"I've been inspired by loads of people who showed things of themselves to me. That's the creator coming through another being. You know when you hear something pure. Like Liz Phair. Do you know that record?... I just heard it. I've been away in another country, what do I know? I heard it and went 'Thank you for that. I feel so much better today.' It's like this wonderful reciprocal sharing thing. It's so inspiring, and it inspires me."
"All those bloody records I'd listened to for years and years with the boys -- The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street and Bob Dylan's 'Lay Lady Lay' -- I was having a good time, but I always wondered where I fitted into it as a woman. Suddenly, four or five tracks into Exile in Guyville, I knew Liz Phair's songs were on my side, that they were twisted to my viewpoint, my advantage. Lots of women have written like that, but to me it had the edge."
"As a teenager, putting on things like Bob Dylan's 'Lay Lady Lay', that was not from my point of view -- it was a slightly alien thing. Hearing Liz's stuff [on Exile] made me think, 'This is right. This is in focus.' It was madly, wonderfully, wildly inspiring."
"I don't mind comparisons to Liz Phair, because that's what I listen to... Liz is wonderful, but in a way I want to study what happened to her. Like, where did all that go? What happens?"
""Well, you know that new Liz Phair single? It sounds like a lame attempt to be Avril Lavigne. C'mon, Liz, you can do better than that. And that's what irks me: She can do better. I also don't like that Jewel song -- the one they're using to sell those razors now."
"I used to be scared of Liz (Phair), but I'm not now. I met her, and she's really nice."
"That was an interesting interesting testament to the fact that women can sell tickets. I think promoters shy away from having multifemale bills because they feel like men won't buy tickets. That was an issue in my earliest days of touring and trying to have female openers, or trying to open up for females. I wanted to have a three-way female bill when my first record started having success, and I was met with heavy opposition from promoters... I was thinking of Aimee Mann, Liz Phair, quite a few of the young females. And I wasn't encouraged."
"I thought for sure when I moved (to Chicago) that I would get to meet Liz Phair because I'm a big Liz Phair fan. I got Girlie Sounds (sic) off the Internet, and I have like everything she's ever breathed upon."
"As a public, we want to see mindless women. We still want to see that. Or else we want to see the macho feminist woman. Like Liz Phair's record: I totally relate to a lot of what she's saying there; I've written songs that are really similar to that. But in the process, I've seen what happens when you present sentiments like that. Men go crazy. I mean, to be an aggressive sexual woman is a very positive thing, I think; but when you see men drooling over it, it's repulsive. It's like, keep your pants on, man!"
"All these young [female] singer/songwriters who are successful now... I'm just not interested in mainstream music unless it's amazing, groundbreaking. And the Liz Phairs and PJ Harveys -- they didn't sell a lot of records. Even they're still not exactly interesting to me. Women have not really explored experimental music. I don't see the need to have my songs played on every radio station."
[about writing songs] "...I heard Liz Phair say that they're almost like sculpturing a rock. They're already in there, but you just have to chip away a little harder."
"It was amazing to hear a song like 'Flower', to hear a woman sing about her sexuality that way. [Liz Phair] was this really strong femme character."
"There are stations in America that wouldn't play 'Your Ghost' (the single from Hips And Makers) because they were playing too many women's songs. They wouldn't play Liz Phair ever. They play Tori Amos because she's faggy and stupid, they would never play P.J. Harvey even though she's faggy and stupid. They play Tori Amos and (screwing her face up in disgust) Natalie Merchant (10,000 Maniacs) and that's too many women. (Getting angry). They could never say they played too many blacks, but they are allowed to say 'Kristin Hersh? No, but if Kristin was playing in a rock band then it wouldn't be women's music anymore' - what do they think I've been doing for the past 10 years?"
"She's a very expressive rock singer. Her songs are soulful, moving and punky. She's from Chicago, too, like Urge Overkill. There must be something in the water."
"An image can't be someething that you work at; the whole thing has to be just yourself. Liz was never into simple self-promotion."
"I remember one night performing with Liz Phair, and before we went onstage, she asked me what she should wear. I like her style. I think she's sexy. I had purple polyester leisure-suit slacks on. She ended up wearing purple hip-hugger bellbottoms and a little red top."
"My favorite quote is Liz Phair's. She said, 'Madonna is the speedboat, and the rest of us are just the Go-Go's on water skis.'"
"Liz Phair's way of communicating through her voice and arranging the emotion and passion in her recordings reminded me that that's one of the most important things. In a lot of music, you don't get the person's individuality."
"I love Liz Phair's latest album Liz Phair. She's really cool, and her lyrics are very smart."
"Why do women see me as a role model? There haven't been too many of us. There was our first group: Exene [Cervenka], Debbie [Harry] and Patti [Smith]. Then there was a huge amount of years! Then there was a second group which was Jennifer [Finch] and Donita [Sparks], me, Kim Gordon and Kim Deal, Kat [Bjelland], Kathleen [Hanna, of Bikini Kill] and her little pack of oestrogen terrorists (Riot Grrrls)... well, oestrogen lemmings. Jenny Toomi of Tsunami saying things like: 'women shouldn't sing loud or scream because it's physiologocially not female.' ARRRRGHHH! Thank God that period is over. (No menstrual pun intended.) There's also Polly Harvey. I can't count Liz Phair, I just can't. She reminds me of a potato. I don't hate her at all, I just need a bit of angst, I guess... it's my problem, not hers. It isn't about being competitve in the slightest... Liz, have a horrible day just once, and then write a song.
"She [Liz Phair] knelt at my feet. It was very surprising. She played a show at the Wiltern, in Los Angeles. I was backstage, and for some reason she knelt at my feet."
"I think I'm heads and tails above Liz Phair. Her songs are thin and limited, and mine are alive... She's doing something much more confrontational, and I've always done something more introspective."
"The guy from Matador asked if I wanted to open for Liz Phair. I'd never heard her music, but I'd seen her picture. She'd won all these awards. I thought, 'Wow, she must be really great.'"
"[Liz Phair is] such a nice woman."
"I just finished a tour with Liz Phair which was a large theater tour, but I've done it all, from the down and dirty club tour to the theater tours. But I really loved touring with Liz because it was the first time that I toured with a woman. I've toured with about 20 guys with acoustic guitars - not that there is anything wrong with that- but being with a woman was just different and fun."
"Opening for Howie Day and Liz Phair are two totally different animals. Liz doesn't take any shit. She is the woman in charge, off stage and on. She's very professional and I respect the way she runs her show."
"What winds up happening before I'm writing a record is that I don't really listen to anything, perhaps for fear of being overly influenced. There's an element of having to be in your own reality when you're about to write about it. But now the record is done; I went out and bought Lauryn Hill and the new Liz Phair because I feel I can let go of anything I've created and move into a less self-absorbed world, which is extremely exciting now."
"These women are speaking out in a society where women don't have their own voices like they should. It's great that Courtney [Love] screams and growls. It's exciting that Liz Phair sings about one-night stands. These are points of view people have to know about, but they haven't been stated publicly. The lid's coming off of something that's been under pressure for a long time."
"I was one of the people who was so ready to hate Liz Phair's record, so ready to find it not worthy of all the hype. The first time I heard it, I was so frustrated that I liked it. I didn't want to like it, and then I just gave in. I was like, fuck, I love this record. I think it's fucking brilliant."
"Liz is the best. A lot of fun! I totally admire her. She knows no boundaries in her music and that's what's so great. Pure genius. I love her writing, I love her voice, and I love singing with her. And may I add that she has a lovely assortment of shoes? (laughs) What else can I say? I just love her!"
"I'm happy Liz Phair is on the planet, all these younger women. It just blows me away that there are so many women making music now. And it's really good, really smart music, too."
"It was a wonderful, fabulous experience. Exile in Guyville was definitely a big record for me, so it was really cool that Liz and I got along so well. Every night before I went to bed, I would watch The Age of Innocence, which is one of my comfort movies. It's just so soothing -- the music, the scenery, the whole love story. Liz would come back to my room to hang out and watch with me. Our bus was totally girlied-out."
"I already get a lot from Liz; we're very similar in who we are and I see how she has evolved as a person and where she comes from and can grasp some hope from her, how she maneuvers her career."
"I do listen to a lot of the new stuff because I have a daughter who's going to be 12. She's just starting to come into the alternative world; she's been more in the pop world. And the hip-hop world. So I listen to a lot of that, and I like a lot of it. I love Usher, I love Mary J. Blige. I'm also into music like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. [My daughter] has just started playing bass, so maybe she'll start to be more interested in alternative... [She is really into] hip-hop, Top 40, girl pop. She loves Pink, Kelly Clarkson, she loved the Liz Phair album before the most recent one."
"I loved the first Liz Phair record. In terms of songwriting, she was breaking the mold. I think that what got me excited about playing my own music was hearing women breaking the mold. When I heard artists like Kim Gordon or Liz Phair, my mind was blown!"
"Touring wihg Liz [Phair] was honestly amazing. She and the group of musicians in her band and the other opening bands, Patrick Park and Wheat, were all insanely sweet and funny people. There was a beautiful chemistry among everyone that went beyond stage and just made the performances that much more fun to do. She has such presence and strength, this wisdom behind her eyes where she just knows everything that is going on. I learned a lot by watching her -- guiding a band in soundcheck, managing hungry fans, being a mom, etc. and got her take on everything from photo shoots to relationships. The audiences craved her anger, angst, humor, sexiness -- everything and were extremely receptive to my pathos, hopefulness, vulnerability, etc. We made a good match I think. She calls me Princess; I call her Goddess."