A Quote by Melanie Martinez

I wanted to play my original music, but it was really hard because a lot of the people who would come out to the shows found out about me through 'The Voice' and wanted to hear covers.
I was about 14 and I was having a lot of problems with my mom at home, and she really wanted me to focus on school and basketball. But music was all I wanted to do. I felt out of time and out of step with everyone, because they were all into hip-hop and I was so into Sly Stone and Prince.
Longing surged up within me. I wanted it. Oh God, I wanted it. I didn't want to hear Jerome chastise me for my "all lowlifes, all the time" seduction policy. I wanted to come home and tell someone about my day. I wanted to go out dancing on the weekends. I wanted to take vacations together. I wanted someone to hold me when I was upset, when the ups and downs of the world pushed me too far. I wanted someone to love.
When the media would call and want to interview me, I thought it was 'cause they really wanted to find out what I thought about things. I thought it was because they really wanted to find out who I am. That's not what they wanted. They already in their minds knew who I was and they didn't like it, and they wanted face-to-face opportunities to expose my defects and my problems and my racism and bigotry and all this.
I wanted to be an astronaut and wanted to go to space camp, but then I found out that I was too short to become an astronaut. My mom really made me believe that if I worked hard enough and if I really wanted to do it, I could do it.
I think that a huge positive that's come out of me having successful competitions as an athlete has been that, through the years it's become less and less about personal victory and more about strengthening a platform for me to have a voice in the world and I could really talk about anything I wanted to and I've chosen to make my voice be heard and be recognized for some of the charities that I really care about and work very closely with.
When I wanted to be a music teacher, I wanted to help people through voice. Now, I get to help people out through song.
When I was growing up they didn't want me to do it because my mother was a teacher - they wanted me to go to school. But I love football and wanted to play - they wanted to stop me but couldn't. They wouldn't allow me to play out after school but I went out anyway. Maybe I lost a bit of focus on my studies.
I started producing in 1992 at the age of 15, when I found out music could be made with the help of a computer. I come from a musical family, but was always the family member not as good as the others. So once I found out I could release the music that was stuck inside my head through a computer, I knew I found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
There are a lot of bands who would get really big in Fort Worth and play shows on a Friday night that everybody would come out to. But I've never been really big in my hometown. My shows would have 10 or 15 people at them.
I auditioned for 'The Voice' because I really wanted to try and figure out a way to get myself out there. I really couldn't imagine doing anything else - music was the only thing that I really clung to.
In fact I spent a lot of time in my childhood trying to figure out what other people wanted of me. That made me study other people very much. Then I actually started university and I got quite bored. This is when I found out I wanted to be an actor.
I went to school to learn guitar, solfeggio, and harmony. I wanted to know more about music, how it works. I wanted to take voice lessons, too, and that's when I discovered what I could do with my voice. At the beginning, I thought I would do classical and pop, but then I learned that I really liked the classical music.
I just went into the studio and did it all in one take. All I was thinking about was the next record; I had already sourced the tracks I wanted to use. I'd been thinking a lot about it and I wanted to represent myself, Leeds and fabric. I'm not very nationalistic, but I wanted to represent what was coming out of Britain as well as at the moment there's a lot of really good new music.
We had a wonderful department that scouted out new music. It was beneficial to Rolling Stone, because I would come back and say, "You have to hear this, you have to hear that," and I found a lot of bands to feature, emerging bands. It [ended up being] symbiotic.
When I first started, I wasn't really aware of anything in the industry or aware of who I really was. I just put my music out there and tried to get as many people to hear it as possible. I hadn't really thought about the kind of music I wanted to make.
Self-discovery is so important in identity processing: who you hang out with, what clothes you wear, what shows you see. As a kid, I found out about things through friends. I would go to hardcore shows with 50 people.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!