“I am fierce, yes, but I’m serious about music.”
― Perfume Genius
“I think it’s fun to be superstitious. There’s a drama in being superstitious. I’m like that in general. I have friends who don’t believe in love or just think it’s a chemical thing, and they don’t believe in magic. I enjoy believing in all that stuff. It makes things seem more important than they are, like there’s more to it.”
― Perfume Genius
“I saw ‘Predators.’ That was pretty good, actually.”
― Perfume Genius
“The thing is everything is good at the Cheesecake Factory. Everything’s good. It’s science-based. It’s a formula; there’s math. It’s all good!”
― Perfume Genius
“I feel trapped in my body. I want to be like like Scarlett Johansson in ‘Lucy,’ when she unlocks everything within her – I want to do that. I want to be the alien in ‘Arrival’ – a spitty, infinite-time-loop creature.”
― Perfume Genius
“I think the best mood for writing is a heavy feeling that’s a little bit removed from you. Sometimes I feel very self-indulgent and bratty and ungrateful, and no good music comes out of that. But sometimes I can be really sad or have an excess of feeling yet somehow be able to see the big picture more.”
― Perfume Genius
“I was a bad student. My teachers gave up trying to teach me how to read music.”
― Perfume Genius
“I really never want to try to be cool.”
― Perfume Genius
“I wasn’t a hoarder, but I was on my way. I went to thrift stores and never didn’t buy something. A lot of cat figurines, needlepoint, afghans. Grandma stuff, I suppose.”
― Perfume Genius
“I am a shy person.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’m just very self-conscious about the way I look. I really am embarrassed of it, because I wish I wasn’t like that.”
― Perfume Genius
“Everything I do is rebellious. Sometimes even against myself.”
― Perfume Genius
“There’s a book called ‘You’re Not a Stranger Here’ by Adam Haslett – short stories, a lot of them are about mental illness and gay people – that classic combination. But they’re really well-written, really powerful. It’s pretty good.”
― Perfume Genius
“iTunes is my favorite record store.”
― Perfume Genius
“I think people are surprised that I’m not – I think people come up to talk to me, and they think I’m going to be really morose. And I am, but I do that by myself – no one wants to see that. It’s not really a phoniness; I just kind of keep it to myself. So I think people are surprised when they come up to talk to me and I hug them.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’ve had people tell me that I should just be sad and not joke around on Twitter, but they don’t understand that joking and being deeply sad are very close to each other. I’ll have a horrible memory that I find hysterical one day, and the next day I’ll cry about it.”
― Perfume Genius
“One of the things that ‘Too Bright’ refers to is how there’s a lot of times where I see things that I could change that could make me more contented, but I usually just don’t make those changes because they seem new and scary. I just stay where I’m at, even if I’m miserable, because I’m familiar with it.”
― Perfume Genius
“I don’t know if I could write a pop song without at least a little touch of bite in it, and it’s usually not a bite that most people would want to sing.”
― Perfume Genius
“I like to have fun! And everything that’s good for you is not fun, and that bores me.”
― Perfume Genius
“I have a strange, not very traditional voice – I’m not Adele.”
― Perfume Genius
“If I’m not writing, I can download a newer album everybody’s making a fuss about. But when I’m writing, I keep myself in my own zone – I worry about listening to new music that’ll inform me too much. I’m the kind of person who goes to another country and starts speaking in an accent after three days.”
― Perfume Genius
“I like Feist’s music because it’s really smart, but it’s really free and soulful at the same time. Sometimes you only get one or the other.”
― Perfume Genius
“I don’t think I wrote my first song until I was 25. And then everything I wrote ended up becoming my first album. I put my music online, and from that, things just happened.”
― Perfume Genius
“For a while, I thought I would maybe be a writer. But with music, I was such a nerd; I was really obsessive about it. The problem was I couldn’t really sing. I think one day I sang from a different part of my body, from my gut for the first time, and I was like, ‘Oh! That’s how you’re supposed to do it.’”
― Perfume Genius
“I do not work out regularly, but I do dance so much and jump around so much on stage, and I do it every day, so I feel like that’s my exercise.”
― Perfume Genius
“Blushes are fun. I like to do circles – like a Caravaggio painting almost, or Victorian looking.”
― Perfume Genius
“For me, piano is just where I started; I know where to go with it.”
― Perfume Genius
“My mom is always asking why can’t I make something nice? Because I’ll make paintings, say, and they’re just really bloody and angsty. So I wrote ‘Dark Parts’ because I wanted to write something nice for her.”
― Perfume Genius
“I wanna be bad sometimes – I wanna rip everything apart, -but it comes on less and less. Doing all this music stuff is very good for it.”
― Perfume Genius
“I realise there are situations where I camp it up, make myself into a sort of novelty character to ease things along. Like, if I ever feel uncomfortable in a situation, I can just make myself into this funny Will-and-Grace-guest-star type of person, and maybe people will not pay attention to the deeper things going on.”
― Perfume Genius
“I originally thought I’d grow up to be a woman. I didn’t question that when I was little.”
― Perfume Genius
“Sometimes I’m not into being a human.”
― Perfume Genius
“If I drink coffee, I have to turn the lights off and lay down. I can’t handle it.”
― Perfume Genius
“The first record I bought was the ‘Edward Scissorhands’ soundtrack. I remember being really obsessed with the movie, and all the campiness sort of went over my head because I was so little – it’s the same with ‘Hairspray.’ But I would listen to that soundtrack a lot.”
― Perfume Genius
“I was really scared of the devil growing up: I was convinced I was going to be possessed.”
― Perfume Genius
“When I first started making music, I wrote the lyrics first, but now, because the music has got kind of wilder, I’ve flipped it.”
― Perfume Genius
“Good catsuits should have multiple zippers; they’ll have a top and a bottom one.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’m personally not a very contact-y person; I just let my phone die and don’t turn it on for a couple of days.”
― Perfume Genius
“I went off at a person who threw a plastic thing at one of my shows once. After I shamed them, I realised it was a little lipstick and felt bad for days.”
― Perfume Genius
“I got very serious about micro-piglets and what it would be like to own them.”
― Perfume Genius
“He was my biggest crush when I was 12, and it’s never really stopped. I was on BenAffleck.com a lot growing up. I don’t know why.”
― Perfume Genius
“I like Costco. They got me to be an executive member, so I’m, like, a business class member. Somehow, I’m going to end up saving money or something. The thing is, I don’t moderate very well, so I buy things that are supposed to be for a family or last for a week, but they never do.”
― Perfume Genius
“I feel like my shows have always been a place where people can wear and be and seem however they want, and it’s a heartening event.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’m always 20 minutes ahead of myself in my head. But being present – it’s beautiful when it happens.”
― Perfume Genius
“My favorite movie is ‘Dogfight’ with River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. The ending is kind of bittersweet but so real and moving and complicated.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’ve had people send messages that said, ‘I’m sorry how I treated you in high school.’ It was just through kindness. I still think of the world the same way I did growing up. When I got hurt, I decided that this is how people are. But the world is changing, and even those people have changed. And I have. I need to let go, too.”
― Perfume Genius
“I keep making the music I do because I feel very purposeful about making things that would be helpful or quell some loneliness in people. I really needed that when I listened to music growing up and even now, so I don’t mind that sense of duty.”
― Perfume Genius
“There was one time I flagged every ‘Brokeback Mountain’ review on Netflix that was negative. I was, like, ‘not helpful,’ and I spent, like, an hour doing it, and I wrote a really serious review about it. It’s hard for me not to get really sensitive. I don’t brush things off like that very easily.”
― Perfume Genius
“My kitchen witch hangs above the sink in my kitchen. Some people think it’s specifically so that you don’t burn food when you cook, but I like to think that it’s warding off evil spirits and bad things in general.”
― Perfume Genius
“Our house was cluttered with little charms, thoughtfully placed. There were all kinds of little things going on. Like, my mom made a lampshade out of a picture of our family, but if you look closely, there’s a baby Jesus that she cut up and put just above all of us.”
― Perfume Genius
“My mom is not religious, but she’s a very spiritual, magical kind of lady. One time, when I was younger, my mom said she was a witch and that my grandmother was also a witch. It was late at night, and she was really sleepy, but I took it very seriously because I always wanted to go to Hogwarts.”
― Perfume Genius
“I was watching a movie called ‘Perfume.’ The book is really good, but the movie is really bad. My friend was making fun of it. He kept calling this obese guy a perfume genius. When I started putting my songs up on MySpace, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I actually didn’t put much thought into a name and just quickly used Perfume Genius.”
― Perfume Genius
“I don’t know if I am a role model, but I’ve had young kids write to me. I try to write songs that I wish I would have heard when I was younger. It’s kind of strange to think of yourself as a role model. That wouldn’t be a bad job.”
― Perfume Genius
“I think all gay men are used to people saying no to them, to people not giving them choices.”
― Perfume Genius
“Hymns have always sounded like sung spells to me. I never felt included in the magic of the God songs I heard growing up – I knew I was going to hell before anyone ever told me that I was. People found comfort in this all-knowing source, but I felt frightened and found out. I developed some weird and very dramatic complexes.”
― Perfume Genius
“It took me a long time to not think of the universe as a judgmental debit-credit system. I haven’t completely shaken it, but I no longer think that I am overdrawn with God. Grace is not something you earn; its always there. I find this idea a lot more fun.”
― Perfume Genius
“I was scared of the devil starting around age nine. Before that, I was gathering every family member in the living room, slipping a shirt over my robe so the bottom hung like a skirt and performing Gloria Estefan songs with feverish intensity.”
― Perfume Genius
“I saw this Facebook video of a boy, probably around seven, wearing a dress he had fashioned from a blanket, sashaying through his house while his mother applauded and cheered him on. He was so proud. It was such a beautiful thing but bittersweet because I knew his spirit would change soon: that he’d become self-aware and ashamed at some level.”
― Perfume Genius
“I think people come to my music just to feel less lonely.”
― Perfume Genius
“I don’t feel like I make sense in the world. I don’t feel like I look right. I don’t feel like I act right or do right. It’s very frustrating to me that I just walk around with this all the time.”
― Perfume Genius
“I started writing songs later in life because I just couldn’t commit to it before.”
― Perfume Genius
“It used to be enough for me to get on stage and sing. I kind of crave the performance part now. I write knowing it’s going to happen, which I didn’t do before.”
― Perfume Genius
“I play a lot of role-playing games on the computer. And I always have.”
― Perfume Genius
“I don’t think art matters as much as keeping people safe.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’ve known that people were racist and misogynistic and homophobic since I was very little.”
― Perfume Genius
“I feel kind of limited and locked into my body and brain – I’m not super into it all the time.”
― Perfume Genius
“I sort of trust myself as a musician to experiment more and to know when things are more effective when they’re spare and when a song can hold up to a lot of different instrumentations. So I’m more willing to go for it.”
― Perfume Genius
“When I started to allow myself to not be locked into wearing men’s clothes, things kind of opened up. It feels very kind to drape yourself in something that feels special.”
― Perfume Genius
“When I watch alien movies, I want to be the alien. I don’t want to be the people that make first contact or anything; I just want to be that creature.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’m fairly dramatic.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’ve definitely met some people that cultivated a masculinity that they taught themselves. I don’t know how they figured out how to do it, but I couldn’t.”
― Perfume Genius
“I feel like I’ve figured out the way that I can talk about things that are important to me and have my music and the way of performance be healing and be helpful.”
― Perfume Genius
“I have ended up on so many weird Men’s Rights Twitter accounts filled with weird anime. I don’t know. It’s so bizarre to me that people can think that way, and so I feel like I can decode them or figure it out. But you can end up so grossed out.”
― Perfume Genius
“I don’t think I’ve actually ever had cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. I’ve had the Steak Diane. I don’t like cheesecake!”
― Perfume Genius
“I think if you know one direction, then you can feel the other one. I don’t think you can be truly, insanely joyous if you haven’t ever felt the flip side of it.”
― Perfume Genius
“I don’t ever necessarily feel masculine or feminine. I just feel… I don’t know. Like, when I’m wearing women’s clothes, it’s not like I’m dressing like a lady, a woman; it’s just like I’m doing whatever I want.”
― Perfume Genius
“I get in my own way a lot. I feel a lot more confident than I… am.”
― Perfume Genius
“To me, when something’s really funny, there’s, like, a wildness to it, and it’s very close to the wildness of something potentially tragic or gross. It’s all very close to each other when you have that extreme level of feeling.”
― Perfume Genius
“Usually, like, anyone that would adopt, like, ‘masc,’ period, to describe them – it’s a very phony, stereotypical masculinity.”
― Perfume Genius
“On the first two albums, I essentially began with lyrics and placed the music underneath or around the words.”
― Perfume Genius
“Honestly, I just wear what makes me feel good. It becomes political when you leave the house without changing.”
― Perfume Genius
“Any tragic memory I have I also think is really funny. On any given day, I can think about how horrible something is and also how ridiculous and over-the-top it is.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’m pretty sure I would have managed to over-share no matter what time period I was born in. It’s a family thing, too.”
― Perfume Genius
“Music helped me, growing up: it very much felt like a companion and made me less lonely.”
― Perfume Genius
“I felt like an outsider, so listening to a bunch of outsiders’ music like Bjork and Patti Smith made me feel better. But at the same time, I didn’t have anyone singing specifically 100% about things I could relate to.”
― Perfume Genius
“I have this idea of myself that I decided when I was 12 about who I am and how I come across and what the world is like. And if I have changed or the world has changed, I don’t even notice sometimes because I’m holding on to these old ideas. I am more confident – the music is proof. But I can see the change there much easier than I do as a human.”
― Perfume Genius
“When something is heartwarming and triumphant, and not corny or preachy, it’s such a powerful thing.”
― Perfume Genius
“I love Twitter.”
― Perfume Genius
“Loved ‘Get Out,’ super good from start to finish. I mean, it had everything you’d want in a movie. It was funny, scary, and it wasn’t stupid. It was a smart movie but not in a fussy way. It was so good.”
― Perfume Genius
“I don’t dislike ‘It’ or ‘Stranger Things,’ but I’m just not as super into it, because, like, I’ve seen ‘E.T.’ a lot. And I’ve watched ‘The Goonies.’”
― Perfume Genius
“I like Yoda. I like the Ewoks.”
― Perfume Genius
“I have a really small and strange job history.”
― Perfume Genius
“I think people have a hard time dealing with a bunch of things at once. They can’t have something be disturbing and funny at the same time. They can’t have that kind of combination. Which is weird to me because I feel complicated about most things.”
― Perfume Genius
“Whenever anything ‘gay’ comes along, everybody wants that thing to somehow be everything to everybody. And usually, it is too gay or not gay enough. There’s never the right amount. I think that happens a little bit in the media.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’m just doing what I want. I’m not thinking, like, ‘Today I’m going to dress like a woman.’ I’m not even thinking about that. I’m just thinking, ‘I want to wear this today; I want to be this today.’”
― Perfume Genius
“I’m really into gay stuff getting funded: having it be on TV and having a show.”
― Perfume Genius
“I like when I tweet about Tony Hawk. A lot of times, people think it’s true; like, I’ve tweeted about having lunch with him a lot, and people are like, ‘Oh, how was he?’ or, like, ‘Do you have a pic?’ I don’t know how to explain it. He’s right at the level where people could almost believe it, but it’s also a really weird pairing.”
― Perfume Genius
“Taking care of myself is not instinctual for me. It feels very weird.”
― Perfume Genius
“I’m very sensitive – I’ll cry during every movie or commercial – but when it comes to my own feelings, I don’t really think about them that much unless I’m making music. Otherwise, I’m either checked out or laughing because that’s how I do regular stuff. I have a hard time talking about my feelings.”
― Perfume Genius
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