Karen O

I feel like every five to seven years I really need to put myself in this position of discomfort and exploration, just to survive. Otherwise I feel like I'm falling asleep, like I'll go crazy if I don't do it.

Yeah, I can't separate the art from the music and the music from the art. I think that stems from going to school for film first, and kind of stumbling onto music as my career.

For me, California is all about rest, relaxation, space.

I was just totally taken by Michael Jackson when I was a little kid, like everyone else.

You have to open up on stage.

Being on the road with rock, it's pretty much 90 percent guys.

Bands that I've loved over the years are the ones that have a certain myth around them.

I love bass, I really do. Bass is ace!

I feel like there's a hunger in the culture now for the live experience maybe as a counterpoint to the more sort of synthetic lives that we've been living.

Well, Freddie Mercury is a really huge rock star in my head. I've always thought he was just so tough and such an amazing entertainer, really a contradiction in many ways as well. So he was incredible.

Working pretty much nonstop as an artist, the hardest thing is to know what to do with yourself when you have some time off. You struggle with yourself to take a vacation.

My onstage persona really is a persona, you know, and really the moment I step onstage, it kind of kicks into gear.