I leave for the show at least an hour ahead, and I do some vocal warm-ups, and that's pretty much it.
A girl can do what she wants to do / And that's what I'm gonna do.
Other people will call me a rebel, but I just feel like I'm living my life and doing what I want to do. Sometimes people call that rebellion, especially when you're a woman.
Record stores are the backbone of the recorded music culture. It's where we go to network, browse around, and find new songs to love. The stores whose staff live for music have spread the word about exciting new things faster and with more essence than either radio or the press. Any artist that doesn't support the wonderful ma and pa record stores across America is contributing to our own extinction.
Beyond just writing about falling in love and out of love and wanting to do certain things and going out and partying and all the things that I grew up writing about, I want to write about deeper things.
I have a tough time judging myself.
I don't know if I miss it per se, but I do miss the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any rock 'n' roll out there anyplace. Everything does seem kind of tame. It's even hard in Manhattan to go out and find a good band to go see.
God, I always just think of myself as a jeans and T-shirt kind of person.
I left my family, and I left my brother and sister, and I went and lived my dream. I saw everybody, but is it ever enough?
If you really believe in yourself, you cannot listen to other people.
I think I look better in darker clothes. And maybe the fact that I wear black so much makes me more aware of putting people at ease.
It's very tough to give advice because it's tough out there for everybody but for a girl it's even tougher, because I don't think the glass ceiling has changed at all in the past 30 years. Otherwise the radio would be covered with girl bands, or girls in bands, so I don't think much has changed on that level. But I think that bands can still have a lot of success trying to go another route.
People don't want to see women doing things they don't think women should do.
I remember thinking that Janis Joplin sang like Mae West talked. When I first heard the primal scream in 'Piece Of My Heart,' I was hooked. 'Cheap Thrills,' Janis 'Live' with Big Brother And The Holding Company, was one of my all time faves. During the 'whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa's' in 'Combination Of Two,' I couldn't help but go to the mirror and pretend I was a wild woman like Janis, in a rock band.
I'm not necessarily intimidated by really jocky guys. I can talk football with them, you know what I mean?
The Runaways' audience was 90 percent male. That was kind of depressing...Why don't women-our own gender-come out and support us?
I started The Runaways with Sandy West. We shared the dream of girls playing rock and roll. Sandy was an exuberant and powerful drummer. So underrated, she was the caliber of John Bonham. I am overcome from the loss of my friend. I always told her, we changed the world.
Rock and roll by its nature is sexual. So girls playing rock and roll is saying to the world, "We own our sexuality." I think that pop music is sort of about "you can do what you want to me" kind of energy, while rock and roll is "I'm going to do what I want to you" kind of energy.
People are very sincere in their praise, and you can't take it lightly.
Egotistical people are not pretty. We all know that, I'm sure everybody knows an egotistical person someplace.
I think I was born strong-willed. That's not the kind of thing you can learn. The advantage is, you stick to what you believe in and rarely get pushed out of what you want to do.
It's hard to have a dialogue when you're name-calling.
If you're secure in yourself, and even if you're not secure in yourself, you don't need to bully.
Partly, I like a bad reputation. But I also want a reputation of being a good person.
I don't really care if you think I'm strange--I ain't gonna change!
Women are still second-class citizens.
Nobody knows what anticipation is anymore. Everything is so immediate.
The media says that equality for women has arrived, but if you look around, you still don't see girls playing guitars and having success with it.
Well before I was in a band, I wanted to be everything from a vet, an astronaut, an archeologist was a big one. It could be very wide-ranging because I had a lot of different interests including music so I'm very happy where I wound up.
I've been able to do a lot of things a lot of people haven't, that other people would dream of. I've been able to live out my fantasies, and dreams! So, I'm real lucky.
Get a book, so you know where to put your fingers. Otherwise it would be tough to learn. Also you have to fight through getting callouses on your fingers because it hurts, you are pressing your fingers on metal strings, they will hurt at first until you start building up callouses.
I figured out it was a social thing, what women were allowed to do. At a very young age, I decided I was not going to follow women's rules.
A girl playing rock and roll, it's saying I own my sexuality and I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. And I think people just find that threatening.
A lot of the songs I've recorded are songs I write.
You gotta not care about what people think in general about you. I'm not talking about bad stuff, if you're a nasty person, because I don't consider myself a mean person, I consider that I know what i want and I'm tough. But I'm very emotional and un-tough on a lot of levels, I cry very easily, I'm sensitive and I don't think that's a bad thing.
Rock 'n' roll music is what gets me off.
The thing I get out of it is the connection. I remember going to shows as a kid and meeting eyes with the people in the band, and knowing they are meeting eyes with you, and that moment, that smile, and that's your moment. I want to create millions of little moments for other people.
You want to have butterflies in your stomach, because if you don't, if you walk out onstage complacent, that's not a good thing.
Can't break free from the things that you do. I wanna walk, but I run back to you, that's why I hate myself for loving you.
The better your base is, and the more you know from experience, the better off you'll be when you try and make the big move.
I think the media has got into this Enquirer mentality. Years ago, legitimate press didn't really concern itself with sordid details of people's personal lives. That wasn't the focus. But also a lot of celebrities were bullied into revealing this breakup or tragedy or divorce or problem. They started to talk about it and the press just started to talk about people's private lives. That just seems to be the norm.
I tend to keep my private life private. I think it's important to have mystique. It's important to keep people thinking and guessing, and you want everyone to think you're singing to them.
Why there aren't people out there willing to have fun playing rock 'n' roll. I just don't get it.
Something happens, you can't even put your finger on it, and then you don't quite feel the same way anymore. All of a sudden, there's fights or something and you are going "who is this person?" I've seen this happen to other people and it has happened to me.
I'd like to just be a little bit more open to making mistakes and not worrying about it so much.
I'm concentrating on staying healthy, having peace, being happy, remembering what is important, taking in nature and animals, spending time reading, trying to understand the universe, where science and the spiritual meet.
I don't pay attention. I don't read stuff or message boards because you definitely get affected. You can read a hundred great comments, amazing comments, and have one bad one and that is all you can focus on and it wrecks your day. It says something about negativity and how it draws us somehow.
If you are gonna live your life, just try to not be crazy, have fun but have some focus and some purpose and try to know what that is. If you don't know now, try to figure it out.
You know I don't care if the world thinks I'm smart or not.
I do not knowingly kill any living thing - including insects or rodents - and I thank my food for sustaining me.
I had a blast doing the Warped Tour, but it's good to be home, for sure.
Just be yourself and everything will fall in line, the way it's supposed to be. If you're yourself, that's the best thing you can do, because you can never go "damn if I'd only been myself." Live an authentic life and you don't have to worry about your reputation.
My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am.
You got nothing to lose. You don't lose when you lose fake friends.
Girls see these defined roles they're supposed to follow in life, but when I was a young child, my parents told me I could be anything.
I love rock and roll, so put another dime in the juke box, baby.
I think there's nothing better than seeing a three-chord straight up rock 'n' roll band in your face with sweaty music and three minute good songs.
Fetish is a straight-up sex song.
That's the sad thing about it, is that you don't know. And you certainly don't know when you quickly meet somebody. But even as you know somebody longer, it's really hard to know. Obviously you go on your gut feeling but that can be wrong too. ANd it's terrible to have to be wary about people, because it is not my nature, but I've been burned a few times and you just have to careful.
Before I settled on music, I wanted to be an archaeologist, an astronaut, all sorts of really diverse things.
Obviously, the music and lyrics are in me, but if I let myself get in my own way, I do. I empty out and let it come, and then the music spirits take over.
I consider that success for anything, whether it's being a musician or a writer. As long as you can support yourself, you're successful. People need to change their idea of what success is.
Being onstage is everything thats good about life.
Factory farming is one of the biggest contributors to the most serious environmental problems. The meat industry causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, planes and ships in the world.
I don't know if I get recognized necessarily, though I do get looked at a lot - but I don't know if it's because of who I am, or if people just think I look weird.
My parents taught me I could be anything in the world I wanted to be.
Life is strong and fragile. It's a paradox... It's both things, like quantum physics: It's a particle and a wave at the same time. It all exists all together.
I've been doing this stuff for so long it's the one aspect of my life that I've paid attention to and really sort of not paid attention to the rest of it.
Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. Make your own victories. Make your own mistakes.
A lot of people would say "well that's not a bad reputation. you sound like a pussy" and I would say yea. but I am passionate about music and being taken seriously about my music, so if you're going to mess with that, we have a problem.
I've done some acting and a lot of different things, but mostly it's the music.
I think what people see in me is one slice of who I am. It does permeate my life in the sense that I don't like to be told what to do, or how to be, or how I can do it. But I'm probably a lot tamer than people would expect.
Well you know I've been in that place too where you worry about what everybody thinks of you, am I popular, do people care, are they looking at me, all that stuff. That's a drag, man. Having to worry about fitting in, am I cool enough to ANYTHING.
When you're onstage and the audience is smiling and singing and bopping along and you're all on the same level, it's the best feeling in the world. It may sound dumb and corny to say it, but it's like pure love.
I fiercely protect my privacy. I just don't think it's everyone's business to know every little detail about my life. That's just the way I've handled myself.
Performance-wise, you really need to be down in the trenches; you need to do the hard work, for a lot of reasons: To build yourself as a performer, to get a sense of the audience, to work hard and to wonder, 'Do I really want to do this?'
I grew up in a world that told girls they couldn't play rock 'n' roll.
For me the challenge isn't to be different but to be consistent.
Cutting meat out of your diet is the best thing you can do for animals and your own health.
There's nothing wrong with being single and not getting married and being, you know, just an old single lady. Who cares?
I bought one of those Learn How to Play Guitar Chords By Yourself and it shows you the diagram where to put your hands and I took that in my room, sat with my singles and learned how to play guitar.
It's just hard to look at yourself and guess how you're going to be perceived by other people sometimes. I do my best to let people know that I'm approachable, but I'm a human being just like anybody else. Sometimes people forget that. They forget that you're a person and they treat you like this celebrity thing. But I have to be patient with that, and I try to be.
Pop music is not a threatening style of music.
I went from a naive, regular girl in high school to trying to realize my dream. When my family moved from the East Coast to California, I thought in my little brain, "Wow, I'm going to Hollywood. I could actually make this happen." It was easier for me to think it's possible living in a place like Los Angeles than trying to do it in suburban Maryland.
I'm really happy doing what I'm doing. I'm not looking to do anything else. I love what I do. I love music. I love playing. I love touring.
The follow your dreams thing is really important because so many people are railroaded into taking other paths by their family, their friends, people who should be supportive going, 'What are you talking about?' Even just seemingly regular career paths, but if it's not what people expect for you they kind of react funny.
I wanted to be an actor, an astrologer, an astronaut; a lot of different things were going through my mind. But I also wanted to play guitar. I mentioned to my parents that I wanted an electric guitar for Christmas. They got me one! I sat there all Christmas morning making a lot of loud horrible noise.
I've always got something to say.
I think what I'm going to do is get more balance in my life to still be able to go out and play the hard rock 'n' roll and do what I like to do in music
Being the first is kind of dirty, and it's great
In pop music, you say, 'You can do what you want to me.' Rock 'n' roll says, 'I'm gonna do what I want to you.'
Girls have got balls. They're just a little higher up, that's all.
I know music is subjective.
I remember times when I was at shows and the person onstage locked eyes with me. And in that moment, everything was right with the world. I think that's part of my job, to create these thousands of moments every night. And for the rest of their life, they can say, 'You guys looked at me,' or 'You sweated on me,' or 'I got your gum.'
I love to engage with people who come to see us.
I don't like to say where I'll be in 10 years.
Even though everybody's lives are different, in general we're all human beings, and we go through the same things: disappointments, the pleasures of life, life and death. That's always been a really big part of the show to me, making sure the audience feels connected, and that carries through to the album.
Happiness doesn't necessarily lie in material things. You just have to put yourself in a position to be happy. If you can do what you love for a living, that's a good start.
I wouldn't say no to other kinds of musical opportunities. I guess that it just depends on what it was or what it required me to do, and if I felt that it compromised my own soul.
To be so superfocused and honed in on one thing can be good because then you get what you're supposed to get done, done but you also miss out on other things. I could have spent more time with my family, and a million other little things.
Obviously, some people are thick, and they're not gonna see what they don't want to see.
I don't wait till stage to use my sexuality. My zipper's down right now. I mean, I use it all the time.
I hope one day people don't look at women like they're out of their minds when they want to pick up an instrument and play. And I think we're getting a lot closer to that.
When you're singing songs about love and sex, you want everyone to think you're singing to them. Whether you're a boy, a girl, a woman, a man - whatever you're into, I can be that.
Disharmony is natural in any band.
Vegan With A Vengeance is on my kitchen shelf. This fun and creative book is delicious for people like me, who don’t eat pets.
I don't give a damn about my reputation. You're living in the past, it's a new generation.
To reach the highest level you have to not just have a dream and focus but you also have to make sure you are writing great songs, and if you feel they're what you want to represent you, that is key. But getting out on the road is key. And get your music out there. Maybe something catches, maybe it gets picked up and used on television, you just never know.
I learned how to scream from Marc Bolan.
I feel like it's my job to carry the torch.
The thing that sometimes gets lost is people look at the harder edge of me ... the leather jacket and the tough rock 'n' roll attitude... and get the wrong impression that I'm mean. That's really something I don't want people to think because I don't think that's the case.
And you have a record company behind it, this is a key too, you need people to fight for your records, at least a little bit. So if you have a great song, it's catchy, and you've got a little bit of help, I think that's all you need. But there hasn't been that in music.
At this point, a lot of people have made their mind up about me one way or another. I'm sure there's a certain segment of writers who won't ever give me the time of day, hate me, don't get me, don't think I'm good, or whatever. I guess that's fine. It's only an opinion. There are other people who do get it, and can be objective. I could be wrong, but a lot of people, except for really young people, have made up their minds one way or the other.
As a kid, in the Runaways, I would see the interviewers start to ask about our personal lives and what we did — and I could see the look in their eyes. They were practically frothing at the mouth. So if I answered these questions, I knew they were never gonna talk about the music. It was like that instinct — don’t go there, man. Have boundaries. Have mystery. You don’t have to let everybody in! I want to be singing to everybody, and I want everybody to think that I’m singing to them. Guys, girls and everyone in between.
Women play cellos and violins in symphony orchestras. They're playing Beethoven and Bach. What do you mean they can't play rock and roll?
I'm having fun opening up. Sort of struggling to get the audience into it. It's good. It makes you fight. Not fight like antagonistic. But fight for what you believe.
Success isn't one straight line - it's a ladder, and there's always another rung above you to reach out for. Like anything else, there are ups and downs.
The only good thing you ever said was goodbye.
I want to be singing to everybody, and I want everybody to think that I'm singing to them. Guys, girls and everyone in between.
That was exactly why people didn't want to give us any kind of life, because we were threatening their status quo, and they just didn't want to have room for girls playing rock 'n' roll. It bothered them. First, people just tried to get around it by saying, "Oh, wow, isn't that cute? Girls playing rock 'n' roll!," and when we said, "Yeah, right, this isn't a phase; it's what we want to do with our lives," it became, "Oh! You must be a bunch of sluts. You dykes, you whores." That's what it became. Then it became a name-calling contest.
I think it's important to have mystique.
Well, I'll tell you, I don't know how aware teenagers are of me. I think it really depends on the teenager and how well-versed in music they are and what kind of music they like.
You can never say never. I'm not sure if I even want to. I just don't know. Some of it is just not able to be reached, you can't remember some of it and the people that could help you remember have passed away. It might have to remain a remain.
When I met you you were oh so sweet, now you give me the bread and you take all the meat.
People like to tear you down. People are always going to take shots. You've just got to go for it.
