Episode 41: Amanda Palmer

An interview with Amanda Palmer about how art is her therapy, balancing online versus offline relationships, how she gets people to invest in her, asking others for help and her best career advice.

Welcome to the 41st episode of 5 Questions with Dan Schawbel. As your host, my goal is to curate the best advice from the world’s smartest and most interesting people by asking them just 5 questions.

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This episodes guest:

My guest today is singer, songwriter, musician and author Amanda Palmer. Born in New York City, Amanda grew up in Lexington Massachusetts where she went to high school and was involved in the drama department. While attending Wesleyan University, she staged performances based on work by Legendary Pink Dots before forming the Shadowbox Collective, which was devoted to street theatre. In 2000 at a Halloween party, Amanda met drummer Brian Viglione and formed The Dresden Dolls, eventually releasing their debut album two years later. In 2008, she established her solo career with her solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer. She was first brought to my attention after my friend and mentor, David Meerman Scott, blogged about she was able to raise over a million dollars on the crowd-sourcing platform Kickstarter to fund her next album. In 2014, Amanda released her memoir, The Art of Asking, which was based on her TED Talk a year earlier that has now amassed nearly 11 million views. She recently released her first album in more than six years called “There Will Be No Intermission”. In this uncensored episode (yes that means there’s swearing), Amanda gets raw about her art, relationships and life experiences.

The 5 questions questions I ask in this episode:

How is creating art like therapy to help you handle pain, tragedy and failure?
What is the balance between connecting with fans, family and friends online versus offline?
You’re known for self-funding your music through crowdsourcing. How do you get people to invest in you, your art and message?
How would you encourage someone who has a problem but is afraid of asking for help?
What’s your best piece of career advice?

Follow Amanda’s journey: