Quotes from Kate Pierson

I've always wanted to be a musician. I love music; like, I probably sang when I was born.

I'm always saying in the studio, 'My vocals are too loud!' or 'My vocals have too much effect on them!' I like some of it, but I'm not a fan of loading effects onto my voice.

The first rock record I ever bought was 'Great Balls of Fire.' I was real little, and I went to Atlanta to get it.

I want to be the first rock band on Mars.

No beehive. Beehives - we sort of put them - well, we revive them sometimes.

I was doing space girl outfits way before Katy Perry or Gaga!

In the B-52s, each of us has our own wacky sensibility, which, when we come together, it's like the four-headed monster. And it's great because we have the same sense of humor.

Five people in a Volkswagen station wagon without equipment. Now we tour with six people in a van.

When I was little, I used to think, 'That's the way people in the future are gonna dress! They'll be wearing space suits, and it will be all silver, all the time. It's gonna glitter.'

The B-52s, you know, our songs are about volcanoes or lobsters. Cindy and I sing them like our lives depend on them. I feel very emotional when I'm singing 'Rock Lobster,' but I've wanted to sing more about my personal experience.

Sometimes we'd just play acoustic guitar and try out the parts and make a library. We'd use a double cassette player and make little edits.

I think it really changes things when you're able to get married. I mean, the Marriage Equality Act was super important. I think you cannot believe it happened as fast as it did. For a lot of gay people, it's very surprising. You thought that this is going to be a struggle forever.

I would have loved to have been a broadcast journalist. I'd even love to be the weather girl. I have to watch the weather every night; I'm just obsessed.

We have quite a few political songs: 'Channel Z,' let's 'Keep This Party Going' on. Our lyrics aren't too hit-you-over-the-head, but they have political undertones. We're active politically.

In a band with humor, it's easy to be a caricature, especially when you've been around as long as we have. But we sing those songs as genuine as we can, always from the heart. When we do the fish sounds in 'Rock Lobster,' Cindy and I are pouring our hearts out.

The inspiration for our vocal harmonies was sort of Appalachian. It's sort of at weird intervals, and it almost has an Appalachian kind of feel to it. The harmonies were really spontaneous. And the way we jammed, we would just get into a trance.

I think more people feel like they're outside of the mainstream these days - there's more people who are doing their own thing, feeling that it's not bad to be a weirdo and respecting other people's differences. And all that kind of goes into the big ol' B-52 philosophy.

The B-52s are all about inclusiveness and about celebrating your differences.

There's a very collaborative, collective attitude. That's a very female principle. We try to nurture that aspect of the band.

I think there are certain genres of music where people are allowed to go on, but there is something about rock and roll, I guess because it originally started out to be a teenage rebellion.

Back in high school, I had this folk protest band, and I used to write all the time. And then, when I got in The B-52s, we began to write collectively, collaboratively - most all of our songs are written by jamming together.

I don't think we were shy so much as we were terrified. Especially when we did 'Saturday Night Live' on live TV. We looked really animatronic because we were scared, but it came off as being this alien sort of attitude, which served us well, because people were like, 'Whoa, this is so weird.'

I was named on the worst-dressed list at the Grammys a couple of years ago. I had on Tom Ford, and I thought it was the most amazing dress ever. But I got put on the worst-dressed list. Luckily, at least I was pictured alongside Adele, J-Lo, and whoever - all these superstars who were also called worst-dressed - so that was a good thing!

When we first played Max's, people thought Cindy and I were drag queens - we wore these gigantic wigs that sort of his our faces.