Musician

My sister's great. She's very bright; she's very private.

Music was a means through which I could meet people and sort of begin the process of exploring who I was or who I could be.

So much of my intention with songs is to voice a continual dissatisfaction, or at least to claw my way out of it.

There was a clarity to the Nineties. It was pre-9/11, before that anxiety kicked in that exists right now about the financial crisis or terrorism. We were all just going to move forward into the millennium and everything was always going to get better. Then, whoops, that didn't happen.

I am a horrible visual artist. I can't fix a car, sew, knit, cook, etc. Statistically, there is more I don't do than do.

The 'New York Times' is my homepage because it forces me to go right into the news.

I think that the most well-intentioned, optimistic, creative people often live for the moment, and for 'Portlandia,' our goals were always very sort of short-term and attainable.

The Northwest, to make a generalization, is a fairly sensitive populace. Slightly self-conscious and very self-reflexive.

Much of the music I remember from camp was unofficial: the songs a counselor would play for us on acoustic guitar or that an older camper would sing after telling us a tale of his hard-knock life. We couldn't get enough of 'One Tin Soldier' or 'Cat's in the Cradle.'

A lot of music for me was about - I mean, aside from the fun and challenge of writing and being really good friends with my bandmates - getting to perform.

After Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006 I had very little desire to play music. It took well over three years before picking up a guitar meant anything to me other than an exercise.

I think music took hold of me and captured my imagination at such a formative age that I ascribe a mysteriousness to it, and I exalt it and take it seriously in a way that I think has just permeated my life ever since. And I'm less interested in music that is novelty or jokey or ironic.

I willed myself into being.

I feel like I came in comedy's side door, and still feel very fraudulent in many ways.

Writing 'Monitor Mix' was a very edifying and inspiring few years.

When I was 16, 17 years old, I became aware of music coming out of Olympia, Wash., which is the state capitol and about an hour south of Seattle. And there were bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile and Heavens To Betsy, and for the first time, I heard my story being explained to me, being sung to me.

Rihanna has guts and she always seems to be singing from someplace honest, dark and fierce.

I've always felt unclaimed.

I read a lot; fiction and non-fiction are the mediums I find most edifying and inspiring. I watch movies and listen to music and take lots and lots of walks. Nature is a nice reset button for me, it's how I get a lot of thinking done.

I think that half of us feel fraudulent in our lives anyway. There's that strange disconnect of not really knowing what we're doing sometimes, or why it matters. It's our existential crisis.