Mitski

I think growing up the way I did has made me a lot more objective, and that's important in the process of writing and trying to look at subjective matter that way.

I think my real influences are out of my control, which are the things that entered my brain when I was a kid growing up.

Growing up, I never really felt like anything was my own. I moved a lot, and I never belonged anywhere.

On one hand, I think it's very important to talk about race and talk about gender, because if it's not talked about, then we won't progress. What I have a problem with is when it becomes another form of tokenization, of shrinking me into a symbol instead of a multilayered, female Asian artist.

I have a very conveniently photographic memory of emotions - it's overwhelming, because things don't fade for me.

I'd always been fascinated by death, which sounds so morbid. Especially being a woman trying to make music, I think there's a sense that you're never young enough, or your career is going to end soon.

A lot of musicians talk about how they were into music from the start; they always wanted to be musicians. It wasn't like that for me. I didn't think of it as a job or a career - it was just something that was constant.

I feel like I've always wanted to live in one place and stay in one place, but I always end up choosing things that make me travel.

If I ever found a place where I belonged, that in itself would be an identity crisis to me.

When you're doing something you're not used to, you kind of realize that you're still a kid: even though the whole world around you sees you as an adult and you're expected to act like an adult, you still haven't actually grown up.

I don't really listen to pop-country, but I like really, really old country that's closer to folk. Like Johnny Cash, who is considered country.

I discovered I was an Asian American when I arrived in the U.S. I didn't identify as that before I came here. People started calling me that, and I started being treated in a specific way.