You should always read the ingredients in coconut water. It should say 100% coconut water.
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.
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.
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.
Circuses don't treat their 'performers' very well - whipping them, trying to make them terrified.
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.
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.
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?'
I grew up watching 'The Tonight Show' and Jimmy Fallon on 'SNL.'
I always go thrift shopping wherever I am.
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.
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.
I always found creative ways to make money since I was pretty young kid.
My vocal influences are a lot of jazz singers: Billie Holiday, Julie London, they had this tenderness to their voice.
I've gotten to play some cool venues, like at an aquarium in La Jolla, California.
It's all about the art, really, at the end of the day.
My parents played the Bee Gees; Earth, Wind & Fire; Michael Jackson. The best pop music to infiltrate a child's mind.
When I wrote 'Dopamine,' I was so enamored by Los Angeles and finally making music I was really excited about.
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.
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.
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.
I'm a professional musician.
I look at performance clothes as setting the mood for the whole show.
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.
I grew up with a big backyard that led to the sand dunes of Lake Michigan.
I really like Colin Blunstone, the lead singer of the Zombies.
I like to buy books at airports sometimes.
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.
The ultimate language of love is music... The ultimate connector.
To make a genuine record, it takes more than a cool beat and some auto tune.
I just love catchy melodies.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The music scene in Michigan is really folky and bluegrass, but my parents played a lot of disco. They really liked to dance.
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.
I have these lacy shirts that look kind of like my grandma's curtains that I wear.
I grew up with my mother as a Tonic Shaman.
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?'
I have a few friends who are amazing stylists, so I owe them a lot.
Performing is an exchange of a lot of energy and it can wipe you out.
I'm not growing out my hair just to be androgynous.
I'm fascinated by the yin and yang of everything.
I really like intimate venues because it feels like everyone in the audience is in on all our inside jokes.
My mom's really into astrology and she's always telling me about the moon cycles and stuff like that.
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.
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.
When you listen to music, you can tell if it's a real love song or not.
My favorite songs of all time are songs that take you on a journey and give you pleasurable moments you weren't expecting.
