Sharon Van Etten

Sometimes music should just be about you sitting on your bedroom floor, or in the back of the car, singing along stupidly. Evan Dando's music was all about that for me.

I believe my songs are strong enough to stand on their own - even way back then when they were recorded badly and minimally.

I don't like to hold back. Especially with who I am and what I do, it's all me. Everything's my name; it's what I do. It's how I feel. It's what I think.

My mom is a history teacher, so we'd go on all these historic trips as kids around Halloween, because it was kind of creepy.

I wanna grow and develop as an artist, and I feel like different kinds of collaborations can only help me in that way.

Honestly, live is my favorite way of performing. Every show is a completely different energy.

When I can write a song in a way where I feel like other people can relate to it, and I can take it past being cathartic just for me, that's when I know I can share it. Otherwise, I'd just feel like it's selfish.

I realized that there's this fine line between being personal and being general and being alienating.

I feel like I'm getting better at being a writer.

I'm nervous performing because it's such a weird thing to do, standing on stage demanding people's attention.

You'd better have something good to say if you've got a roomful of people who've paid to see you.

Sadness isn't an emotion that most cool bands want to talk about.