The artist who gave me the most inspiration and direction, especially as a singer - and I absolutely consider myself a singer, 100 percent - is Nina Simone. She's my ultimate pianist-singer-type person.
With a Nine Inch Nails show, I'm building on a legacy that comes with a certain set of expectations. I have to push that forward, I have to reinvent myself, I have to feel current and valid.
I lived a fairly average, anonymous small-town life till I got the idea to do Nine Inch Nails. Then I locked myself in a studio for a year, and then got off the tour bus two years after that, and I didn't know who I'd turned into.
As a producer, I'm trying to challenge myself to just make something that is of a professional quality - not necessarily pop music, but maybe in the sense that Nine Inch Nails is professional quality.
I really try to ask myself the question of nine. Will this matter in nine minutes, nine hours, nine days, nine weeks, nine months or nine years? If it will truly matter for all of those, pay attention to it.
If I haven't made myself clear, this worrisome chain of events describes the game of the nineteenth century.
I was 13 when my parents moved to Israel, and I was put in a Scottish mission school. Ninety-nine percent of the children were Israeli... Suddenly, I found myself speaking the wrong language, dressed in the wrong clothes, picked up by the wrong mode of transportation - an embassy car instead of a bus.
I had a ninth grade teacher who told me I was much smarter and much better than I was allowing myself to be.
In Majorca, I can be myself. I go to the supermarket and the cinema, and I am just Rafa. Everyone knows me, and it is no big deal. I can go all day - no photographs.
I actually consider myself as totally privileged to be able to serve science and medicine in a global fashion, because science and medicine know no boundaries.
I have no choice about whether or not I have Parkinson's. I have nothing but choices about how I react to it. In those choices, there's freedom to do a lot of things in areas that I wouldn't have otherwise found myself in.
I have no desire to look at myself.
I really have no interest in myself.
I have no love for myself as a human being, but I have immense pride in the music I make.
The paradox is that I have no love for myself as a human being, but I have immense pride in the music I make, and I believe it has an important place. Others do, too, and the thousands of people with Morrissey tattoos certainly proves something.
New York was a fantastic place to disappear because no one cares who you are. No one bothers you. In my ten years living there I was never once asked for an autograph or stopped on the street. It was an absolute joy. I gave myself time and space to get to know myself more.
I want to do well for myself and my sponsors... but I feel no pressure, because I don't play for the money.
I have no problems with failures, I'm afraid of failing within myself. At times when I know I did something wrong, I don't sleep that night. I'm scared of facing myself.
I would call myself the Pharrell of OVO. There are no rules for me.
I had no words for these feelings. And then people started using the word Ms. Suddenly, there was this handle with which I could identify myself and understand why I felt so out of whack with the culture around me.
