Life Lessons from Sky Ferreira

Welcome to Life Lessons. This week, the pop star and fashion muse Sky Ferreira released her first new song in three years. To mark the release of “Don’t Forget”—which we hope is the prequel to the long-awaited arrival of Ferreira’s third studio album, Masochism—we’re flipping through the pages of our April 2014 conversation with the then 21-year-old artist. The interview took place just six months after the release of Ferreira’s debut album, Night Time, My Time, as the artist was prepping to support Miley Cyrus on her Bangerz tour. Here, Ferreira talks to the writer Matt Diehl about masochism, making music without a formula and the forces that keep her from releasing an album. So sit back, and grab a pen—you might learn a thing or two.

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“People always give fashion people shit, but they were the first ones that actually embraced me for me. They weren’t trying to change me—whereas in music, I was constantly being told what I needed to be.”

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“I always liked learning, and still learn every day, but I feel like I learned a lot more in life than I ever did at school. The moment I left school was kinda the moment I started actually learning. Then I ended up in a bigger version of high school, [the major-label system]. All the egos and shit, the ‘cool kids’ table, the losers, the rejects …”

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“Constantly being told no, I built up this thing in my head that kind of blocked me from being able to make a proper album. I was like, ‘But what will they think?’ or ‘They’re going to say no.’ Then this past summer, something clicked in me: I was like, ‘Who’s they? There is no fucking they!’”

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“Cat Power is a very big influence on me; I relate to her in a lot of ways. You never know what you’re going to get with her, and she’s vulnerable. That’s really important. You have to sing what you mean, or what’s the point?”

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“…When I grew into something else and tried different things, it was like, ‘How dare she change over time?’ Just like we were saying before about David Bowie, you’ve got to be hit or miss or it’s going to get boring.”

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“People ask me, ‘Do you hate yourself?’ And I’m like, ‘A little bit!’ [laughs] I feel like I’m a bit of a masochist. Maybe I’m a little into it. Maybe I get off on it. I don’t know! [laughs]”

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“It’s always these things that sneak up on you when you don’t expect it: as we were pulling up to Amoeba before the show, I looked up and saw my album cover on a billboard on the roof. I was like, ‘Whoa, to think I used to just sit at the bus stop across the street, and now I’m staring at my album cover!’”

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“People want to write you off if you’re a muse, like you’re just the thing at the moment. That whole concept is so silly…You’re either pretty and stupid, or slutty, or weird and troubled. [laughs] I think people were confused about which I was. Whatever.”

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“Once people think they’ve figured out a formula, that’s when the music stops being good. I don’t have a formula. Sometimes it’s going to be hit or miss, but you have to fall on your face a bit in order to just keep going. You can’t make everyone happy — that’s what I’ve learned.”