I'm not a Pat Benatar clone. I wish people would forget about that comparison.
Patty Smyth
Honesty is always hip.
I've lived most of my life in Manhattan, but I lived in Brooklyn for a while as a kid. I went to junior high school there. Girls in Brooklyn have to be tough - I mean real tough - just to get by. It's life in the combat zone.
I don't want to bore people with stories about being in rock n' roll and being a mother. Other singers do it. I can, too. I just do what I have to do. It's not that hard. It's just different.
You can't keep doing the same things when you get married and have a family. You have to slow down. You have to be responsible.
Back when I first started with Scandal, I felt like I had to carry a lot of the weight because it was up to me to sell those songs.
I partnered with Headstrong because they give free and fast mental health support to our veterans who are most at risk. There is no red tape, and they get help within a day or two instead of weeks.
It's funny. You travel all over the world, and you wind up with a guy from your hometown.
I'd love to have a Christmas classic under my belt. It's hard to write a Christmas song.
I went through a period of being disillusioned with touring.
Bios are always so dull and boring.
Tennis players shouldn't get married. It hurts your game.
When 'The Warrior' came out, Scandal was no more.
You had to be tough to survive in my neighborhood.
You had to have a great voice or talent as a musician before imaging or marketing plans came into play.
I haven't always made all of the right decisions from a career perspective, but things worked out in the end.
In the past, I've allowed myself to record songs that I wish I had not, but agreed to for one reason or another.
I'm able to do nothing.
It took a while for me to figure out how it all fit in, being a mother and being a woman and being a rock singer.
Scandal rarely toured after those first few hits. I want to go out and sing and connect with fans who may have never seen us live.
When I was a kid, those were carefree days without much pressure.
When Scandal had a top 20 video, no one knew what I looked like. I had all this stuff on me.
I'm a lead singer of a band, and that's so enough. It's not like I need to have my name on everything. The new name 'Scandal, Featuring Patty Smyth' was just to make it clear that I wasn't leaving the group.
We shot the video for 'Broken' where both my parents grew up. There was always a strong sense of serving our country in the neighborhood - my father and all my uncles served, and most of them enlisted.
I listen to country music. I listen to jazz. I listen to R&B. I listen to Jimi Hendrix a lot.
The more rocking, the better.
When you have a different mother, you want to be in her world. Because in mine, I didn't feel like I fit in.
Being a mom was a full-time job. I was never willing to sacrifice everything for my career.
With a baby, you have to be responsible, selfless, and patient. I was never into those things. I got what I wanted. I did what I wanted. I didn't consider myself a patient person.
There aren't any coincidences. I think things really happen for a reason.
