Liz Phair

No matter how I do this, my best songs have profanity in them.

I'm competitive, so I don't like to feel marginalized by the people who sell a lot of records.

The big news already broke. The file-sharing and all that stuff, it's a done deal. And I think figuring out how to make that a fair exchange for the people that make music is still an issue.

Am I coasting on some early success? Yeah. It was a good lucky break for me. But I would rather earn my way back again than simply conform to what people are expecting.

I don't know why it surprises people that I surprise them.

I can't say I don't get nervous, but I really kind of enjoy performing now.

When you love what you do, you're happy just doing it!

Women artists need to break barriers in order for women's experience to be valuable.

I'm really happy to be a mom, and I'm proud of the phase I'm in.

When I use the Internet, it's pretty much strictly for music. Checking out other people's web sites, what's going on, listening to music. It's pretty much a musical thing for me.

Picture being forced to talk endlessly about your feelings and listen and care when what you needed was just to get something done.

I try to see interviewing as performance art, and just take it as it comes.

I have that thrill-seeking mentality, so when people want to know why my incarnations keep changing, or why I'll do something different than I did before, it's that same impulse.

So how does Liz Phair feel about Lana Del Rey? Well, as a recording artist, I've been hated, I've been ridiculed, and conversely, hailed as the second coming. All that matters in the end is that I've been heard.

It makes sense - you wanna gather a lot of people together, and Vegas really does that well. New York can, but you know the hassles. I've lived there. It's an entirely different beast.

I love stretching myself musically.

I don't know what the future holds. Anything is possible.

I am a feminist, and I define myself: Be yourself, because if you can get away with it, that is the ultimate feminist act.

Everything that people lob at you who don't know you, it all hurts. When you're doing something as simple as making music, which really, theoretically, shouldn't hurt anyone - I mean, it's a song! Step back for five seconds and laugh.

I was raised to be a very intelligent housewife.

Like, I kind of developed my musical style in a vacuum. Even though I listen to a lot of stuff, the way I wrote was in my bedroom, really privately. It's still the way I write, actually.

It's about the journey and the process. I do things because I love doing them, or trying them.

I mean, I kind of remember... I'm 36 now, so it's kind of hard for me to relate to what it was like when I was 25, or 24, but I do remember a period in time when that's how I defined who I was, by the music I listened to and the movies I went to.

You know, you become an artist, you become an observer, of life, and you digest life by making art about it.

My identity has everything to do with me and my instrument. It doesn't have to do with what production style I use, or how many people played on it, whether it's sparse or grandiose or whatever. And I'm social, frankly.

I love scoring. Putting music to picture is a rewarding challenge and one that relies on interpretation of emotion - as in, what is the pivotal feeling in a scene and which character's point of view is driving it at any given moment?

Now, in music, it seems more like the popular crowd suppresses anyone who is different.

That's what music is to me. Like, stuff that I really like to play loud. And I've got my quiet CDs, too, that I listen to around the house, but if you can't go there, then... Everyone gets so upset with me, I can't win.

I wear clothes that most people in the Midwest would probably deem inappropriate at my age. And I rock a bikini all summer long. I know that it's not normal, but I just don't care. I live once.

I don't always trust my own instincts. It would be nice if someone else would tell me what I should do with my life!

I was trying to break out of the suburbs, and when I did break out, I don't think I took my whole self with me - I think I played a role of being too cool and hip.

I just don't fit into the box.

It seems to me like the Internet allows you to break that structure a little bit. You know, here's your CD that's going into stores, here's your EP that you offer online, here's a subscription for songs you recorded on the road, here's your live stuff streaming.

Yeah, I like to be the maker of the art. And I like and want the money. But I don't really dig being famous.

I have my head screwed on right. I haven't been this way in a long time.

I always give the encore over to chaos, so people can yell out requests and I can hack my way through a song that I don't really know anymore.

I blend my green drink every morning. I also fix my son a full-on American breakfast with bacon and toast.

I mean, I think about it, but I don't design my record to get a certain public response.

Wearing a veneer of perfection never did me any good.

I don't know; it just seemed like the cooler guys are playing Xbox. At least the ones I know.

I knew that collaborating on songwriting would be difficult for a lot of people, because I was known very much, for my independence and the fact that I wrote these quirky songs that were not typical structure, not typical sound - you know, really original stuff.

Lana Del Rey seems to be bothering everybody because she allegedly 'remade' herself from a folk singing, girl-next-door type into an electro-urban kitty cat on the prowl (of course I like her), and they feel she is inauthentic.

Everyone wants to get into soundtracks. Everyone wants to do songs here and there. But, I think they want it for different reasons. I think I'm just tumbling through my life, enjoying playing with everybody.

It was a source of shame for my family that I was in rock and roll, which is so blue-collar. It just isn't done. And I felt it, too.

I'm very cerebral. I like to think things through.

I'm working on a proper rock record, a good, old-school rock record. Finally.

I think good art happens on that edge between comfortable and in a lot of pain, you know what I mean?

People hang their hopes on you fitting into their CD collection in way that they have made a space for, but I'm playing a longer game than that.

You're really creative when you're in an environment that you don't know how to handle. So collaborating was like that for me. I think that was one of the reasons why I knew I was gonna get a challenging reaction.

I prance around and dance by myself to hip-hop songs in the mirror.

My nails are a disaster. If I play guitar when my nails are long, I just tear them off.

I probably had some impact, because everyone keeps telling me that I did. I like to feel like I'm coming out with something to try to make room for other young women to make their art.