Quotes from Aldous Harding

I tend to overdo things.

When I discovered metaphor and what it meant, I got really excited. That was what really pushed me through into music.

I think a bit of mystery is good, and I used to feel like an eccentric person pretending to be normal. But I am actually just a normal person seeming eccentric, by what I'm putting myself through.

My family used to put on a small folk festival.

I had a little radio next to the bed and I'd just listen to the top 10 - I mean, it was crap but I was young - and I would get up in the dark with the moon coming in through the window and I would just dance in my pajamas in the dark to the top 10. I didn't have a CD player... so it was kind of all I had, you know?

I like 'The Simpsons' like everybody else. But yeah - people think I'll always be super intense.

I think about it as not so much 'I need to get it out of me,' it's not that my thoughts are poison, I just want to write good music.

I like reading things where someone's looked at what I do with some honesty, and maybe been challenged by it, and they have something to say that shows they've thought about it, even if they don't necessarily like it.

When you're young and starting out, a lot of artists think they know exactly who they are. There are others who come out in someone else's skin. They learn to take it off bit-by-bit and work out the core of what they're trying to say.

That was the biggest compliment that I can receive - making somebody wonder whether they have the problem, rather than what my problem is.

If someone says to me that 'Horizon' is an anti-feminist anthem, I have to tell them, 'No, that's not right.' But I'm not interested in unpicking my music for people. Everybody has different reference points.

I don't need to hide behind anything because I'm more comfortable with myself.

I'm actually hilarious.

I'm trying to know who I am and be honest about it.

I believe in myself enough to not get hung up on what other people are doing, or what I should be writing, or the nature of how I'm writing. I'm just able.

For like four or five months of my life I was too scared to like, move around and reach out for things because I was worried that I'd my hands would run into glass, like I could reach up and if I reached up and knocked on the air it would make a noise. I couldn't look at the sky because I was worried that I see a crack.

When it comes to a specific sound, I don't feel like there's something I need to worry about. I'd much rather do something creative and credible. Like, 'Who am I? What am I trying to say? What do I stand for?' I stand for all of it, because I feel all of it, like everybody.

I spend... too much time... in my own head.

If people say to me, 'So, what were you doing in Dubai in that song?' or they spend ages comparing me to some other singer, I just shut down, I guess.

I'm actually quite a shy person and it's becoming clearer to me. Sometimes I would like to disappear, maybe only for an hour.

I enjoy doing the thing that I find interesting really well.

The first song that I wrote that I was proud of was probably 'Hunter' from the first record. But I listen that now and I don't know. I mean, it's got a good hook, but still. I'm proud of it. I'm as proud as I can be of all the ideas, but I think 'Party' showed a maturity that I don't think I had on 'Aldous Harding.'

I'm So Sorry' is probably one of my favorite songs that I've written... I wrote it very quickly and confidently. And then I didn't question it.

As a kid I remember being frightened all of the time, and kind of sad. I was certainly troubled. But a lot of people were, y'know? I don't really know how to measure my trouble against somebody else's.