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
classic deny elton god great listening loved neil reed sort time
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.
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.
hair clothes people
Ive hidden behind my hair more than clothes. Sometimes having long hair with a fringe is very useful when you dont want to look at people. I used to have very short hair, but long hair is my thing - a black nocturnal shield.
thinking people want
I always think that the exceptional people are those who remain outsiders but still communicate on a grand scale. I think I want everyone to feel more free, and so I feel really claustrophobic on behalf of lots of people.
writing thinking progression
I think what I wanted to do was meet someone who knew more than me about songwriting structure and progressions and middle eights and things that more traditional writers write and I don't usually employ.
dad halloween party
I had Halloween parties every year, as it was my birthday five days before. My parents would actually put prosthetic noses on, and my dad would wear a top-hat and tails, put on a fake curly moustache, and hold a pipe.
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.
naked body paint
I'd tell everyone to come in naked in full body paint.
jobs crazy home
Exploring the different avenues and being open to synchronicity and crazy coincidences and little things happening is part of going on your journey to investigate - and the little jewels you might find along the way, my job is to bring those back home and put them on my album.
lows
They say for every high high there must be a low low low low low
dad dramatic lashes
Dad was an amazing storyteller and illustrator, which he did in his spare time - very inspiring and dramatic.
beautiful historical-value feelings
It's very much to do with how I'm feeling ... I love to be experimental and use eclectic mismatched things and put them together to see what third entity is created! I'm not really frightened by experimenting - that's the main thing. I really like mixing very old beautiful pieces that are from thrift shops or that have some historical value with quite new futuristic things.
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.
kids winning lovely
I'd love to win a Grammy! Not ambitious or anything. And just having a really lovely bunch of kids and a happy family life, would be good for me.