The only difficult thing is learning to recognise the interesting bits from those millions of moments life provides you with every day and writing down those snippets.
The only difficult thing is learning to recognise the interesting bits from those millions of moments life provides you with every day and writing down those snippets.
For me, every single thing I do seems to be about the process of letting go because that's what I so desperately need to do with so many things: with fear, with what people think of me, and all these things I've worried about my whole life.
I love that phrase that parents say to their children when they cry: 'I'll give you something to cry about.'
I spend a lot of my time just looking at words and grammar and writing things down that I don't know.
The most horrifying thing I ever did was work as a steward on an airplane. I wanted to get hired by United. I thought, 'With my languages, this will be amazing; I will work in First Class.' But I could only get a job with an airline going from Newark, New Jersey to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
In order to not have to deal with being gay in the world, you have to control everything. You try and walk in an un-gay way so as not to be found out. You try to control every situation, check the people around you, that you're not in the wrong place, and that can be exhausting. It goes on for decades, and it becomes mental sickness.
I was so ashamed of who I was. And I also felt like an outcast in gay society as well because I wasn't good-looking enough; my body wasn't good enough.
I have to strip away all the layers when I'm writing the song. I have to cut through all these layers of years of putting up walls and putting protective layers around myself.
When I write my songs, I'm writing about the pain, the joy, and the ridiculousness of being a human.
The rejection I received when I was young for being a homosexual... that's nothing compared to the number you do on yourself when you've been taught that you are not a human like other people.
Do you know the solo at the end of 'Why Don't You Love Me Any More?' that sounds like a chainsaw breaking through? That is what I can't do with my voice. That's when you hear how painful this has been to me.
I spent many years trying to fit in and do things the way I thought I was supposed to - trying to be perceived the way I thought people wanted to see me. I grew up in a very religious household and wasn't taught to feel comfortable or good about my sexuality, so it feels great to be able to say things the way I want to say them.