Back to People
“I'm trying to show everybody that I'm a girl, and I'm five foot four, and you can do anything you want, no matter your gender. It's your world, too!”
“If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I'll die someday, and one day, they will too.”
“I don't know how to function without music. When I'm not making it, I'm listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.”
“Lyrics are so important, but they're really underrated.”
“If I'm in a bad mood, or if I'm uncomfortable, it's probably what I'm wearing that's making me feel that way.”
“There are alway going to be bad things. But you can write it down and make a song out of it.”
“If it's good music, it's good music.”
“I really wanted to be a model when I was little. I loved photography, and I loved being on camera. But I was short and chubby, so I couldn't. Anyway, being an artist is way more interesting than just being a model because it's about you and what you want”
“I think everybody deserves an equal amount of appreciation whether how old they are, but I mean, I'm cool with the praise. I'm good.”
“I like to be in control of how I look and how I feel and how I act.”
“I'm gonna make what I want to make, and other people are gonna like what they're gonna like. It doesn't really matter.”
“It's really fun to put yourself into a character - into shoes you wouldn't normally be in.”
“Words are more powerful than some noises. Noises won't last long. Lyrics are so important, and people don't realise that.”
“My brother had written 'Ocean Eyes,' and we recorded it, basing all of the production around contemporary and lyrical dance. I think of most songs that way - if you can't dance to a song, it's not a song.”
“I love people talking about me; I love anybody just looking at me.”
“I've always liked being busy. If I have nothing to do for a week, it just makes me mad.”
“When I write, I try to become different characters.”
“It's rare for anyone to value the opinions of a teenage girl.”
“I feel like I write so that people can think of it as theirs. If my song is exactly about your life right now, then it is - I don't even want to say that it's mine, because it's yours.”
“I'm not going to say I'm cool, because I don't really feel that. I just don't care at all, and I guess that's what people think is cool.”
“I grew up on the Beatles; I love Linkin Park and Green Day. I heard hip-hop for the first time at 11 and realized what I was missing.”
“I listen to music all day every day. I can't not listen to music. It's kind of scary how much I listen to music, but it's what I love, and it's all I care about, so I'm good with it.”
“Writing a song is so personal. You have to have trust in someone you're working with; otherwise, you're not gonna come out with something that's really you.”
“My whole life, I've sung and listened to music, and since the beginning, I've had iTunes and used Apple Music for streaming.”
“People have so much going on in their heads. I'm like, If you could write a song, you'd feel so much better!”
“I just really want to get music out and tour and go places I've never been, and just do more videos. I love photography and videography, and so I really want to direct videos when I can.”
“Nothing really scares me, to be honest.”
“I hate the idea of genres.”
“I don't really get nervous that much, or if I do, only I know. It's all inside me. I am good at hiding everything.”
“Sometimes it's flattering when people copy you, but sometimes it gets to a breaking point.”
“I don't think a song should be put in a category.”
“Being an artist doesn't just mean you have a song. That doesn't make you an artist. The word 'artist' means so many different things, and I feel like to be a real one, you really have to do it all. The people that I think of as artists - Tyler the”
“I'm super self-critical, which I think is good, because then I get exactly what I want. I'm critical of other people, too - I try not to be, though.”
“Smiling makes me feel weak and not in control and not powerful and small.”
“Clothing & fashion are kind of my security blanket, almost.”
“Sexism is everywhere, bro. I don't know if it's ever not somewhere.”
“I'm a really particular person. I want it my way.”
“I never thought a career as a musician was possible.”
“I play piano and ukulele, and I taught myself those things just because I wanted to play them.”
“Getting recognized is insane. It just blows my mind. Like, someone who you don't know at all can just be like, 'Oh my God - are you Billie?'”
“If I'm inspired to make a certain kind of song, I'm going to make that kind of song, no matter if it's what they know me as or think I am.”
“I feel like I might be a designer or stylist - or a director because I have always been super interested in cameras and editing.”
“Aside from singing, I'm also a dancer. I've been dancing since I was 8.”
“You can write a song about being in love with someone, but you don't have to be in love with anyone.”
“I really like hip-hop and rap; that's my main influence. I really wanna be more of a hip-hop artist.”
“I love movement. I love moshing.”
“Pretty much my whole life, I've been a performer and have loved singing and writing songs in my room for my own ears.”
“What inspires me about rap is that it's written in an almost poetic way. I just think it's so cool.”
“I find a lot of inspiration through visuals. When I was 12, I saw Aurora's 'Runaway' music video. Something inside me clicked, like, 'That is what I want to do, no matter whether it goes anywhere or not.'”
“I always wanted to be a Vine star. I wasn't, thank God.”
“What makes a song last is real content from a mind that is thinking a little bit harder about certain things. A lot of artists don't really think that hard.”
“I have so many designs and video ideas and lyrics in my head, so I always try to be productive.”
“Me and my brother get along super well. We're, like, best friends. So we'll stay up until, like, five just talking because we get along and, you know, it's cool. And he respects my opinions, and I respect his, even if we don't have the same opinions, but”
“People think you have to go through something to write about it, and you absolutely do not. You can write about, like, a shoe. It's a story.”
“I felt like, for so many years - and I still even feel it - as a girl, you can't really expect to go on stage and dress like a boy and jump around and scream with the audience and mosh and stuff, and every time that happens, I feel really proud.”
“I always wear the kind of stuff that makes you overheat and die.”
“I wrote my first song at 12 and remember someone asking, 'What were you going through at 12 that you could write about?' I get what you're saying, but 11, 12, 13 were the hardest years of my life. You learn everything. You learn how horrible things feel.”
“I don't want people at my shows to come out and say, 'I just saw a cool show.' I want them to say, 'I had fun at the show.' I want it to be a collaborative thing and be part of the audience and have them be part of me. I try to interact with everyone”
“I used to write random little stupid things when I was five, but then the first song I really wrote was one called 'Fingers Crossed,' which is on SoundCloud.”
“I work with my brother Finneas, and he produces all of my music in his little bedroom in our house. We actually tried renting out a studio for a month when we were producing 'Don't Smile at Me,' but it was really hard there, and we ended up just doing it”
“I've always been a singer. I never really decided I was gonna be a singer. It just kind of - I just sung a lot.”
“I think it's really cool when artists have song titles or album names that are a really conversational sentence.”
“I always want to create and do things, or draw.”
“I'm pretty sure I don't have any songs that are about how much I love someone. They're all either about, like, 'I hate you,' or 'You make me hate me.'”
“I'm a really artistic person, and so, with the live stuff, there's a lot that I think is really cool. Beyonce and Rihanna have all these dancers. So with the live costumes and video costumes, I'd really like to have my vision. The way that I want people”
“We uploaded 'Ocean Eyes' to SoundCloud, and it started getting a lot of plays pretty much immediately.”
“It's really fun to be on stage in front of people.”
“Writing music is just like writing a book.”
“Pirate was going to be my middle name, but then my uncle had a problem with it because pirates are bad.”
“I used to make little movies when I was younger. I'd make my friends be in them and then edit them.”
“If you write in the same way over and over again, like, in the same place with the same techniques and with the same people, you're sort of writing the same song over and over again.”
“I love to watch videos, and I've always liked to film and take pictures. I have an eye for really weird things that nobody thinks about. I used to make little movies about myself and then edit them on iMovie.”
“'Bellyache' is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren't real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don't know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a”
“Some artists just ruin their voices because they don't know any better.”
“I had a period in my life where I decided that I would never be bored again and that, if I had any free time at all, I would make plans, and I would always be doing things. It actually was great for a year or so, but then I lost all of my friends.”
“I don't see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear 'pop,' you're like, 'Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,' and I feel like, 'Uh-uh. That's not me.'”
“I've been in the Los Angeles Children's Chorus since I was 8.”
“All of the Vines that were acted & setup & had nice cameras, those weren't the good Vines. The good Vines were, like, a random little kid in the middle of a forest, like, yelling.”
“Clothing and fashion are kind of my security blanket, almost.”
“I'm not a category of a person. I'm the same person, for my whole life. I like this thing this time, and I like this thing that time.”
“I hate smiling. It makes me feel weak and powerless and small. I've always been like that. I don't smile in any pictures.”
