When you’re chasing success instead of art...

“Then you’ve got to ask yourself why you’re doing it. I had a failed album before Little Earthquakes [synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read’s 1988 self-titled debut] and LA is allergic to failure. People laughed at me. I had to ask myself, ‘How did you go from being a child prodigy to a bimbo?’ So, I sat on the floor of my apartment and asked the piano for forgiveness because I had ditched her. I had betrayed my compadre, my bestie, my confidant. I asked for forgiveness and the response was, ‘I forgive you, on one condition: that you’ll write music that documents what you feel, hear and see.’ That was the deal we made, and we’ve had it since 1988.”

People tried to get me to do co-writing...

“Back in the ’90s for Little Earthquakes and Under The Pink. They said, ‘Go write with so and so!’ and I was like, ‘I’m gonna write with the muses, how’s that?’ [Laughs] I just did what felt right. If I couldn’t deliver, I wouldn’t be making records anymore. You have to deliver time and time again, over and over and over and over, and still feel like there’s more song structures that you can work with. And sometimes it’s challenging. When people ask me what songwriting is like, I say, ‘It’s probably like torture.’ Some songs are just elusive. But once I start trying too hard to make a song? By forcing it, I lose the force. Yoda’s gone. There’s no Yoda, you know what I mean?”

I don’t consider myself to be a brave songwriter...

“It’s not about being brave or being weak, it’s about being clear enough to push embarrassment aside, push everything aside, and allow yourself to be played by the piano. You’ve got to let it play you. When people talk about having command over their instrument, I cringe a little bit because you’ve got to bow to the instrument. Approach these things with humility – don’t pat yourself on the back. You know you’re going to traverse things that might not be an easy topic – you have to just throw your hands up and become a vessel for the muses. You have to really unzip the skin.”

Culture puts youth on a pedestal...

“To the point where [the music industry] is not looking at developing career artists. I’ve had this conversation recently with the CEO of a label, and he absolutely agreed with me. They’re often looking to develop something so they can push it as far as they can, and make as much bank as they can, in the short term – they’ve got artistic cannon fodder. There was a time when they valued developing a career artist like Bruce Springsteen, for example. You should be able to see what that brings you if you’re on the business side, you need to see what that brings you. But sometimes people are so short-sighted – they’ve gotten into this fast food artist culture, right? And, therefore, they don’t want to take the time to develop them. And that means it’s only artists that are developing themselves. Artists have to understand this: you have to be your own Mary Poppins, my friend. You need that bag, you need that umbrella and, yes, you’ve got to have that fucking spoonful of sugar. But if you have that, then you’re gonna watch CEOs come and go. As I’ve watched them come and go.”

If somebody had the playbook on what to expect during a global pandemic...

“I wish they would have sent me a copy, because I didn’t get it. By the time the third lockdown happened, I was grieving all kinds of loss at the same time – and I’m including live music in that – and not knowing when this nightmare was going to end. At a certain point, as this started to go further, I reached my breaking point. And it’s not pretty, it’s not glamorous, and it’s not cool. And it’s not badass. But it’s fucking honest. I was in a difficult place [making Ocean To Ocean]. I’ve been in a difficult place at different times in my life, this just happened to be one of those times where I didn’t have the answers. What was required of me to get out of that hell? You’ve got to go further into it. My favourite saying of all time is, ‘If it’s too loud, turn it up.’ The only way out is to go further in. You have to cross the river Styx, so to speak, go see Persephone, bow at her feet and say, ‘I surrender.’”