Petra Haden Quotes
Harmony has always come very natural to us because we started singing harmony at an early age. We heard a lot of different music growing up.
People want to hear clean sounds; they don't want to hear coughing in the background, pages turning.
Everyone knows about The Who, but I didn't. I knew the popular songs like "I Can See For Miles." So that was the first song I worked on because it was the catchiest and easiest.
Our dad played us a lot of old country songs by The Carter Family and he would sing along to it. I loved listening to him sing.
I put out Imaginaryland, I heard a lot of, "Oh she's copying Laurie Anderson," and I was like, wait... but I don't know her music! Maybe - didn't she have a song called "Superman"?
When we were on breaks from recording and touring, I was kind of moping around, like not knowing what to do. It was hard to adjust back to normal life after being so busy.
I never punched in anything when I recorded Imaginaryland. Where the title came from is a whole other story.
I didn't know who Meredith Monk was, and I knew about Laurie Anderson but I didn't know her music that well.
My grandparents on my mom's side played in a mandolin orchestra. So when I hear mandolins, I automatically think of them.
The Conversation was a movie I saw probably for the first time in the early 2000s. I immediately loved the piano and just how simple it is.
The first song I wrote was "Look Both Ways Before You Cross" from Imaginaryland. I started the song by singing a bass line, "hoo hoo hoo hoo."
I like things that start depressing and dark and end up romantic, and thats what I really loved about King Kong.
Old film-noir movies. There's something comforting about watching black-and-white movies, and hearing this kind of music just puts me in a fantasy world. It's a really great escape for me.
