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
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.
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There's something in me that loves to inspire people: when I'm playing music, I imagine all this sparkly stardust going through everyone. I want to make people come alive.
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I think music naturally wants to be played with more than one person. There's a surprise element, and you don't know what it will be, and it's up to that other person's energy to help create this third thing.
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In the music industry, intelligence in women is undervalued.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
amazing dad inspiring spare time
Dad was an amazing storyteller and illustrator, which he did in his spare time - very inspiring and dramatic.
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I have been listening a lot to The Carpenters and Neil Diamond, Elton John, and thinking, like, 'God, it'd be great to write a sort of subversive, alternative ballad,' like Lou Reed does so well with 'Perfect Day.' And I really loved 'Video Games' - at the time, it hadn't really got as big, but it's a classic song; you can't deny it.
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.
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David Bowie worked with Brian Eno and dressed up in extraordinary clothes, but he was also a brilliant songwriter who captured the thoughts of a generation. He was hugely successful, without compromise.
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When I was little, people like Talking Heads were on the radio. There was something geeky yet groundbreaking about them.
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When I was writing my dissertation, 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.