Bat for Lashes
Bat for Lashes
Natasha Khan, better known by her stage name Bat for Lashes, is an English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She has released four studio albums, Fur and Gold, Two Suns, The Haunted Manand The Bride, and received Mercury Prize nominations for Fur and Gold and Two Suns. Khan is also the vocalist for Sexwitch, a collaboration with the rock band Toy and producer Dan Carey...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth25 October 1979
artists business industry longer music people quite struggling talk
Mentorship is really important. I really like to talk to people who have been in the music industry much longer than me about artists' block, things I'm struggling with, or the music business. It's really important for artists to have a community. Sometimes you can feel quite isolated.
art began encouraged excelled learning music piano teachers work writer
When I was young, I wanted to be a writer or painter. I was always writing stories, and I excelled at drawing. My teachers encouraged my art work. When I was 9 or 10, I began learning piano and started writing music.
adding album art dimensions fill involved music recording space studio videos ways words
An album is a whole universe, and the recording studio is a three-dimensional kind of art space that I can fill with sound. Just as the album art and videos are ways of adding more dimensions to the words and music. I like to be involved in all of it because it's all of a piece.
accept artistic eccentric fit honour others people quite turn
It can be frightening to turn your back on what others think is right. But I'm not the same as a lot of people - I'm quite artistic and quite eccentric sometimes. If you honour that, you fit into yourself better - and people accept you for what you are.
unique artist needs
To be a great artist, you need to know yourself as best as you possibly can. I live my life and delve into my own psyche. Its more about exploring how I feel rather than making pale imitations of something that came before. We are unique beings, and the way we look at things is our own.
artist expression desire
I wrote about Freud and the process of sublimation, which is when you learn to stop breast-feeding, or stop going to the toilet whenever you want to. It's about learning to repress a desire for instant gratification. And in a repressed society, artists fulfil a sense of harking back to instant gratification, or immediate expression, by doing things that function on the edge of society, or outside of what is conventionally accepted.
artists best indie lily record
The record company doesn't know what to do with me, because I'm not a Lily Allen, but I'm not really an indie artist, either. All the best artists have been in the middle.
art artist david dream layers love people
All of the art that I love is about peeling back layers and delving into something that's in a subconscious or dream realm. People like Jan Svankmajer, or the artist Yoshimoto Nara, or David Lynch.
art music visual
I don't think music is the first thing I turn to. For me, I think visual art is more the thing. Sometimes when I've been doing music for a while, I can't really take any more in.
adrift breathe east fill house london nice people round travel
I live in a Moomin house in East London which I fill with blankets and nice crockery and get people round for dinner. When you travel a lot, you feel rootless and adrift - this is my sanctuary, where I can breathe out.
blocked needs
The creative part of your brain needs to be stimulated. Sometimes you get blocked in the thing you do, because there's so much pressure to do it.
absolutely brought english family repressed side
I was brought up by the English side of my family, who are very repressed and working class. Absolutely lovely, but very English.
normally people
I like it when people make an effort to wear things that you wouldn't normally put together - I like eccentrics.
mean music switch time
When I'm doing just music all the time, it can get really overwhelming. It's always challenging to switch it up a bit. And just because you're a musician, it doesn't mean that music is your only creative outlet.