Refinery29

**Refinery29** is an American digital media and entertainment company focused on young women. Banks did three interviews for their website in 2014 (one including a photoshoot by Nina Westervelt) and 2016.

## Interview #1

Here's a test to see whether or not you're a regular R29 reader: How familiar are you with BANKS? Those who are likely know that we've been sweating her moody brand of dark soul for awhile now, jumping on any excuse to turn on her tracks.

Yet, if you didn't tune into her sounds from us, BANKS will soon become a household name — at least in houses filled with music lovers. In fact, her tour schedule is bonkers: This summer, find her at all the major festivals — including Sasquatch!, Governors Ball, and Bonnaroo —plus a slew of dates in Europe.

BANKS is the one dark spot on a bright landscape — in the best way ever. With her streamlined black outfits and an evocative, blues-tinged voice, she stands in stark contrast to the bright neons, face paint, dance music, and clap-a-longs found at fests. Ahead, more with the songstress herself.

**This summer is all about touring. What’s your favorite song to play live?**

"It changes depending on what mood I’m in. I have a new song that we played live two nights ago at South By. It’s called 'Stick' and it is so much fun to play.”

**Why is it fun?**

“It’s a little bit different, mood-wise, from all the other stuff. It’s kind of sexy and I feel sexy and powerful singing it.”

**You have great style. What's important when packing for a long tour? What do you bring? Is there a difference between what you wear on stage or off stage?**

“Honestly, there’s not too much of a difference between how I dress on and off stage. It’s generally all black. Usually, kind of flowy and feminine...sexy. I like feeling like it’s effortless; I like feeling comfortable — always. That’s one of the most important things for me. I like really soft fabrics, maybe a bit sheer. I like feeling like a witch. But, when I’m packing for tour, it’s important to have outfits for every mood.”

**You've really broken out in the last few months and are set to have a really big year. What do you think about when you're jetting off to all of these different places? How do you keep yourself grounded?**

“I guess I don’t consciously try to be anything. I just try to be in the moment and appreciate everything [and] have fun. I want every action that I make to be with integrity; I want it to feel natural to me. If I do that, I think I’ll be good.”

**Is there anyone out there that you want to collaborate with?**

“Yeah. I want to work with Kawbs, I want to work with Jai Paul, [and] I want to work with Missy Elliott. “

**Wow. Those are three big ones! Apparently, she is coming out with a new album this year.**

“Really? Well, those are my dream collaborators. Kawbs is incredible. His voice is the most beautiful sound. Missy Elliott is absolutely an icon. A goddess.”

**What is it like to be a young woman working with electronic sounds? Do you think it’s important to create a community and support one another? Or, are you just trying to make the best music you can, with the best people you can?**

“Honestly, it’s always important to support everyone. It’s good to be positive and uplift everyone and the second you start dividing it in your head— into female and male — then you start segregating. I don’t think of it as female and male. I think of it as music. If you feel it, then you should be making it. I don’t even think of stereotypes like that because it’s not how I make music.”

**On the one hand, if we foster a community, we end up creating a support network, but on the other, you are "othering" them by identifying upcoming acts as "female musicians."**

"I just think, when you meet new people, it’s all about being human. Music is all about being human. If everyone began to look at music from a completely neutral standpoint, you can begin to view it as human and not as gender. And, when you achieve that viewpoint, you don’t even have to separate male and female.”

**How'd you get into playing music?**

“I was around 14 or 15, and I was going through a really dark time. I felt really helpless and I didn’t know who to talk to. Someone gave me a keyboard and I started playing around with it, teaching myself how to play. I started writing music and it was the most liberating feeling in the whole world. I became addicted.”

**So, would your advice to a young woman to just start playing around with sounds if she is interested in figuring out her own musical voice?**

“Definitely. Just start playing around and see what comes out. Play around with some different chords and see what melodies your body naturally wants to express.”

**What is the hardest song for you to play live?**

“It would probably be a song called, 'Someone New.' You'll know when you hear it. My heart just dropped when you asked that."

**You can tell on stage sometimes when there is song that an artist loves, but is hard for him or her to play.**

“But it’s liberating too. You dive into those emotions. That’s why I do it. It’s the most liberating release there is. It’s amazing, like a drug.”

## Interview #2

It's a clichéd description, but the arc of BANKS' year has been meteoric, ascending at a rate only outpaced by someone like Iggy Azalea. (Though, meteors rocket down instead of shooting upward, right? Nonetheless.)

She went from having one EP with the absolutely thrumming single "Waiting Game," to a full album, a world tour, sold-out shows in New York, and an appearance at nearly every festival under the sun. When we met her at SXSW, she was beginning to introduce herself to large crowds. Now, just six months later, people were clamoring to see her at our New York Fashion Week Party.

And, there's a reason why.

It isn't just that she's a pretty face (or, in her case, an absolutely gorgeous face). Her electronica-kissed brand of R&B is threatening, passionate, embracing, and sultry. Her new album, appropriately named Goddess, dropped this week to massive acclaim, and it's not just good, it's fantastic — hands-down one of the best albums of the year. So, there's a reason her ascent is simply otherworldly.

**The last time we spoke you had a lot new of things coming out. Now that you have some time from all the festivals, can you sum up your summer?**

"It was absolutely incredible. I've learned so much about myself and about so many people and went to all these new places. Honestly, it was such a blur because I was in so many places. It didn't feel like just a few months."

**That's so exciting. Speaking of new things: Was this past Fashion Week your first?**

"Yeah, it was. I had only been to one fashion show before; the Chanel show in Paris. It was incredible."

**What is your definition of "goddess"?**

"Somebody who is 100 percent and embraces every feeling they have, whether it's dark or whether they feel fragile or strong. It's someone who just thinks for herself."

**There's something so — I don't want to say "feminine" — about your music. There's something so female-empowering about your music...**

"Why don't you want to say feminine? It's such great word!"

**...Fair enough! I didn't want to identify it as one side of a binary because it's obviously more complex than that.There is something really sensual and evocative about your music. Do you feel like women can be empowered through sensuality or sexuality?**

"When I write music I don't think about anything but what I'm writing about and what I need to express, but I think that being a woman is the sexiest and most beautiful thing, and sensuality is one of the most special things that somebody can have. I definitely think that womanhood has its own power."

**Do you think it's important that an artist creates a barrier of mystery between who they are as an artist and who they are personally?**

"No, I think you should just be you and there's no difference between me as an artist and me personally. My songs are the purist form of me that you can get. I don't really think there's any sort of barrier between the person I am singing these songs and the person I am who's walking down the street."

**That's a very honest answer. What would be "selling out" for you?**

"Doing things that don't feel like me for some sort of silly, silly, impure reason."

**We talk a lot about fandom, could you give your fandom a name?**

"[Laughs] No! I mean, if they name themselves, that's awesome. Perhaps something will come through on social media."

**What's your favorite social media platform?**

"I don't know yet. I just started getting into social media, really. I wasn't even on any sites before my music started coming out. I totally let my manager handle everything in the beginning because it didn't feel genuine to me and really foreign. I got Instagram and I really enjoy that. Occasionally, I'll tweet something something super, super flavorful. But, I don't know my favorite one. I guess right now I'm the most involved in Instagram, so I'll say that."

**As people have been listening to your music and you're been performing and reaching an audience and your album is about to drop, is there anything you find yourself surprisingly afraid of? Is there anything you fear or do you have a surprising anxiety you didn't have before?**

"I mean everything. My whole life surprises me right now. Meeting people surprises me. Sometimes, I see a crowd — like when I played in Poland, the crowd was so big. I just went to Indonesia and the crowd knew all my words and they were singing all my words. It was the most incredible thing!"

**That just sounds so inspirational.**

"Yeah it was. It filled my whole body up."

**Especially in a place as different from our daily experience as Indonesia.**

"Yeah, I was like 'who knows me in Indonesia? Who knows me in Jakarta? Kuala Lumpur?' There were just the most incredible people there. One girl in front was crying. It was just incredible, I couldn't believe it!"

**Your music obviously speaks volumes, but you also have a very specific image and a wonderful sense of fashion. What are some of the things that you just can't be without when you're going on stage?**

"It's funny because I go through stages of what I need to have. I went through a stage with this ring I call the 'goddess' ring. I just had to have it and it had to be facing outward every time I went on stage. I've been wearing capes. I love blazers, too. I love how strong and sexy a blazer is without showing anything; it's just the shape of it. It's feminine in this strong, sexy way. I wanted to wear something like a blazer but I wanted to be able to be able to move my arms, so we made my own version of a cape. I'm just addicted to it. We have all these different versions of the cape, now. I have a long version, and on Jimmy Kimmel, my first TV performance, we made one a little longer than the ones I've been wearing and it had a BANKS symbol on the back made of beads."

**You had that custom-made?**

"Yeah. It's cool because it has so much structure in the shoulders. I do a lot of movement with my hands and I like to feel the beat of the music through these meditative movements I do with them. These little cape creatures we created let me do just that. It's so fall!"

**It only feels appropriate that Goddess came out during the fall.**

"I know! My music feels cold, like you need either a trench coat or a sweater sometimes when listening to it. It was originally supposed to come out during the summer, but I didn't want it to. People said the summer was the best time, but I wanted the cold. And, now it is!"

## Interview #3

Jillian Banks, a singer-songwriter born in California's famous Orange County, makes gorgeous alternative pop music that's so emotional and affecting, it feels as though it seeps into your marrow. When I meet her in a quiet corner of a smart London hotel bar, Banks says she doesn't really like talking about her songs because "it's a strange thing to write about the most intimate parts of your life."

"That's why I'm so private," she explains. "I mean, I don't feel like anyone really knows anything about me other than what's in the music. I really value that and I really value having a normal life. You have to learn the balance between sharing yourself and not sharing too much, because otherwise you end up feeling empty and deflated." Nevertheless, Banks agreed to share some of the stories behind the songs on her sublime new album, The Altar, which touch on femininity, empowerment, relationships, sisterhood and personal growth.

**"Gemini Feed"**

"It's about a relationship I was in that was very intense. I feel strange even talking about this song because it's like a diary entry. But what I will say is this: the people who affect you the most are the ones closest to you, and usually the ones you know you really love."

**"Fuck with Myself"**

"This was the last song on the album that I wrote. I thought the album was done and I started freaking out about which song to put out first. So I went to the studio one day and started telling [my co-writer] Tim Anderson that I was really feeling the pressure and expectation of this business, especially over which song to put out first because I hadn't shared any new music in so long. When I stopped talking, finally, he was like, 'Do you want me to read you some of the things you said? You said, "I fuck with myself more than anybody else."' And I was like, that's exactly what I needed to hear and that's what I'm going to write about today. For me, this song is really about a journey of self-acceptance and of power and strength."

**"Lovesick"**

"All I really need to say about this song is: lust. It's lust, but gentle, like in a puppy-love way. It's not innocent, but it's new, it's butterflies, it's about wanting someone so badly."

**"Mind Games"**

"This is a song about me coming into my power. 'Do you see me now?' is the chorus. It's kind of triumphant. It's hard for me to talk about this song because sometimes I'm not exactly sure where my songs come from – why they're in my heart and why they need to escape it and be expressed. But this was definitely therapeutic to write. I write music because I don't know how to express what I'm feeling with words. It needs a melody, it needs a chord progression, it needs a thumping beat. Words don't truly express what emotions are; they're just dull versions of what I'm feeling."

**"Trainwreck"**

"I actually wrote the verses when I was 15. I always knew I was going to use those lyrics some day – they're some of the first lyrics I ever wrote, like a stream-of-consciousness thing. They still mean so much to me and they still correlate to my life sometimes and they're still me, somehow. So I feel like this song's been a part of me for a long time."

**"This Is Not About Us"**

"This one was empowering to make. I made it with [British electro producer] Sohn. Our brains just come together and produce results and it's always super-fun. I don't like working with too many people, I have to be really comfortable with them. It's a really intimate process and you have to trust who you're working with because you can't feel remotely judged. When you click creatively with someone, it can be a much more intense relationship than you have even with a friend or a family member. They know you on this whole other level; it’s like your relationship is on fire or something."

**"Weaker Girl"**

“I’m super-excited for women to hear this song. I sing, 'You're mad about the way I grew strong,' and the lyrics are pretty self-explanatory. It's about when somebody wants you to be smaller and weaker than you are, because that way they can keep you and won't be threatened by you. Sometimes people who say they love you – or even people who do love you – don't like it when you start becoming stronger and more confident. I've experienced that. Any sort of change is uncomfortable and both people have to be really open and accepting and live in the moment. People aren't stagnant, it would be so boring if we were! Can you imagine if everyone was going around with teen angst at 50? It would just be the worst."

**"Mother Earth"**

“This song is for women. I wrote it after my sister gave birth to a baby girl. I needed to write it and I want women to hear it because I want us to support each other. People are always trying to compare women; I get compared to other female musicians all the time. But if you're gonna compare me to someone, why can't you compare me to a man too? Why doesn't that happen? I think in general there's a fear of femininity. For years and years and years, people have been conditioned to want women to be pretty, very polite, very nurturing, and not take up too much space. I am a nurturing person, but you can be nurturing and powerful and fierce and big too – and you can take up so much space. This song for me is about taking up space and not being afraid to be big.”

**"Judas"**

“Oh, with this one it's all in the lyrics! It's a jagged black and blue song. I can't wait to perform it live.”

**"Haunt"**

“This is a song about somebody who lets you go, but then comes back because they feel so good about the way they thought you were broken after they left. DJ Dahi sings on this song too, so there's like a call-and-response part. You know, relationships are layered and sometimes I write from my perspective but also from the other person's perspective. There are definitely two perspectives in this song. This song isn't angry or bitter; it's just real. It's like a movie told from one person's perspective, and then at the end you get a little bit of the other's perspective.”

**"Poltergeist"**

"I love this one! I sing the line, 'Oh my God, I think I saw a ghost,' through this really cool machine that layers your voice so you sound like you're undergoing an exorcism or something. When I do it live, I'm gonna have the machine on stage with me so I can recreate the effect, it'll be awesome."

**"To the Hilt"**

"After I wrote this song, I got super-sick for two weeks. It's actually the first song I ever wrote that I wasn't ready to write, emotionally. I was telling myself I was really angry to cover up how hurt I was and then this song came out. And it was really sad because my heart was broken but I didn't want to say that because anger is so much easier to feel than sadness and heartbreak and missing the shit out of someone when you hate them at the same time. So that's how this song was birthed. I still don't like listening to it now. I didn't listen to it for months after I wrote it because it just made me nauseous. But I was never tempted to leave it off the album. I was proud of myself after I wrote it."

## References

<references>

1. ↑ https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/banks
2. ↑ https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2014/09/74433/banks-goddess-album-interview
3. ↑ https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2016/09/124787/banks-track-by-track