Bonnie McKee

“I was born in Northern California and lived there until I was about eight years old. Then my parents moved me up to Seattle. I lived there from ages eight to 16. When I was a California kid,...”

“I like big, soaring melodies and fun, splashy lyrics. Maybe like what Blondie would do in 2013.”

“When my parents were like, 'We're going to the Northwest,' I thought, 'You've gotta be kidding me.' I was so depressed. The cold weather really did not agree with me. When I moved back down...”

“For 'Dynamite,' Max and Luke went to dinner and left me with a melody, and then I put it together.”

“I started writing my own songs from the time I was a little kid. I would write my own lyrics to other people's songs that I heard on the radio and take whatever song and make it about fairie...”

“I know 'Hallelujah' isn't actually a Christmas song, but it has that cozy, haunting vibe that sounds like a winter's night and belongs by a fire.”

“People like hearing songs that sound like something they've heard before, that's reminiscent of their childhood and of what their parents listened to.”

“I thought back to my middle-school experience of having slumber parties and watching Romeo + Juliet and staring at Leo and thinking about my first kiss and what I wanted it to be like. And w...”

“A line has to have a certain number of syllables, and the next line has to be its mirror image.”

“I've always had a teenage thread running through my music. On my first album, I had a song called 'Confessions of a Teenage Girl.' It's about using your feminine wealth to get what you want.”

“I saw Tina Turner do 'Proud Mary' on TV, and it was so electrifying and such a unique experience. I remember crying out of excitement, and I knew that I wanted to be a performer and make peo...”

“I'm visually stimulated, so I watch TV, movies, even Pinterest. A song could come from something as simple as being words splashed across a billboard or changing everyday turns of phrases.”