“I had a band when I was in middle school, but I was the drummer. I kind of thought if I was going to be in a band, I’d be the drummer. I’m innately drawn to rhythm. But we didn’t have any shows. We just jammed in our parents’ basement.”
― Borns
“I’m fascinated by the yin and yang of everything.”
― Borns
“I dance as best I can. I try to let the music flow freely through my legs.”
― Borns
“My parents played the Bee Gees; Earth, Wind & Fire; Michael Jackson. The best pop music to infiltrate a child’s mind.”
― Borns
“When I wrote ‘Dopamine,’ I was so enamored by Los Angeles and finally making music I was really excited about.”
― Borns
“We’re always trying to make advancements in the arts and technology, so it’s somewhat inevitable that we’re going to make holograms of people.”
― Borns
“I was pretty young when my folks were playing those kinds of records, ’70s rock and psychedelic stuff. So I just remember those songs being synonymous with my childhood, and I was always trying to imitate them on piano.”
― Borns
“Most of the time, it’s pretending I’m somebody else to get into a different head space. A lot of times, it’s just, ‘Who do I want to be onstage tonight? Is it going to be Marc Bolan, or is it going to be Grace Jones, or Roy Orbison?’”
― Borns
“You should always read the ingredients in coconut water. It should say 100% coconut water.”
― Borns
“I’m not growing out my hair just to be androgynous.”
― Borns
“I want people to know me in my home state. I want their approval.”
― Borns
“I’m a professional musician.”
― Borns
“I don’t want to make a living. I want to make a life.”
― Borns
“A lot of my songs are inspired by a muse of some sort, whether she’s real or not.”
― Borns
“I like writing love songs. I really like romantic poetry.”
― Borns
“There’s this poet named Walter Benton, I really like his stuff. He always uses landscapes as a metaphor for the female body.”
― Borns
“If you’ve never been to Michigan, everyone thinks it’s completely rural. It’s a destination state. You don’t really drive through; you’re going there for a reason.”
― Borns
“My favorite songs of all time are songs that take you on a journey and give you pleasurable moments you weren’t expecting.”
― Borns
“I like the idea of creating from your inner youth. You don’t have to think too hard about it. Just make what feels good.”
― Borns
“The ultimate language of love is music… The ultimate connector.”
― Borns
“I feel like I’m never playing the same sized venues within two or three shows. It keeps me and the band fit in a way. It keeps us on our toes just because you don’t get used to one size and one energy. It’s good to switch it up.”
― Borns
“Dreams are pretty unexplainable. Have you ever tried to explain a dream to someone, and they’re like ‘Yeah, that sounds not as exciting as you think it is?’”
― Borns
“I like to buy books at airports sometimes.”
― Borns
“There’s a book called ‘The Baron in the Trees.’ A friend got that for me because I was kind of a tree-dwelling nomad for a bit. I kind of associate myself with the book.”
― Borns
“A big piece of my heart is definitely in Michigan and will always be in Michigan. Growing up there is definitely a big part of who I am as a person.”
― Borns
“I grew up watching ‘The Tonight Show’ and Jimmy Fallon on ‘SNL.’”
― Borns
“I grew up with my mother as a Tonic Shaman.”
― Borns
“My vocal influences are a lot of jazz singers: Billie Holiday, Julie London, they had this tenderness to their voice.”
― Borns
“I really like Colin Blunstone, the lead singer of the Zombies.”
― Borns
“Yeah, moving to Los Angeles definitely influenced my sound.”
― Borns
“It’s very easy in the studio to get overzealous with your vocal takes, thinking, ‘Oh yeah, I can do it over and over. I can sing at the top of my range for this whole song.’ But when you’re doing it every night on the road, it’s pretty intense.”
― Borns
“I bought a Three Dog Night album when I was pretty young, and I remember listening to all those songs. That’s just greatly crafted songwriting, and the songs have such great harmonies. I remember marveling over those and trying to figure them out on piano. That was my early education – figuring out records, older records, as a kid.”
― Borns
“My folks bought a baby grand piano and that’s where I did the majority of figuring out the songs I heard on the stereo.”
― Borns
“I feel like piano is my main instrument. I’m most comfortable on the piano.”
― Borns
“Allowing yourself to suck is the hard part of writing music. If you allow yourself to suck, you will probably write something better.”
― Borns
“No, I don’t think songwriting is emotionally challenging – I feel like it’s almost a way to sort through your emotions and put them out there.”
― Borns
“I feel like music is always alive and well.”
― Borns
“To make a genuine record, it takes more than a cool beat and some auto tune.”
― Borns
“Circuses don’t treat their ‘performers’ very well – whipping them, trying to make them terrified.”
― Borns
“I have the luxury of having the choice to perform and go up on stage every night.”
― Borns
“That’s one thing I really wanted to work on after ‘Dopamine,’ my falsetto.”
― Borns
“Nothing grounds you like a real authentic Mexican taco.”
― Borns
“I have these lacy shirts that look kind of like my grandma’s curtains that I wear.”
― Borns
“I grew up in Michigan. I feel like a lot of my childhood was in solitude, in the woods or making tree forts.”
― Borns
“In 2016, I was pretty green. I was budding. Some flowers were shooting off.”
― Borns
“I try to challenge myself.”
― Borns
“I’m influenced by a lot of different genres of music. So I’m constantly trying to rework production and make things interesting in the live show and on records.”
― Borns
“As far as playing instruments, it just feels good to have it under your hands. Cause sometimes those instruments have minor imperfections. Sometimes because they’re so old, they’re always out of tune a little bit.”
― Borns
“I love learning how people hear my music because everyone has different references.”
― Borns
“No one pursued music professionally in my family but they are all music lovers.”
― Borns
“My parents bought this baby grand piano, which was in my living room, that I owe a lot to. I would just play it and write on it for hours. It was my favorite toy.”
― Borns
“My folks would have parties and all I wanted was to be the entertainment.”
― Borns
“I have a short attention span.”
― Borns
“That’s the worst and best thing about being in the studio, feeling completely lost and not knowing how to put the final touch on something. But once you find it, there’s nothing like that feeling.”
― Borns
“I grew up a huge Roy Orbison fan. He had such a crazy range. And I grew up listening to old jazz, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone. I remember trying to imitate female jazz singers because I had a higher range.”
― Borns
“When you listen to music, you can tell if it’s a real love song or not.”
― Borns
“I kind of lose my mind a little bit if I’m not making something.”
― Borns
“I feel very short-attention span for like accomplishment. It’s like ‘oh that felt really good’ and then it’s kind of like an immediate emptiness of I need to make something else – I don’t like to dwell on things too long.”
― Borns
“I guess that’s always the mystery of music. It’s like why does this song make me feel so grey or why does it make me feel sad or happy or nostalgic and so I’m most fascinated by breaking that down in my music.”
― Borns
“I just like the obstacle course of figuring out something.”
― Borns
“I always found creative ways to make money since I was pretty young kid.”
― Borns
“I do like how the music can be misunderstood.”
― Borns
“There’s beautiful things about tour – you’re seeing the world, spreading music and I’m able to call that what I do. But it’s about living lightly and abandoning things.”
― Borns
“I remember seeing an interview from the Bee Gees and they were like, ‘The biggest competition to the Bee Gees is the Bee Gees.’ They just kept trying to top themselves and write better songs, and I’m just always trying to do that.”
― Borns
“It’s all about the art, really, at the end of the day.”
― Borns
“I feel like I’m always just trying to write better music and keep topping myself.”
― Borns
“I never pictured myself as a professional musician.”
― Borns
“I always like surprising people and doing things at a young age and, I don’t know, trying to do them at a higher caliber than what you’d normally think. I’m not saying I’m a virtuoso, but I always challenge myself.”
― Borns
“When I first moved to L.A., I lived in the Hills in kind of a wooded area that was just really chill.”
― Borns
“My music diet growing up was lots of sugar. Lots of retro-pop sugar. Motown, disco. A lot of English rock, like the Turtles, the Zombies, Bowie and stuff like that.”
― Borns
“Songwriting itself, I don’t think you can really teach that.”
― Borns
“I like a lot of older, ’60s or ’70s-style songwriting.”
― Borns
“The music scene in Michigan is really folky and bluegrass, but my parents played a lot of disco. They really liked to dance.”
― Borns
“When I was growing up, there were a few musicians who would have regular gigs at restaurants, and I always thought it was so cool and unexpected how they would spontaneously perform. Being the ambitious kid that I was, I got into it and really studied it. I was so inspired by it.”
― Borns
“A lot of people think I’m a chick. It happens the most at airports. The flight attendants will always say, ‘Have a nice flight, Ms. Borns.’ It must be the hair.”
― Borns
“I find inspiration from a lot of different texts and really old stories and folk tales – things I feel like no one else is reading.”
― Borns
“The Internet is a crazy archive of a lot of old everything. Paintings, drawings, old, new, and everything in between.”
― Borns
“Performing is an exchange of a lot of energy and it can wipe you out.”
― Borns
“A lot of people hear things on the radio and try to make their own version of that.”
― Borns
“I really like small, intimate shows, but there’s nothing like playing at a festival. It’s a completely different experience. Everyone is just a little more primal; they can get away with more things.”
― Borns
“I have a few friends who are amazing stylists, so I owe them a lot.”
― Borns
“I always go thrift shopping wherever I am.”
― Borns
“My first CD started as a studio project and I record everything with one other guy, so I didn’t have a band. That’s kind of how I like to do it, though. I like to create it with one other person, this guy, Tommy English, who produces everything. And then I go out on the road with a band who interprets it live.”
― Borns
“A magic show and a concert are very similar in the way I like keeping things a mystery and not doing them the same way every time. The listener and the audience never know what’s going to happen next.”
― Borns
“I don’t like washing away your body’s natural oils and pheromones. Those are good. You have to keep those.”
― Borns
“I don’t wash my hair that often, to be honest.”
― Borns
“I like to put coconut oil in my hair if it’s looking dry. It’s so unruly. It has a mind of its own.”
― Borns
“I grew up with a big backyard that led to the sand dunes of Lake Michigan.”
― Borns
“I did a lot of magic shows growing up. My dad is a graphic designer so he helped me brand myself and create a logo. So I was just rollin’ with the magician crowd for a while. But I was really young, 10 to 13, doing table magic and balloon animals at this Italian restaurant.”
― Borns
“Anything that makes life more of a dance party I’m very much okay with.”
― Borns
“I’ve gotten to play some cool venues, like at an aquarium in La Jolla, California.”
― Borns
“I’m always trying to top the last show.”
― Borns
“I really like intimate venues because it feels like everyone in the audience is in on all our inside jokes.”
― Borns
“Half the time, when I first run onstage, I can’t look directly at the audience just because of self-consciousness. It’s human nature. Sometimes you feel like the man, and sometimes you don’t. But sometimes that self-conscious energy is good for the show, it draws people in more.”
― Borns
“The more you practice something, the more you are aware of what you’re doing.”
― Borns
“I don’t really know what emotions are going to come out in songs when I’m writing them until I step back and listen to them as a whole.”
― Borns
“Hopefully I inspire people just to lose themselves a little bit. That’s what I enjoy doing on stage: challenging myself with a new territory, like performing differently, moving differently, singing differently, just let people know that it’s okay just to do something that they’ve never done before.”
― Borns
“My mom’s really into astrology and she’s always telling me about the moon cycles and stuff like that.”
― Borns
“I just love catchy melodies.”
― Borns
“I look at performance clothes as setting the mood for the whole show.”
― Borns
Leave a Reply