Karen O

Yeah, I can't separate the art from the music and the music from the art. I think that stems from going to school for film first, and kind of stumbling onto music as my career.

I'm not a 21-year-old angsty self-destructive rapscallion anymore.

Working pretty much nonstop as an artist, the hardest thing is to know what to do with yourself when you have some time off. You struggle with yourself to take a vacation.

I'm not a quitter. I believe in following things through.

Sophomore records are historically really difficult.

I was a complete outsider in high school.

For me, California is all about rest, relaxation, space.

Being on the road with rock, it's pretty much 90 percent guys.

Bands that I've loved over the years are the ones that have a certain myth around them.

I plead total ignorance to Led Zeppelin. I am totally in the dark about them.

I feel like there's a hunger in the culture now for the live experience maybe as a counterpoint to the more sort of synthetic lives that we've been living.

Well, Freddie Mercury is a really huge rock star in my head. I've always thought he was just so tough and such an amazing entertainer, really a contradiction in many ways as well. So he was incredible.

I feel like every five to seven years I really need to put myself in this position of discomfort and exploration, just to survive. Otherwise I feel like I'm falling asleep, like I'll go crazy if I don't do it.

I was just totally taken by Michael Jackson when I was a little kid, like everyone else.

You have to open up on stage.

I love bass, I really do. Bass is ace!

I'm in the camp that needs to discover and take risks, sometimes it's with the promise of something special and new, sometimes it's to stay awake, either way it's much more stressful with all the uncertainty but worth the pain in the end.

My onstage persona really is a persona, you know, and really the moment I step onstage, it kind of kicks into gear.