Petras: "Every song is another try at figuring myself out."

Petras: "I definitely always took my problems and turned them into music, and the more I can make myself feel happy, the better. But yeah, I definitely feel like music was always a place for me to, like, escape to."

Petras: "I'm just trying to make the kind of music that I'd listen to as a teenager and forget about all my problems."

Petras: "It’s f*cked up how badly sex workers are treated; how they’re disrespected. I wanted to make music that championed them and took the shame away."

Petras: "I just innocently wanted to help other trans kids, and it made me the town freak."

Petras: "When I hear heartbreak songs, I always feel like, 'O.K. that's exactly how I feel... I'm not the only person who fell in love like a stupid person.'"

Petras: "Being trans, I’m so lucky my family supported me. Had they not, sex work might have been the option open to me as a way to pay for my transition. You need cash urgently, and sex work is one way to get it. That’s what lots of my friends have done."

Petras: "I want to become one of the songwriting greats. That's my number one goal."

Petras: "There's something about making a song that everybody can sing and remember, and when you listen to it the first time, you already know the words by the second chorus, like you've always known the song. I'm obsessed with that idea."

Petras: "I want to grow as a vocalist, and I want to really kill every single show and just become better."

Petras: "People started recording my songs. Later, I was offered songwriter contracts. And then, finally, I could take the time to work on my own project. I worked hard for this all by myself."

Petras: "I just love songs that are fantasy."

Petras: "I think an online presence is super important. I find new artists and songs I like on socials or Spotify. It's really how people find you. I don't take posting on socials very seriously though."

Petras: "It's a recurring thing: It's that I fall really deeply for bad relationships. It's just always been this way and not changing."

Petras: "For me, pop has always been escapist. I’ve always created a different personality for a record. Sometimes I’m an extreme super-brat, a murderer or – like on the last record – a massive slut."

Petras: "Sex is fun, and it should be for everyone … And so what if I’m a slut?"

Petras: "I sometimes go through phases where I’m bored of my reality and writing about my feelings. I just wanna make music that is a completely different character. Everyone has a million sides to them; the best thing about being an artist is that we get to show those sides. It doesn’t matter what’s real, what’s not, or what’s embellished."

Petras: "I don't know - a lot of people think it's a really negative thing to do bubble gum pop, but I love it. I, like, want to own it."

Petras: "I think pop music, for me as a kid, I hated school and ran home to watch Britney Spears videos. I just felt like I could forget about the stuff I didn't like about my life and listen to pop music and escape."

Petras: "I love all music. I'm not specific. I don't just love one genre!"

Petras: "I wanna create a whole different world. Look at The Lord of the Rings: Somebody came up with a whole language. Creating worlds can be more interesting than just talking about your boyfriend and what’s going on in your life."

Petras: "It feels more daring for me to go more conservative."

Petras: "Some countries are more progressive than others, but I think just in general, so many people have just never met a transgender person, and still don't know that that transgender people are normal people. And I think there's this fear surrounding transgender people that is like, 'Oh, so you woke up one day and now you want to go to girls' bathrooms?' It's just not at all what it is."

Petras: "I sing pop music that I like and that is completely unapologetic - which is actually the term: it's called 'unapologetic pop.'"

Petras: "Women in pop music were my only friends in high school — they were everything I wanted to be and [gave me] the strength I [needed] to transition and live my life authentically. They gave me the strength to be myself."

Petras: "I just wanted access to a more fun life."

Petras: "I just never got a chance to even know about spirituality or be accepted by God. So, to me, it’s like mythology. To me, it’s like a fairy tale or any other story."

Petras: "I really feel that my fans have given me a lot of confidence."

Petras: "I just, since a young age, had to be like, 'I’m going to hell.' That was my growing up experience. Had I had the chance to be a part of a religion, I maybe would have. And maybe I would have lived more the way that people who protest my concerts want me to live."

Petras: "I’m learning how to be myself more as well – from trying to get everyone to like me to being unapologetic in who I am."

Petras: "My dysphoria was bad as a child. I was suicidal from really young into my teenage years. There was no medical care locally, so from the age of 10 my parents took me across Germany to find doctors to treat me. They pushed for me to get the help I needed, and believed me. And that was over a decade ago, it was a totally different time."

Petras: "I write my own lyrics; I can incorporate my own ideas. And yes, apparently, people think it's cool. That's pretty awesome."

Petras: "Pop music means everything to me. I've been listening to pop since I was kid, running home from school to watch Britney Spears and Spice Girls and Christina Aguilera music videos, and it felt like it was a world to escape to for me personally."

Petras: "To hear my songs at parties is really amazing."

Petras: "I love Halloween, and I love spooky stuff. I love horror movies. I love everything creepy, and I've always kind of wanted to do this, just do really dark pop."

Petras: "I thought I was just going to be a songwriter for other people! And now I get to put out my own music, which is amazing."

Petras: "As I was finding my musical style, I found my personal style as well, and moving from Germany to L.A. was part of that, raiding the secondhand stores in L.A. trying out different beauty themes, finding my love for huge lashes and big, long hair extensions."

Petras: "I would love to work with Drake. I think he's such a pop star, and he's dropping amazing songs."

Petras: "One day, after a big music meeting, my manager took me to Sephora and said I could get whatever I wanted, which is the dream scenario."

Petras: "I want to break free of this ceiling of like, 'What can I be as a trans woman?' I wanna be anything and everything."