Top 33 Bat for Lashes Quotes

The first album I started out, I just did everything completely alone. I think it has to do with confidence. The more confidence you develop in your own sound, the more you can open up and alchemize that with other people, just set it free, and not feel challenged by that.

My dad was a Muslim and would pray five times a day. I would pray with him as much as I could, in the morning before school. Sometimes he would tell us moralistic tales about genies, magic carpets and wondrous lands. My mother is not religious – she’s just English.

I’ve hidden behind my hair more than clothes. Sometimes having long hair with a fringe is very useful when you don’t want to look at people. I used to have very short hair, but long hair is my thing – a black nocturnal shield.

I feel empathy for people who are trapped in a prison of self-consciousness in an uncomfortable way. We can be free, but we’re so held back. So perhaps that’s why I feel a duty to make my work. I feel liberated when I’m doing it, and I want other people to feel liberated through it.

I like it when people make an effort to wear things that you wouldn’t normally put together – I like eccentrics.

There’s this label called Neurotica by these sweet girls that have given me some lovely things to wear, and we might collaborate on making a little piece. They’re really lovely, and I think they’ve been quite inspired by me in turn.

In the music industry, intelligence in women is undervalued.

I always think that the exceptional people are those who remain outsiders but still communicate on a grand scale. I think I want everyone to feel more free, and so I feel really claustrophobic on behalf of lots of people.

In a repressed society, artists fulfil a sense of harking back to instant gratification, or immediate expression, by doing things that function on the edge of society, or outside of what is conventionally accepted.

I don’t think music is the first thing I turn to. For me, I think visual art is more the thing. Sometimes when I’ve been doing music for a while, I can’t really take any more in.

I love dressing up.

We are bits of energy floating about in various guises, and when we die we rejoin the big cosmic soup of the universe.

I think Deborah Harry has a really sexy, cool and quite playful sex-kitten kind of style I really like.

I have lots of clothes that I don’t wear because I’m bad for impulse buying. They sit in my cupboard looking forlorn, but if I haven’t worn something for a couple of months, I usually realise that it would be much better off in one of my friends’ wardrobes.

I live in a Moomin house in East London which I fill with blankets and nice crockery and get people round for dinner. When you travel a lot, you feel rootless and adrift – this is my sanctuary, where I can breathe out.

I get people being frightened of me. One time I did this photo shoot where I had hairy armpits – I was really digging it, but they were like, ‘We’ll airbrush that out.’

I cry a lot when I feel empathy. I can feel heartbroken by life, and I cry quite easily, sometimes for no reason. It’s healthy, I think.

I quite like androgyny.

When I was writing my dissertation, I wrote about Freud and the process of sublimation, which is when you learn to stop breast-feeding, or stop going to the toilet whenever you want to. It’s about learning to repress a desire for instant gratification.

Mentorship is really important. I really like to talk to people who have been in the music industry much longer than me about artists’ block, things I’m struggling with, or the music business. It’s really important for artists to have a community. Sometimes you can feel quite isolated.

All of the art that I love is about peeling back layers and delving into something that’s in a subconscious or dream realm. People like Jan Svankmajer, or the artist Yoshimoto Nara, or David Lynch.

When I finally finished the ‘Two Suns’ tour, which went on for quite a long time, I felt like a bit of a husk. And I remember thinking, ‘I need to spend some time in one place, and just be at home.’ So I guess the first year of that three and a half years was spent just trying to kind of get back to normal again.

Mum says that, since I was a tiny baby, I’ve had the most strong-willed and stubborn personality known to man. Although that was a real pain for her, she admired my resolve.

When I was little, I grew up in a place called Hertfordshire, which is just near London, but out in the country, and I visited Pakistan in the summers to go and see my family on my dad’s side.

There’s something in me that loves to inspire people: when I’m playing music, I imagine all this sparkly stardust going through everyone. I want to make people come alive.

I’m not really frightened by experimenting – that’s the main thing. I really like mixing very old beautiful pieces that are from thrift shops or that have some historical value with quite new futuristic things.

The record company doesn’t know what to do with me, because I’m not a Lily Allen, but I’m not really an indie artist, either. All the best artists have been in the middle.

I don’t like to be too submissive in the way I dress. I like quite boyish things, so I hardly ever wear high heels.

I could talk for ages about how women are amazing, but essentially we shouldn’t be manipulated by the media’s expectations of our bodies. I’d recommend every woman to read ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves’ – it’s about being in touch with your more wild, free and powerful side.

I usually speak with all my drummers so that I write my songs with them in mind, and we’ll have bass sounds, choir sounds, and then you can multi-task with all these orchestral sounds. Through the magic medium of technology, I can play all kinds of sounds – double bass and stuff.

When I was little, people like Talking Heads were on the radio. There was something geeky yet groundbreaking about them.

I think music naturally wants to be played with more than one person. There’s a surprise element, and you don’t know what it will be, and it’s up to that other person’s energy to help create this third thing.

The way you wield your power is about using it to afford you opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise have. So I’m very creatively ambitious, and I just hope people notice it; that’s all I want.