Ladyhawke Quotes

It's amazing. Being clearheaded for a show, for starters. Not being reflux-y because of the amount of beer you've drunk.

I am a fan of the true crime and horror genres! So, I've got a dark side too.

I'm still always a country girl from New Zealand.

“Money to Burn” is a fantasy. I mean, I would love for that to be a true story. Most of my songs are written in metaphors.

You can't always be like 'sunshine and roses'. I like a little bit of darkness.

I always make music that's reflective of the mindset I'm in at the time, how I'm feeling.

I was living in the U.K. I was back in New Zealand for the New Zealand Music Awards, which is like our annual New Zealand GRAMMYs.

I would be happier if it were a full audience full of drag queens. It would be my dreams come true.

That's always been my main anxiety - the people in the room. That's my massive stress - thinking that these people in the room are judging me. And, this time around, I've been able to think a little bit more clearly about that. I've been able to think "Well, no. They're here to enjoy a show," and I want to give them that. I want to give them their money's worth – for starters.

It doesn't matter if there are 20, 40, 100, or 500 people there. It doesn't matter how many people. You've got to perform to those people because they've come.

Lucy Lawless presented a couple of the awards. And, when I walked off the stage with her after one of them, she said "Oh, I want to introduce you to my friend Madeleine," and that's how I met Madeleine. I realize that's a ridiculous story.

That song ["Money to Burn"] is me being a fly on the wall in situations in LA. I mean, I've seen the way a lot of people operate and I've seen that sort of thing go down. There's a lot of rich kids with a little bit of extra money.

I got to a happier point and then started making a record [Wild Things]. I don't mind at all that it sounds like LA, because LA was integral to me feeling better. Seeing the sunshine and all that other sorts of stuff was definitely a huge part in why the album sounds like it sounds.

“Let is Roll” is like - well, it was like me thinking of a human being in its purest form. That form being a baby where there's nothing there - well, unless I guess you believe that something comes along attached. It depends on what you believe.

I think I've got a lot of dark lines in this record [Wild Things] that I've hidden quite nicely among the nice things.

Writing that sort of [songs like "Let is Roll"]made me try to almost sort of ingrain it in my own head every time I sing it live as well. It's like therapy. It's like "Move on, Pip! Come on. You can do this! You can do this."

You can be surrounded by people all the time, but you feel so alone. I think that's when you can lose perspective and lose control of what you're doing. It's almost as if you have no fear and you don't really care about what happens to yourself.

"The River" [song] is also, yes, very metaphorical. Rivers are cleansing. As long as human beings have been on the Earth we've used rivers to cleanse ourselves. And, for me, the lyrics "something in the river," I think is - well, the river is a metaphor for where I was at the time.

Since I've stopped drinking I'm way better at singing. I can project my voice better. I can actually walk on stage and make eye contact with the audience, which I never used to know how to do in the past. So, it's made a huge difference for me.

I don't want to say I drank the Kool-Aid because I'm definitely not religious and I don't buy into any religion at all. I'm anti, because I don't like anyone being discriminated against. But, I do think that I very much needed a sunny place for me to feel happier, and living in LA was almost like that sort of cleansing experience like I was being baptized in a river.

Stupid things like that which I never took into consideration – that I never thought about before like "Oh, maybe I'm hindering my singing by drinking all this amount before I go on stage. Maybe it's making me not project my voice properly."

I think love and obsession are almost one in the same thing at some times. Because the person you end up falling in love with, there is an element of obsession in the early days - it's all you can think about.

It's crazy in just the difference it makes turning up to sound check without a hangover.

I have these thoughts. I think "What if the show doesn't sell well? What if it's a half-empty room?" These are the paranoia thoughts that go through my head on a day-by-day basis.

I always make music that's reflective of the mindset I'm in at the time, and how I'm feeling.

A few people said to me on the UK tour 'that feeling you're feeling is natural. Everyone feels nerves. But, you've got to use that to your advantage. You've got to use that nervous energy and pull it into your performance’. And, I'd never thought of that before.

I don't drink anymore. That's a huge - that's a massive - difference in my life. It's made a huge change in my touring.

Years ago I was in a band called Two Lane Blacktop - we deliberately named ourselves after the 'Two-Lane Blacktop' movie, 'cuz it's a car chase movie. All our songs were based on movies, every single song. I love movies, and that was something that me and the singer in Two Lane Blacktop bonded over - we were design students together, we did a film-class together, so we became obsessed with movies. It's followed me around ever since then, it's a constant theme.

You don't say "Maybe I should go to bed early tonight" or do any of that stuff. It's almost like you know you're alone and you have to get through it by whatever means - distracting yourself. Because, the more alone time the worse, you know?

I remember writing a song when I was about 15. This is the one I can remember. I know I'd been writing poetry for a long time, since I was about eight, but I remember my first one that I put to chords. I was really trying to be like the psychedelic era Beatles, I was obsessed. All I could think about was Beatles and Hendrix. So I tried to write a psychedelic song, and it was the worst. I couldn't even... If I read it now - I still have the book somewhere - it makes me cringe out loud. It was just about psychedelic stuff.

When I say “when you’re always almost lonely, you forget to take it slowly,” I mean that you don’t always take care of yourself.

I think love and obsession are almost one and the same thing at some times. Because the person you end up falling in love with, there is an element of obsession in the early days - it's all you can think about.

I wear non-gender-specific clothes. I just look silly in girls' clothes. I'm quite tall, and they're never the right cut for me - T-shirts and stuff are always too low-cut or too short. I've worn boys' clothes forever because girls' stuff never felt right for me.

I guess, a lot of people think is a long time between albums. It was needed for me. I went through a lot to get the album ["Wild Things"] finished. I actually went through a lot to even get the album started.

I'm more of a whiz on the guitar and drums. I hear certain sounds in my head, and I find it easy to translate them into synth sounds, but I'm not really technically-minded.

With the first record (2008’s Ladyhawke) I was quite naive, but very excited and happy.

I think love is one that can definitely make you go crazy, and it's almost like love can induce mental illness in a lot of people, or bring it out worse. It makes people make crazy decisions.

With the second record (2012's Anxiety), I was quite jaded, and exhausted, and tired. With this third record, I feel that I've come full circle. I had gotten to the absolute pinnacle of how bad someone could feel.

I feel like in every song I write, I always write a little darker bit.

I'm just a small-town New Zealand girl. But, I do think it was incredibly necessary for me. Wild Things wouldn't exist if I hadn't have made some dramatic changes and that all happened in LA.

I don't want anyone to think that I've been lost to California.

I do enjoy a beer. And a shot of vodka with some apple juice is what loosens me up before I go onstage, because I get really nervous. I wish I could say it was something more healthy, like Pilates.