A little makeover never hurt nobody.
Justin Tranter
Truly saying sorry is never easy to do, and when you are, you just hope it's not too late.
If you think of 'Chandelier,' Sia's singing her heart out about all those moments before she got sober, and that's one way to convey emotion and make people hear every word.
I was borderline deluded to think something as outrageous as Semi Precious Weapons could have been mainstream.
In some ways, it's more rewarding to hear someone interpret a piece of music that you're a part of.
We really like L.A. because it really likes rock and roll.
A man in high heels is the most dangerous thing in the world.
I was born into the most amazing family an underdog could be born into, and I was born into the LGBTQ community. And what a beautiful community we are. The art, the music, the fashion, the brains, the fight, the survival skills, the diversity, male, female, non-binary, Gender Non Conforming, cis, trans, femme, and all races.
If you listen to Semi-Precious Weapons' last single, 'Aviation High,' you can definitely hear that even in my old band, even in the songs I was writing then, the pop influence really started to take over.
I'm fortunate that I have a female publisher, and her boss is a man of color. My world is a little more diverse, but the majority of the business is not diverse at all.
'World Is Our Playground' is a big room banger that makes you wanna check into a hostel and call Mike Taylor.
Once I got into pop songwriting, I was kind of just ready to help other people tell their stories... I'm here to facilitate and structure and grow and make things a little more fabulous and a little more urgent.
The one time I shot a gun, the feelings I felt, I was guilty for feeling them. There is an exhilaration and a glamour, and I felt awful for feeling that.
I'm not famous. I work with famous people.
I've had the experience of going through homophobia in my work, and I can share my experiences so future generations don't have to deal with what I've dealt with.
Pop just means popular - it can be any genre, and if it becomes popular, then it's pop music.
I love myself. I love my friends.
The Knife can't stop cloaking brilliant pop songs in voodoo jam blankets.
The only thing that's serious to me about music is making sure marginalized people are included in the story.
It's interesting to see the more femme that you present yourself, the more people sort of dehumanize you.
Before anything else, my favorite thing as a fan of music was to make up my own story as to what it means.
For me, as a performer or a songwriter, Stevie Nicks is always a huge inspiration as well as Iggy Pop.
The fans that fall in love with you at the show are always the most passionate.
A couple of days working with Joe Jonas, I thought, 'This guy is a slayer of a singer; he's really funny, goofy, and sexy. We need to write that.' And that led to 'Cake By The Ocean.'
The larger streaming grows, the less money there will be to get the music out there, which, to me, is the sad part.
Gaga the person is much like Gaga the celebrity. She is very sweet, loyal, and funny with her fans, and she is very sweet, loyal, and funny with her friends. On stage, she is over-the-top, ridiculous, dirty, and genuine on stage, and she is very over-the-top, ridiculous, dirty, and genuine with her friends.
The beauty of letting marginalized people tell their own stories is it isn't only the right thing to do socially, but it's also the right thing to do financially. People love the truth, and people like to spend money on the truth.
When I saw Courtney Love in 1994, I knew what I wanted to do. The minute I saw a female-fronted rock n' roll band, that changed my life.
I didn't want a day job anymore, so I somehow made the jewelry line work. Now that I look back on it, it was, like, the dumbest idea ever. Everyone and their mother has a jewelry line, so in retrospect, maybe not the smartest fallback plan. But it ended up working out great!
Beyonce, Stevie Nicks, Ani DiFranco, Cardi B - Women tell awesome stories.
I want to make sure in every song we write that women are given power.
My fashion is inspired by Tina Turner and Sharon Stone.
Young women should be telling stories of other young women. And if the superstar who is an amazing storyteller isn't a writer, that's totally fine, but we should get a young female writer in the room to work on that song with us.
Music spoke to me when I was young in such an intimate, empowering, magical way, and I think that music is already doing that for young queer kids.
Being a songwriter, you are accepting that this isn't about you. If you do want it to be about you, you're going to be really miserable.
My choice of shoe upsets people a lot more than my filthy mouth.
I shot a gun one time in New Zealand. An entertainment news program there thought, since the band was called Semi Precious Weapons, they would bring us to a gun range.
For me personally, I'm anti-gun and always have been and always will be. But I'm definitely not someone who is looking to abolish the Second Amendment. I think we're definitely interpreting it wrong.
Good art should be polarizing.
I don't like labels.
I am a genderless sea creature who has been writing and studying music since I was 12.
I love songs, Patty Larkin, Sharon Stone, Mae West, and Marilyn Monroe.
Most of my friends are my friends because they inspire me.
I think that because we have these big female pop stars, people forget that women and marginalized people are so underrepresented in this business.
For the most part, it's straight white men running these labels and publishing companies.
I just want to make music that people hear, and I'm not ashamed of that.
Obviously, Gaga's one of the greatest music visionaries of our time, and Beyonce is one of the greatest visions of our time. She is a music visionary, too.
When you are born gay, you are born into a rich culture of politics, music, and art, but you are also a minority in your own home.
I'm so connected to the community that I was lucky enough to be born into.
My goal is that my makeup and style will inspire Midwestern housewives. I want there to be a breakdown of 'Justin's smoky eye' in Cosmo.
