A Quote by Valee

People say it's a quiet flow, that it sounds like I'm in a library. That could have come from when I was living in my old place, a nice loft. I was the youngest person in the building, and I would be working alone on my music. I would get emails two or three times a month about 'loud' music, so I became quieter and quieter about making beats.
In '96, I was in a very specific place with my own music - I was only listening to beats. You would come to my house, and I would just play beats all day.
One of my pleasantest memories as a kid growing up in New Orleans was how a bunch of us kids, playing, would suddenly hear sounds. It was like a phenomenon, like the Aurora Borealis -- maybe. The sounds of men playing would be so clear, but we wouldn't be sure where they were coming from. So we'd start trotting, start running-- 'It's this way! It's this way!' -- And sometimes, after running for a while, you'd find you'd be nowhere near that music. But that music could come on you any time like that. The city was full of the sounds of music.
A lot of people would say "well that's not a bad reputation. you sound like a pussy" and I would say yea. but I am passionate about music and being taken seriously about my music, so if you're going to mess with that, we have a problem.
I like the idea of sort of playing quieter roles, which would be refreshing for a minute. It is exhausting being really loud and obnoxious.
I remember looking at my iTunes and was like, 'I haven't listened to an album in about three months.' What happened? I was once an 18-year-old kid who would just devour everything and want to know everything about every member of every band I liked. It became this thing where I hated the idea of music, and I didn't know if I wanted to make music.
'Save the Date' feels like a quiet story about two sisters and the men in their lives, kind of reminiscent of the quieter rom-coms of the 1990s; it's very character-driven and not as wedding-focused.
Save the Date' feels like a quiet story about two sisters and the men in their lives, kind of reminiscent of the quieter rom-coms of the 1990s; it's very character-driven and not as wedding-focused.
I'm not sure if it's because I'm older and I'm thinking about family more, but I'm trying to set up this thing where I can play in one city for a month, and then write music for a couple months, then play in another city for a month, write music for a month. Just so it's not these two schizophrenic, Jekyll and Hyde kind of things; you don't have to be this monster. You get inspired and you can go write one song from that, and then you go back and play a few shows. If I could've done that in the 90s, I would have.
I come from a big, loud family, and I'm the quieter one. Performing is something I have to switch on. I've heard I get real sassy onstage, which I'm not in real life! It's fun to be that person for an hour a night.
The very best thing for music would be to live next door to a person who listens to loud music so you could mishear music everyday and mutate it to your own means.
When I was about 15 years old, I used to have a lot of jam sessions at my house. And all the kids would kind of come over, and I would kind of deejay some music that I discovered that month.
When we talk about music, we tend to place our experiences into one of two categories: making the music and listening to it. Delineating the two seems practical and obvious. In reality, though, there are a lot of opportunities for overlap, and it doesn't matter how you get into the music as long as you connect with it.
I used to read music books when I was 13. My mom was working at a library. She's a librarian. I would get my mom to check out any kind of books that had anything to do with the music industry. I read a lot about royalities, publishing, marketing, stuff like that.
I like to make music because I've been making music since I was 7. I can get across the things that I want to say in my music so that I don't have to say anything. I don't have to speak out about the things I believe; I can say them in my music.
I had a real stage school voice and I could do loud things, but it's not about being loud, it's about sensitivity and subtlety in music. You can do so much more with a quiet voice than with a belter.
I wouldn't have known when I was a teenager that when I was coming up to being a sixty-year-old woman that I'd be making music, I'd be recording music, talking about music, and incorporating my views on the world into the music-making. So it's a very rarefied place to be, and I'm very grateful for that.
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