Jillian Hervey famous quotes

The women in my family are just strong women who do their own thing, so I knew I needed to have individuals like that.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Strong Women #My Family #Individual

I think having wild, huge hair, is me being my own version of a lioness.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Thinking #Hair #Lioness

You need to have honest things in the world. Even if people don't understand it, if it's coming from you, that's already important.
-- Jillian Hervey

#People #Important #Needs

I love to feel that I'm not above anyone.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Feels

I find that the quest to be perfect and make perfect music is like a black whole. I realize that you can come with the intention to capture a vibe and use a formula, but you have to accept that most of the time its not going to be what you envisioned and you might manifest something better. I think that's been the hardest thing to wrap my head around that most ideas we go for ends up sounding different. I think art in general should be about enjoying the process and the experience. All that matters is if you feel the music and it captures the element your going for.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Art #Thinking #Perfect

You're just always growing. I feel like it's been very fast growth, but super exciting and I know I'll look back and feel like 'Yes, things were stressful, but it was also such an exciting time.'
-- Jillian Hervey

#Growth #Looks #Growing

As I got older, I started to do it more and more, and I wanted to learn all of the different types. I grew up doing modern, so I wanted to learn ballet, tap, jazz, and African - just everything.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Ballet #Different #Jazz

There's so many people that I feel like as soon as that happens, they can really be and focus on what they want to do.
-- Jillian Hervey

#People #Focus #Want

I remember just looking at this lioness, she was staring at me, and we just had this weird connection.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Connections #Lioness #Remember

This world is going in all sorts of directions, but I think all you can do is get people to think about things in a different way, because sometimes people aren't even thinking.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Thinking #People #Different

I'm not looking to be the greatest pop star of all time. I want to be an artist. I want to influence people and I want to get people to think about the world, to think and talk to each other and connect. To challenge one another.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Stars #Artist #Thinking

I got to speak to Missy Elliott on the phone and she was like, 'I see you and just keep doing your thing,' and to hear that was incredible.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Phones #Speak #Incredibles

People just try to put you in a box and I don't see myself in any particular box. I'm making my own box. There's no way I would be able to make the music I'm making without dancing.
-- Jillian Hervey

#People #Dancing #Trying

Transformation comes in a lot of different forms, but going natural really helped me love myself.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Different #Transformation #Love Myself

I've always been an animal lover my entire life.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Animal #Lovers #Animal Lover

Back then, it's weird, because I wasn't consciously thinking about it and I think that's why the doors opened and I had the opportunity. It was a big shift and I realized that you can plan and think your life is going somewhere, but you also have to surrender to what opportunities present themselves and really go for those as well.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Opportunity #Thinking #Doors

The freedom I experienced as a dance major in college gave me so much, but the reality of being in school is that you are still forced to work under restrictions.
-- Jillian Hervey

#School #Reality #College

Sometimes words come easily and sometimes they don't. Most songs take me twenty minutes to write.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Song #Writing #Twenties

I tend to write about love because I'm always thinking about it. I think a lot though and struggle with overanalyzing. Way over. That's the thing, I feel like I do that a lot and then finally when I stop thinking, that's when it happens.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Struggle #Writing #Love Is

I had been with a guy for seven years and I was done with that. I wanted to reinvent my whole life and change my hair - I'd had brown, straight extensions forever - and I just wanted to get rid of that, to shed skin, and really just be independent.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Independent #Hair #Years

Of course, I'm a dancer. Dancing grabbed me from the start and I have was never afraid to do it. With out dance I wouldn't be singing. I want to expose people to the underground dance scene through music.
-- Jillian Hervey

#People #Dancing #Dancer

That experience of being in the wild in a place where life initially began for all creatures gave me a overwhelming sense of connection.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Connections #Overwhelming #Creatures

I would feel weird having someone style me. It would have to be a collaboration. I've had those experiences and every time it happens I don't feel good. What's the point of putting all this work into something and then when you present it, it's not you?
-- Jillian Hervey

#Feel Good #Style #Collaboration

I've always loved vintage and I never like to have something someone else has.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Vintage

I was shaped in college into a performance artist. I never really thought of myself as being one singular thing. I think of myself as an artist and I feel no restrictions when it comes to how I want to portray what I want to portray.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Artist #College #Thinking

I prefer to do things by myself, but I always bring in people who inspire me.
-- Jillian Hervey

#People #Inspire

Being in New York, and meeting really amazing, talented, eccentric, and bold people, and just feeling really excited about life, got me really revved up and I just felt like everything was at my fingertips - that I could try anything. I really felt invincible. It was such a shift.
-- Jillian Hervey

#New York #People #Feelings

I saw myself traveling with a company or making my own work and being a little weird. I wasn't thinking about the business side of anything, I just knew that I loved dancing.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Thinking #Dancing #Littles

I grew up always wanting to be a dancer and when I went to New York, I fell in love with the idea of performing in all ways.
-- Jillian Hervey

#New York #Ideas #Dancer

I think my life dramatically shifted when I met Lucas [Goodman] and it wasn't even planned. I had a very clear vision of what I was going to do.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Thinking #Vision #Mets

Being vulnerable and strong is a complicated thing, but that's who we are.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Strong #Who We Are #Complicated

There are probably still people that are competitive with each other, but I don't feel that's necessary. I like when we lift each other up.
-- Jillian Hervey

#People #Feels #Stills

In general, I think the best thing to do is to connect with other females. I love meeting other female artists and feeling like we're all rooting for each other. I think that's shifted even more.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Thinking #Artist #Feelings

Lion Babe, on a work day, is definitely a process. I obviously could do it by myself, but I definitely prefer not to. It's a lot of hair. I used to start with little pieces, and then it just got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Hair #Lions #Littles

The main thing I like to do is have a mix of the '70s glamour and emulate a lot of ladies I love, like, Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, Donna Summers. I remember thinking that as a young girl, they were so cool and iconic. I missed that!
-- Jillian Hervey

#Girl #Summer #Thinking

Making that statement of 'I'm not afraid to be untamed.' It's just kind of the marriage of those two things.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Two #Untamed #Kind

It's definitely evolved from where it started - for 'Treat Me Like Fire,' I wanted something extremely wild because I was going to be running through the woods and I wanted it really nappy and crazy.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Running #Crazy #Fire

I think with the '70s style, you can do a bigger curling iron, so you get those long swirls. If you want it natural-natural, you can also just brush your hair out and tease that. So, it varies on what kind of thing you want to do, but it's nice to have a couple more hands in there to help me or else it takes really long.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Couple #Nice #Thinking

I think when we were starting off, I picked a group of women to represent me. The top tiers of everyone that I've worked with are women. It felt more comfortable because they can relate to me.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Thinking #Groups #Starting

I think also, obviously, having someone like Lucas [Goodman], and the people around me are very, not gender-driven or any of that, so when we come in as thing, that's what it is. You can work with us or not work with us and I think that has been helpful. I don't try to put myself in a vulnerable position in that way. I won't just sit quietly.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Thinking #People #Trying

I think, more importantly, it's about who is your core team? Who are the people around you that are going to fight for you and make sure that's all protected?
-- Jillian Hervey

#Team #Fighting #Thinking

For the name Lion Babe, we are a little avant-garde, a little left. And with bands like Blondie, Pink Floyd, or Jamiroquai, you don't know they're bands, you just kind of hear the name and you're like 'What is it?' so that was the kind of thing we wanted to do.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Names #Avant Garde #Band

I just wanted to shed everything and do the things I really wanted to do. All the things I was scared of, I just wanted to try. It was like a clearing.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Trying #Scared #Wanted

Of course the Disney movies, you know all the soundtracks, and anything Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire were doing - Singing in the Rain was one of my favorite musicals I used to watch a lot because my mom came from a theatre background.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Mom #Rain #Singing

Between my mom and dad, I would hear a lot of Earth, Wind, and Fire. My mom loved Chaka Khan, so that was on in the car a lot.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Mom #Dad #Fire

I grew up as a dancer, and music and dance are so closely tied, that in ballet class you're listening to all this classical music, and in modern class you're working with a live drummer. It was something that always made me feel really comfortable and I've had a connection to since the beginning.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Ballet Class #Dancer #Listening

Both of my mom's parents were music teachers, so I was hearing the fundamentals of playing the piano, what notes are, and all those things very early on.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Mom #Teacher #Piano

I've always been kind of surrounded by music my whole life, so my earliest memories of it were just hearing it in the house.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Memories #House #Hearing

I was curious because I hadn't really known anyone to do just that, so I would stop in on his sessions with his rapper friends, and then one day, I told Astro Raw "I'm looking to sing. He told me to try it out and then we made 'Treat Me Like Fire' and everything started."
-- Jillian Hervey

#Rapper #Fire #Trying

I was working on a piece for one of the things I was dancing to and I needed to have original music. I didn't know where to begin, I'm so bad at computers, and I remembered that he actually made music. I asked Astro Raw if he'd be interested in scoring and he said yes.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Dancing #Pieces #Computer

In New York everyone just kind of knows each other.
-- Jillian Hervey

#New York #Kind #Knows

Basically, my senior year of high school, I was going to look at prospective colleges and I went to visit Northeastern University because one of my friends was going.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Senior #School #College

I think just being a '90s kid - I was not a Backstreet Boys girl, I was definitely into NSYNC.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Girl #Kids #Boys

I'm a Gemini and Lucas Goodman is a Leo, so we definitely wanted some duality. We definitely balance each other out in a lot of ways, but we're also very different.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Balance #Different #Way

Half of my family is in Los Angeles, so my cousin was the first person to play me, like, Snoop Dogg, and I would always feel like 'Omg I shouldn't be listening to this,' and my other cousin was the first to introduce me to Aaliyah, so every time I'd go to the West Coast, I'd get those West Coast vibes.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Cousin #Play #Listening

I definitely listened to Lauryn Hill - her's was like the first album I bought myself. Brandy's Never Say Never and Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill were always in rotation for a couple of years.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Couple #Years #Albums

I think the lion, besides the elephant, was the one animal that I just started thinking about so much.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Animal #Thinking #Elephants

Because of the time we're in, it's so easy to just blend all of it together and it's kind of like you're listening to everything all at once.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Listening #Together #Kind

I'm a diehard animal lover - I've always loved animals - but it was just one of those trips that I felt like I was going back to the beginning of where earth started. At the time, where a lot of stuff was brewing anyway, to be in such a beautiful and barren land, and just looking at how life began with all these creatures, I just started to really think about animals and time and just all of it.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Beautiful #Animal #Thinking

South Africa was something that just kind of hit me.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Kind #South #South Africa

I think the world tries to put people in a box, like this is the only appropriate way to be beautiful.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Beautiful #Thinking #People

I think growing up, you just deal with 'I'm ugly,' or 'I don't look right,' or 'my hair is wrong,' and it's such a distraction from what can really elevate you.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Growing Up #Thinking #Hair

My mom is one, but there have been performers in my family since as long as we can trace them back, so I think it was kind of inevitable to be artistic and to have a force. We're leaders; we're a family of leaders, so I think it's just part of my genes.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Mom #Thinking #Long

It's so important to embrace what you have because if you don't, that can be the root of very self-destructive habits, which I think people waste a lot of energy on.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Thinking #Roots #Self

My mom has kind of been more of the emotional support system. One time I was really feeling all out of it, just dealing with a lot of cooks in the kitchen and adjusting to what it means to be in the music industry, and I called her. One of the first things she said to me was 'You have to be thankful that these people even like you, no one liked me, at all, I was not really accepted for a very long time.'
-- Jillian Hervey

#Mom #Mean #Emotional

[My mom] has a few choice words to calm me down. I think it's beautiful that I sometimes, weirdly, see myself in a photo and I'm like 'Omg, that looks like my mom.' It freaks me out and all that stuff, but it's also just a part of my legacy.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Beautiful #Mom #Thinking

Being able to connect with people with similar taste and style also allows people to get to know us better. Although we have been around for a little, some people listen to our music and some people don't listen to our music, so it's nice to be able to curate the sounds and show our influences. Although it's nice to go out and look fancy and dress up, you don't always go to parties where the music is a good so it's nice to be in a position to bring the vibes and create the experience.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Nice #Party #People

I love writing to my little sister. It's a very nice, easy kind of way I always find inspiration.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Nice #Inspiration #Writing

In music in general, you're always getting a lot of information, buts it's most important to have honest communication. It's always important to understand that we can do so much individually if we connect with one another and have honest conversations. As scary as it is, it can be very liberating. Staying connected to the people you love and staying connected to the things that really matter has been my biggest lesson.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Communication #People #Scary

We're always working on new music and now that we have our own studio space we have tried to stay focus and really explore. But we have projects out that we are super proud of and want to keep building on that.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Focus #Proud #Building

It doesn't necessarily always come down to race in the music industry. It can be whoever has the most money, has the most power, and that's really the struggle - dealing with how crazy money is.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Crazy #Struggle #Race

Obviously, this is our first album [Begin], so this is our first big body of work that's out there in the world and it really represents our journey, from where we started to now and all the music we created, our range, and all the things that we definitely shared, but weren't able to show our range on a full-scale until this album.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Journey #Able #Firsts

We created this journey [in the Begin], sonically, that people can really wrap their heads around and live with and get to know us a little bit more. The dark colors, the light colors, our up-tempos, and our down-dreamy stuff.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Dark #Journey #Color

Like Lucas [Goodman] has said, between the people we've met, and the experiences we've had, it's just our growth. It's just something that represents all of what Lion Babe started as and where we're going.
-- Jillian Hervey

#People #Growth #Lions

As we're growing and stuff, it's been amazing to feel so embraced and have them be so excited. I definitely leaned into my dad a little more starting out because once we actually started to get those people knocking on our doors and emailing.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Dad #Doors #People

I feel like my dad was the more artistic one, creating his own thing, loving to be around people, and all this stuff, doing exciting things, and my mom was more of the performer.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Mom #Dad #Creating

[Dancing] was just a nice way of expressing myself, listening to music, and being able to move around and be free, but also really learning something. It was just a nice balance of training and expressing yourself at the same time.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Nice #Moving #Dancing

[My mom] put me in dance class when I was really young just as a thing to do and I loved it. I remember being excited every time I went, no matter how tired I was - it was the one thing that I always liked doing.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Mom #Tired #Class

This is what I love to do. I love to perform for people that get it or just want something interesting.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Want Something #People #Interesting

To be on stage, to be sharing a stage with Lauryn Hill, Grace Jones, SZA, Kelis, and all these incredible women, I'm like 'When did this happen?'
-- Jillian Hervey

#Grace #Hills #Incredibles

We had spent a lot of time in London [with Lucas Goodman], which has been amazing, but also it was kind of a homecoming and we felt so surrounded by a specific community of people who are just so New York, so unapologetically themselves and so creative.
-- Jillian Hervey

#New York #People #Creative

There's been so many, I think [Lucas Goodman and I] share this, but for us, Afropunk was a really big moment just because it was in New York.
-- Jillian Hervey

#New York #Thinking #Moments

More than anything, it's been a transition into embracing my destiny. I have everything around me to be able to do this properly. Whether or not I was hiding from that early on, I think now it's great to feel that way. It's just the journey.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Journey #Destiny #Thinking

I'm always looking for people to feel connected to me and inspired in their own right.
-- Jillian Hervey

#People #Inspired #Feels

What kind of art do I want to make? What do I stand for? What inspires me? And then to have people in return respond to that... I think that's the greatest thing because throughout dancing, I'm always looking for that.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Art #Thinking #People

The greatest blessing is that, within all of this, I've still been challenged every day to question and show who I am.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Blessing #Who I Am #Shows

I quit piano and violin because it felt too rigid. It was just my thing, something I fell in love with from a very early age.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Piano #Age #Violin

The people that have inspired me the most were dancers and choreographers.
-- Jillian Hervey

#People #Dancer #Inspired

Even growing up, if I dealt with any pressure to be a certain way, I knew that as an artistic lane, dancing was the one that was a little more freed up - like no one in my family is really doing that, I can be that person.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Growing Up #Dancing #Littles

You know, you always want to just do your own thing - I mean some people want to be exactly like their parents - Ibut I wanted to do my own thing and I ended up doing a kind of mix of my mom and dad.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Mom #Dad #Mean

I love the creation process [of music] of it and then sharing it, so I think that was the shift. I never thought I was going to be on a label in general, I was like 'Oh, I wouldn't do that,' and then we ended up on the same label basically.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Thinking #Labels #Creation

Even now, it's so funny how much we do have in common and how much her experiences were similar to mine. But I just wanted to be like 'If I'm going to do it, I'm going to write all of my own music, every lyric, and all this stuff.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Writing #Stuff #Common

It was like I couldn't even begin to tell my mom I was singing. I didn't want anyone to think that she was trying to get me to sing. I wanted to prove to myself I could do it on my own. I really wanted to do a completely different thing.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Mom #Thinking #Singing

We [in my family] don't like to mess around and talk about our problems or complain, it's just not anything that we do.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Complaining #Problem #My Family

My main goal was to not tell my mom anything or anyone anything. Even within our family, we like to do it ourselves, we like to be our own boss, and we don't like asking for help.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Mom #Asking For Help #Goal

Architects see the world a certain way, and cooks see and smell the world a certain way. [Dancing ] is always been my lens, what I use to see.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Smell #Dancing #Lenses

Now, it's so sacred. It's how I see the world. I can't help but look at people, their physicality, and how they move. It's how I see everything.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Moving #People #Looks

I wanted to fight to get into the front. I was just hungry to do it.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Fighting #Hungry #Wanted

I was also just strong and quick - it wasn't hard for me to learn how to dance. I was a natural at it.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Strong #Natural #Hard

Once you train you develop your own aesthetic and your confidence. So, I think as I grow I'm learning how to be a singer. I'm training my voice and being on stage and singing and dancing.
-- Jillian Hervey

#Thinking #Voice #Dancing