HALSEY

I have to remember for every kid saying something awful, there's a kid saying something great.

My mom is awesome. She's really young. My mom is 40, and she raised me listening to Nirvana and Courtney Love and Coldplay, Gin Blossoms, The Cranberries, and stuff. Like, my early, early memories are of being a little kid running around in floral skirts and Doc Martens when I was, like, three.

I think escapism is something artists write about pretty frequently - it's something everyone can relate to, the concept of wanting something more, wanting to find solace, wanting to have something better.

I'm a human, and I'm multidimensional. If I was the perfect form of anything, I'd be boring. If I was a free spirit all the time, I would be boring; I would lack depth. If I was dark and enigmatic all the time, then I would lack relatability.

You can expect nothing in being a musician, and you have to be just very thankful every time it goes positively for you.

Growing up in the suburbs, I used to listen to punk rock, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday. And no one from my high school listened to it.

I feel like, if I'm going to have young, impressionable people listening to my music, then I'm going to respect that.

I learned how quickly I could go from having never met someone to having the world think I'm dating them.

In 2016, makeup has become an incredible passion and hobby for men and women, but it hasn't become mainstream.

My mom has every issue of 'Billboard' I've ever been in.

I was obsessed with learning about social behaviors. I remember explaining to my mom that kids on my soccer team were fighting because of dyads and triads.

I'm open about having bipolar disorder. I'm open about being of mixed race. I'm open about being bisexual, and I have this wantingness to talk about it, and for me, it's about more than being a role model for any specific community.

Please don't erase my race because I'm white-passing. There is literally nothing I can do about my complexion.

I like writing about places, about people and environments. When I create a world, it lets me go in and define the details of that world.

I had a crazy life for a teenager. I lived in New Jersey, but I'd go to Vermont for three weeks, join a commune, take pictures with the guy I was dating, come back home, and post photos.

As a songwriter, pop music really is a love and a joy and a science, and I feel like a lot of people look at pop music with a very formulaic perspective in numbers and patterns, but an outsider would think that the process is very natural.

I'm a fixer, unfortunately. I'm like, 'Oh, I can fix you.' But it's not just guys I'm dating anymore. It's this entire legion of young girls who tell me they need me to maintain any sort of sanity or peace.

A guitar can be so human, so sorrowful, so angry, and I wanted to figure out how to achieve that vibe without having to actually use guitars, because 'Badlands' is a very futuristic record - and making it that in an era of futuristic music is a really hard thing to do!

You don't know fear until it's 7 A.M. and freezing cold on live television, and you're not sure if Justin Bieber is going to kiss you or not.

So many people are concerned with being the perfect 'something.' Whether it's the perfect singer, the perfect sexy girl, or the perfect feminist. I don't want to be the perfect anything.

My first album was called 'Badlands,' and it's something that I think I'm most proud of having done in my life.

Every song I write is autobiographical and is about people, and that's one of the things that gets complicated. You have to decide where's your place as a songwriter.

It usually takes me 20 to 90 minutes to write a song because once I start, I don't stop. If I start writing a song, and you try to have a conversation with me, you're a bad person.

I put 'Ghost' online hoping to make a couple hundred bucks, but then the next day, I took meetings with five different record companies.

You can be accessible without catering to an audience.