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Halsey

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Halsey Reveals The Unconventional Inspiration Behind 'BADLANDS' & Could There Be A Screenplay About It To Come?

We sure hope so...

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Tuesday, January 19, 2016 - 16:21

We've already told you how Halsey plans to be the next big thing in 2016, but we caught up with her about what inspires her, and you might be surprised by her answers.

She began: "Being a musician people ask you a lot about what musicians inspire you, and there's plenty of musicians that I love and respect, but I think that I'm the most inspired by cinema."

You only have to look at Halsey's latest music video for her track 'New Americana' to see how she's been influenced by some of the biggest film directors and producers out there.

She cites just a few in her MTV Push interview, saying: "I love Quentin Tarantino, I love Harmony Korine, Larry Clarke."

The 21-year-old also explained the motivation behind her music, and this notion is simple: Halsey writes about people in a raw and real way.

She explained: "I love films that show people in a way that's so real it's almost unsettling, and that's what really inspires me, because I write about people. I write about people that I know, so I want to portray them and portray myself in a way that is unapologetic." 

Her debut album BADLANDS was heavily influenced by the likes of the Tarantino classic, Pulp Fiction.

Halsey revealed how her approach to making music is very similar to how film producers approach scores, saying: "The idea of these films that show people in a way that's sort of violent but sad. In Tarantino's films in particular the scores are always very, very cinematic but also very dark and very epic."

View the lyrics
Cigarettes
And tiny liquor bottles
Just what you'd expect
Inside her new Balenciaga
Viral mess
Turned dreams into an empire
Self-made success now she rolls with Rockafellers

Survival of the richest
The city's ours until the fall
They're Monaco and Hamptons bound
But we don't feel like outsiders at all

We are the new Americana
High on legal marijuana
Raised on Biggie and Nirvana
We are the new Americana

Young James Dean
Some say he looks just like his father
But he
Could never love somebody's daughter
Football team
Loved more than just the game
So he vowed to be
His husband at the altar

Survival of the richest
The city's ours until the fall
They're Monaco and Hamptons bound
But we don't feel like outsiders at all

We are the new Americana
High on legal marijuana
Raised on Biggie and Nirvana
We are the new Americana

We know very well
Who we are
So we hold it down
When summer starts
What kind of dough
Have you been spending?
What kind of bubblegum
Have you been blowing lately?

We are the new Americana
High on legal marijuana
Raised on Biggie and Nirvana
We are the new Americana

We are the new Americana
High on legal marijuana
Raised on Biggie and Nirvana
We are the new Americana
Writer(s): Ashley Frangipane, Lawrence Principato, James Mtume, Chandra Uber, Kalkutta Lyrics powered by www.musixmatch.com
Hide the lyrics

She added: "That's how I wanted BADLANDS to feel and we approached it the way you would approach a movie score. […] So initially in building the songs we put real life sounds in them and that's a film tactic, that's what people do in movie scores, adding extra sounds to further what is happening in those movies."

When asked if she'd ever consider writing a screenplay for her debut album, Halsey admitted loving the idea, but she doesn't reckon she has the patience, she said: "I would love to write a screenplay for BADLANDS one day, I don't think I could ever have the patience to do it, I don't even have the patience to write songs, I write some of the shortest songs ever because I don't have the patience. But if I ever wrote a screenplay for BADLANDS it would be a no brainer."

Until then, we can look forward to Halsey unleashing her creativity in the form of music videos, she continues: "There's still a lot of music videos to be made for the album so I'm lucky I'll get to flex that creative muscle a little bit more."

- By Megan Downing

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