Banks

My identity started developing through the songs I was writing.

I have a really feminine voice, but I also feel quite powerful when I write. So my songs feel heavy, and that's how Banks sounds. It's a really short, powerful sound. It almost sounds masculine, and I like having that dichotomy.

James Blake, Jai Paul, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Sohn, Kwabs, Sampha, Lil Silva, and Brandy, always. They all have soul. Deep soul.

I found music when I was very dark. I felt unheard, with inner dialogues that I didn't know how to express.

My approach to beauty is all about moods. If you want to feel sexy, if you want to feel feminine or, I don't know, boyish - it's all about how you feel at that point in time. My mood changes.

I definitely drink lots of water. I use this Decleor Neroli Oil to moisturize - no matter what the climate is, it always makes my skin really moist.

I like a kind of dark, bronze-y brown smoky eye with maybe some mascara, some contouring and stuff, but I don't like wearing black or pinks. I like it more tonal.

On tour, there's dry shampoo - I use the one by Bed Head.

I think doing things that scare you a little is a good thing. A little bit of fear is never a bad thing. A healthy amount of fear makes everything taste better.

I listened to pretty much anything that I could really feel, where I felt like the artist had to write those songs, where you can feel their soul and the pain and the happiness and love and everything.

My music is 100-percent me, so it's just who I developed into as a woman. I feel really grateful that I waited until I did because I feel like I really found who I was by doing that.

Social media overwhelms me.

I have a memory of listening to Tracy Chapman and just being intrigued by her voice. Even as a young girl, I wanted to know more about her and her story. I felt I was learning about her through her music. That was a revelation to me.

I like wearing oils. Perfume makes me nauseous sometimes. It's too strong.

I like Australia, but every time I'm there, I feel like everybody's being sarcastic because everyone's so nice.

L.A. is a really good home base. I've grown up here, and so sometimes I have wanderlust even though I tour. You think it would be cured by touring, but sometimes I feel like I want to be somewhere else.

The song 'Stick'? That needed to be chunky and sexy. It's human. It's human to be the girl in 'Stick' and feel spicy as heck.

Fashion is a huge part of music and of who you are. It really sets the mood for a show, and it's fun to play around with it. You can get really creative in photo shoots as well. You know, just having fun with it.

I think social media is an interesting beast - you can't get too caught up in it. People can get caught up in it sometimes, but I think it's important to live in the present and not on the computer screen.

My music is inspired by my life: the people in my life, the people I have relationships with, the people I love, the people that make me feel something.

I get so many questions in interviews about feminism, and I think the second you start separating femininity and masculinity and giving one more power than the other, that's like - everyone is a person.

Making music is an emotional thing. And when you're on a video shoot with 50 people there, you have to somehow, in a non-emotional way, say what you want and not feel guilty for it. And that takes growing up and that takes... not caring how people perceive you as much. And it just takes experience, I think.

I feel more comfortable being confrontational and authoritative. It's important for women in this business.

I don't think of anyone as a 'groupie.' People who connect with my music are just inspiring and amazing.

Music is the most private place in my life, but it's become the most public part of who I am.

I'm just gonna keep growing as an artist, and I'm excited to work with different people and learn from all these other talented, creative people that I've been around. It's so inspiring to be around other people who have ideas you haven't thought of, and all of a sudden you're like, 'Wow! That's so amazing!'

I haven't even had to learn, but it's just this natural thing to be able to express any emotion I have through the tone of my voice.

I think, probably when I was 15 or so, I was going through a really hard time with my family, and I just felt really helpless - I didn't know how to put anything I was feeling into words, and I was really confused, and I felt like nobody would hear me, but I didn't even know what to say.

Growing up, I listened to a lot of everything - I fell in love with music, when I discovered people like Lauryn Hill and Tracy Chapman, people whose voices I could really feel, people with a lot of soul. That's what I'm drawn to as a musician: Anybody that has their own voice and their own point of view.

What people would qualify as R&B is, for me, just soul. And I love honesty and soul and heavy, crunchy beats that move you and make you breathe a little bit faster.

Twitter and those platforms just didn't feel natural to me.

I want people to feel the times where they don't feel good. You should dive into those emotions, because that's what I do with my music.

It's a big thing in my music to highlight being human - being emotional and powerful, like a goddess.

I've felt real pain, and sometimes I channel the exhale coming out of that to write, and those are the songs that give me the most power and the most strength.

A wounded healer, I think, is a lot more powerful than a healer that has not been wounded. In 'Weaker Girl,' I was coming from a wounded healer's perspective.

Real pain hurts so bad. When you've gone through something and you've overcome it, you're able to heal other people.

People think I'm going to be this really dark human when they meet me.

I think every person is so unique. I think every woman is so unique, every man is so unique, every artist is so unique.

Every human is so layered. And 'Brain,' that theme is about - I'm just such a sensitive person, and I can pick up people's energies.

Once I discovered music and that you don't need to just use words but can add a growl to the melody, that releases so much more. I never want to make music for any other reason.

It feels really good that people are connecting to my music so much.

'Before I Ever Met You' was the first one to come out and that just dives into the grit, and it's pretty graphic about a relationship. For my first song, it was very special the way it happened, because I didn't really hold anything back, and people responded to it.

When I do things that don't feel pure or make any moves that I don't feel like represent me or who I am, it makes me feel like I wanna throw up. So I just do me, and I guess people just take that how they do.

I like feeling fresh and having really dewy skin. I like feeling moisturized and having a good brow.

One of my favorite things is to try delicious different fruits from different places, in Japan or other places that have different fruits you can't get in the States.

The most personal thing about me is my music. The most honest, pure thing in my whole life.

It's a powerful thing to be able to write a song. Even the least powerful feeling - like insecurity - that makes you feel weak when you experience it, when you write about it, you are powerful.

When you broaden the little box that you've been living in for so long, it can be very uncomfortable at first.

Once I discovered how important writing music was to me and just what a huge weight it lifted off of me, I knew that it was going to be the biggest part of my life, the biggest love of my life, the biggest thing in my life.

I'm very passionate, very emotional, very sensitive. I've always been like that.