#interview: 2016

Isn’t that the great question? You said that and it reminded me of — do you know Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Do you know the episode “Once More With Feeling,” the musical episode? I worship Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If I could be Buffy, I would. But one of the songs is “Where Do We Go From Here.” Sorry. It’s one of my favorite episodes, and the music on that is incredibly amazing and I think [creator] Joss Whedon is a genius.

I’m always inspired by anything Stephen King related, just because he’s just so amazing, like Salem’s Lot is one of my favorite books of all time. There’s is a poem by Chidiock Tichborne from the 1500s called “On the Eve of His Execution” that I love, but I don’t know what the last thing is … Inspirations are weird because you never know where it’s going to come from. It might be something on the television show. It could come from sitting on a street corner, and it could come from a dream. You never know where inspiration is going to come from or when it strikes. When you’re working and writing, your main goal is to really just remain as open as possible and see where that takes you. It doesn’t always take you to the most pleasant of mental states but it takes you somewhere so I think that kind of the key is to be open.

I’m just making music. I don’t see a difference when it comes to gender in music -- a good song is a good song. Whoever is delivering that, if it’s delivered well and the song is good, I’ll listen to it. I don’t see it as a separation like that.

Simplifying the record to anxiety is too limited. We don’t set out to write some sort of concept record. There’s no ‘we’re going to write about this’, there’s not a blueprint. As you write, a collection of songs and multiple themes will develop throughout that process, and you have a record that captures a moment in our lives. In ten years we’ll probably look back at this record and see it in a whole new perspective than we do now.

I retired at the greatest night of women’s wrestling history in WWE. Timing is everything, and for Bryan and I, we’re ready to be parents. And, especially with everything he was going through, it couldn’t have been more perfect. I remember that night, I’m like, we are now called Superstars, we are no longer called Divas, we’ve all been waiting for this moment, we all put our blood, sweat and tears into it - and I’m like, “adios!” But it was great, and it’s so much fun to watch my family all back on TV, and let me tell you, when I have my first kid, I’m gonna make a comeback!