challenge is how strange and different my voice sounds, so I have tried to sound like other people and tried to be something I wasn't. I have tried to be a soul singer because someone else thought that a good idea. Not because I did.”

“When I was really little, I loved Whitney Houston. I thought she was the prettiest thing in the world.”

“My voice is who I am, who I was when I was 3, and who I am going to be when I am 90 years old. When I hit the stage and people do not know who I am, they automatically assume, before I open my mouth, I am going to sing a Bob Marley song!”

“My music confuses people because they think I will sound a certain way because I look a certain way with the dreads.”

“When I was writing 'Shotgun,' it's one of the first songs that's come to me as an image.”

“As soon as I could talk, I was bellowing at the top of my lungs. My parents couldn't get over how weird I sounded - like an old man when I was just a toddler! But no one was gonna shut me up.”

“When I first moved to New York, I was still returning to Tennessee every few months to perform.”

“Saturdays are set for antique shops. Williamsburg in Brooklyn has some good ones. I get in there and start meddling around with dusty boxes and rickety, worn-in stuff. I like it when I find something with someone else's name on it.”

“If I have something inside me that I want to get out, I'll just beat it out on the banjo right then and there.”

“It is such a gift to be able to write songs in general, but when you can share it with somebody, it is just such a pleasure. It is such a happy moment when you finish a song, and you are just like, 'Wow - that was great.'”

“I don't care if you're Muslim or Christian or Buddhist or whatever your religion is, when you listen to a spiritual song and you really open your heart, you can feel it. You can feel the message of it. Just a simple story.”

“When I was teenager, Britney Spears was it - that was the pop world that was happening, and I knew I wasn't in it.”

“I just let the songs tell me what to do - they are my guides, and they are the boss. So I am subservient to the songs, and I let them tell me what to do. I don't judge them; I just write whatever comes to me.”