Neko Richelle Case (/ˈniːkoʊ ˈkeɪs/; born September 8, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her solo career and her contributions as a member of the Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers.
I was raised to be modest to the point of fanaticism. In my family, we don't talk about ourselves to each other. Vanity is considered the worst possible sin. I've gotten better about having to describe things. If you're going to make a record and people are going to write about you, it's your responsibility to answer questions. It's validating - I'm just very clumsy.
The men who have gotten women pregnant need to be accountable if we are. If we are going to jail, the men are coming too. Religious rhetoric will bite its own ass trying to nail only women in a two-person process.
Being in two full-time rock bands is pretty impossible. I love to tour but I have a dog and I want to see him. And, being a songwriter, you have to have experiences and do things. You can't just go on tour all the time, otherwise you get nothing to write about. It's finally at a point where the balance is perfectly right.
You can't just play the same thing, over and over again.
A live show is one of the last holdouts of a thing that makes you feel a part of a community, where you'll go and maybe meet your future wife or boyfriend, or you're taking your sister to her first show. These are the things that you remember later in your life.
I like driving. I'm a real sucker for driving across North America - I never get sick of it, ever.
There's just kind of a sweetness about Canadians. Americans are a little more pushy, I mean, in a way that I enjoy - they're basically pushy because of their enthusiasm - we're a lot clumsier than other people.
Country music is completely punk-rock. It's the original punk-rock.
All I want to do is sing on other people's records.
The only ones that stand out to me are people like Jonathan Richman or Robyn Hitchcock, who can make you totally cry while their music is so funny and they're hilarious. They know they're great but they also don't think they're better than you and they really invite you into their show.
I grew up with lots of animals and I related more to them than I did to people. I feel a lot of empathy for them.
I know that I can sing really loud. It's like having that really big Evinrude engine on the back of your fishing boat. But I've been trying to be more dynamic with my voice and not just singing on ten all of time out of terror.
I want to get away from the social vampires in Tucson. The people who have no lives of their own and meet me and know who I am and feel entitled to say negative things. I have good friends here, especially in the bands. But a lot of it is just like high school.
I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't tell you that at one time in my life I thought the way that you made music was you got on a major label and you got famous.
When you live in a lot of places, you can't help but have them become part of you. Technically, I am a Southerner, but I did not grow up in the South. So I'm a Southerner by accident, but a Washingtonian.
I didn't want to be the girl who posed in 'Playboy' and then - by the way - made some music.
I just want to make stories. They don't have to have a moral or a reason. There might be some mild cautionary notes, but they're not moral. They don't impart any Judeo-Christian ethic of any kind.
I think I have a lot of empathy for animals and nature in general. Those things just make me comfortable. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, around a lot of animals. I feel for them.
I always end up working with people that do a really good job, so I'm the only one that I'm worried about disappointing me, not the musicians ever.
I have a real dog-like mentality, in that it's like, 'Where is my next meal coming from? Am I ever gonna eat again? Will I ever write another song again? Will anyone show up for tour?' I think it comes from being really poor as a kid.