A friend of mine once told me that I can't screw up when I play my own music. I also take voice lessons, play other peoples' songs out of music books, and occasionally figure out how to play other people's music from records. This keeps my ears, fingers, and mind working.
Dweezil and I are going on tour with the band probably starting in the middle of February for a month probably playing a few songs from my new record and then I'll continue on after that tour.
I don't think I can tell any stories about how I lived in a van in Alaska. I grew up in the suburbs, I even had my own room. We weren't poor. Everything was very normal.
I have many memories of waking up to eat breakfast that my mother carefully prepared for us and her saying, what do y'all want for lunch, and as we're eating lunch, what do y'all want for dinner? It's always about the next meal.
I'm making a record that's half stripped down acoustic which is the way I perform a lot and half of it is very produced. It's really hard to keep music simple but I was trying to keep it simple and focus on one or two instruments and vocals.
One of the things that's influenced me musically was my experience at Brown University. I was surrounded by musicians that I really admired, and felt challenged to come up with music, lyrics, and recordings that stood up to the expectations of those musicians and myself.
The guys in my band are great-we watch movies, we eat pizza, take walks, read books. Everybody has a really great sense of humor. And my boyfriend comes and visits me on the road.
The shows are so different from each other, depending on whether I play with my band, Nine Stories, other musicians, an orchestra, only one or two members of my band.
Where I grew up in Dallas, things might be a little more traditional. People have the same things in mind. They're supposed to grow up, go to college, get a job, get married, and have children, grandchildren. That's the world I grew up in.
