THE PRETTY RECKLESS frontwoman Taylor Momsen spoke to Terrie Carr of the Morristown, New Jersey radio station 105.5 WDHA about the importance of seeing her vision through to full execution while making music with her bandmates.
“I’m fine with compromising, but I’m not fine with compromising when it comes to art,” she said (see video below). “Anything that has to do with artistic expression — so from the songs to the production to the videos to the visuals — anything artistic, that has to be my way or just I’m not interested. Otherwise, what’s the point? I’m expressing myself. If you want to be a part of that, then that’s awesome. If you have a different vision for or you want to guide me in some other path, then I’m not the right person for you to be working with, because I’m on my own journey, I’m on my own path. So I don’t compromise when it comes to art, and that’s something that I’ve always had to fight for and stay true to my guns and my way of thinking. And luckily, I’ve had a really great team around me who really support that and really allow me to see my vision through, I guess. And then the way it’s released. And then you look for partners who understand your vision, at least to the best of their ability, and are on the same team and the same side and wanna just kind of accentuate that and accompany it and help it along. And that’s who you look for in partners — with labels and things like that — someone who really understands you as an artist to the best of their ability and just wants to help [get behind] that, instead of someone who wants to take you and turn you into something else. That’s just never worked for me.
“I feel like I look at life sometimes very basically,” she continued. “It’s very simple — it’s, like, okay, here’s what I like to do. And you’re telling me to do this. Well, I don’t wanna do that, ’cause I don’t like to do that. So, I’m gonna go back and do this, and if you wanna be a part of this, come to my side. And my bank account doesn’t necessarily thank me for it. But in the long haul, it’s something that makes me happy, and I can look back on my life and I can forward on my life and go, ‘I’m doing the right thing.’ Because I can go to sleep at night knowing I made the right decision for myself. And that’s what success is — making something that you’re proud of, and the rest of the world be damned.”
THE PRETTY RECKLESS‘s new album, “Death By Rock And Roll”, will be made available on February 12 via Fearless Records in the U.S. and Century Media Records in the rest of the world.
The band’s latest single “And So It Went”. features a guest appearance by RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello.
“Death By Rock And Roll” is THE PRETTY RECKLESS‘s first album to be made without longtime producer Kato Khandwala, who died in April 2018 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.
In addition to Morello, “Death By Rock And Roll” features Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron from SOUNDGARDEN. The song with Cameron and Thayil, called “Only Love Can Save Me Now”, was recorded at Seattle’s legendary London Bridge Studios, where seminal LPs like PEARL JAM‘s “Ten” and SOUNDGARDEN‘s “Louder Than Love” were laid down.
