I grew up playing guitar in the late Nineties, early 2000s, so a very acoustic-driven pop-rock era, and then in college, I started listening to Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves. Then I really fell in love when I discovered really old country, like June Carter Cash - one of my all-time favorites.
I listened to a lot of what my grandparents listened to: George Jones, Johnny Cash - a lot of old country singers. Patsy Cline.
I'm like the Justin Bieber of the drag world.
I've always said drag queens are like Swiss Army knives. Most come from having to take $50-a-show pay and doing their own costume, wig, music and jokes.
I've always been obsessed with Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne, Melissa Etheridge.
I like Aimee Mann. Her album 'Mental Illness' is so good.
'All Stars' is a weird game. The rules are weird. However, I think 'All Stars' mirrors the real industry much more closely than normal seasons of 'Drag Race' do. In the real world of entertainment, it really is about the impressions you leave on your brothers and sisters in the room, and that's kind of what it is about.
I love that drag is a way for people to vacation in the gay nightlife, but... it's quite a different experience to perform for a gay audience than a straight audience.
Drag is pastiche and parody and satire. Drag queens are never meant to be stars. We make fun of stars. Drag queens are the people that 'point' at the star.
I'm such a Shangela fan. I think she exemplifies 'Drag Race' greatness. She's like the Tiffany 'New York' Pollard of 'Drag Race.' She's like a patron saint of reality TV.
I live in reality, and I know at any moment I could stop getting the phone calls and nobody wants to hear me sing or tell jokes anymore.
I was the poorest kid in my school, poorest kid in my town, poorest family. That stayed with me forever.
Something 'Drag Race' is really good at is portraying us as artists but also human beings. And normal human beings don't know everything. They don't have all the answers.
I don't pull punches at all, and I write my material for adults. But if kids like it, they can come watch it. I'll never change anything about what I do for anyone. I kind of think that's why kids like me. If you're a teenager, and there's someone onstage talking to you like an adult, that's good.
When I was on 'Drag Race,' it felt like a serious competition going on between drag queens... and then Katya and I were also there.
I think people are slowly realizing that don't have to be looking in a mirror to enjoy something. And they're realizing that watching a show with drag queens in it doesn't make you gay any more then listening to rap makes you black.
As drag queens and as comic people, we listen to our own artistic compass all the time.
I'm an optimistic realist. I kind of expect the worst but prepare for the best.
Northern Wisconsin, where I'm from, is so ridiculously rural.
My favorite drag queens are Tammie Brown and Katya, so I like my drag queens a little left of sanity.
