I'm attracted to artists like Frida Kahlo, because her work was her life, her questions, her outrage, her suffering, her pain. Everything is in her work.

One of the things that helps me tell a story through music is to create a character. I have to have a muse, whether it's Frida Kahlo, Martha Graham, Marlene Dietrich, or Pippi Longstocking.

If I can't be daring in my work or the way I live my life, then I don't really see the point of being on this planet.

With all the chaos, pain and suffering in the world, the fact that my adoption of a child from who was living in an orphanage, you know, was the number one story for a week in the world. To me, that says more about our inability to focus on the real problems.

I always felt like I was a freak when I was growing up and that there was something wrong with me because I couldn't fit in anywhere.

Part of the reason I sort of shot out like a cannon out of Michigan and left home at such an early age is because I had to feel independent.