'Rock Bottom Riser' by Smog - I was just in Europe, and my jet lag never really went away. I wasn't sleeping very much. Then one night, my girlfriend saw a Bill Callahan show in L.A. and took a video of that song and sent it to me. I was just listening to it over and over - it was comforting.
The British model, which I've always thought was great, is that you do a TV show and then they sell it. Then you can buy it at the video stores forever, so it never went away. But American TV used to be if you had a show and it got cancelled, then it never existed. It was just this thing you heard about and you couldn't see it again. There is something so great about shows getting released and people getting to watch them over and over again. It definitely takes the sting out of it.
Usually I'll drive to certain locations over and over again, over a course of months really. And then it might just be I hit it at the right time, and the right light. And then I might go to that location over and over again, and then what happens in that lag time where - the image sort of locks in - all of a sudden I see it in my mind's eye.
Typically, I'll wake up at 4:30 in the morning. It's just the continual jet lag residue, just weird sleeping hours.
The first song I sent over was Up All Night. People say that sounds like Angels on a Blink record. Well, no - that's just me!
Yet what happened in fact? In the middle of the night John woke up and saw me sleeping beside him with no doubt a look of peace on my face, even of bliss, bliss is not unattainable in this world. He saw me—saw me as I was at that moment—took fright, hurriedly strapped the armour back over his heart, this time with chains and a double padlock, and stole out into the darkness.
I also remember a line from a song by Smog [Bill Callahan], which seems to describe the experience of a town-dweller moving to the country: "I was raised in a pit of snakes/Blink your eyes - I was raised on cake."
I came from a private school, and public high school was the first time I ever went to a public school. So I went into it very preppy; I was wearing a lot of Abercrombie and Hollister. Then, my sophomore year, I started listening to rock bands. I had a boyfriend that took me to my first rock show, and I was just addicted to that.
The music video, Lil Nas X, he asked me to be in the 'Panini' music video. It was crazy. I was just listening to the song and I was like, okay, this is going to be my first music video but it was really fun.
Get over jet-lag quickly. I think a lot of people waste the first few days sleeping in the wrong time zone. Sometimes I take melatonin but at other times a glass of wine will do it.
I used to like to make myself sad, so I would listen to Bill Callahan as Smog.
I seem to spend a minimum of eight hours a day in transit of some sort or another... that's eight hours of your life gone. People always ask if I suffer from jet lag, but it's kinda become really normal for me... Although the jet lag does become a factor and you're pretty much always tired.
I think, I just always want to leave the door open for, you know, I don't want it to be finished. I've never gotten sick of a song, I've played them over and over and over again, and if I get bored with something, then I'll just change that thing.
Janis Joplin didn't just sing a song, she took it over. She swallowed it whole, then sent it back through her gut and her heart.
My first song was about the smog over Dublin in the 1980s, so yeah, I suppose I was always socially conscious. My first song was not a love song, it was about smog.
I saw a video on YouTube of a girl who had very similar reactions to late-stage Lyme disease as I did. And I thought it was crazy. And when I saw her basically have a seizure on camera that looked very much like my seizure I felt, "Oh my god. That's me." And so it was really important to me, and I said to Sini, 'We have to find some way to not just talk about Lyme disease, but to show it.
I just know of so many musicians who burn out because they go on tour and they have to play their one-hit song over and over and over and over again. And they are not moved by their own song. And then when you go and see them perform there's something off.