Glasser Survives Short Attention Span to Become Self-Starter

"I don't know what I'm doing! Can anyone help?"

That's what Glasser, aka Cameron Mesirow, said when she was asked to DJ some parties at New York Fashion Week. The artist, who had released her debut record 'Ring' that same month, admittedly had no prior DJ experience, but notes that it's become a trend for musicians to give it a whirl behind the decks.

"It's funny now that I'm in a band, people ask me to DJ all the time," Mesirow tells Spinner. "I absolutely feel like a fake [DJing]. I was like, 'Don't you need credentials for this?'"

She may not have DJ credentials, but Mesirow certainly has artistic credentials given her musical family (her father is part of the Blue Man Group and her mother once played with late-70s new wave band Human Sexual Response), although, she admits it took a while to hone her own talents, with piano and guitar lessons not being all that fruitful growing up as she "didn't have the discipline."

"I had such a short attention span," she confesses. "Everyone thought I had ADD and I was tested for learning disabilities -- but I just had other things on my mind."

(That said, her attention span lasted long enough to obsessively watch 'Wonder Years' and 'Cosby' -- "I think sitcoms are a dying art," she notes, "I can watch 'The Cosby Show' anytime, but if I see a 'Friends' re-run, I'm just appalled by how not-funny it is!")

When it came to her eventual desire to front a band and be "discovered," though, Mesirow was fixated on breaking out. Although, the way to do that wasn't immediately obvious.

Watch Glasser Perform at Point Ephémère in Paris
"For a long time I would think, 'When is a band going to discover that I can sing?'" she says. "I thought that would be the start of my musical self, but that didn't happen."

The singer's self-starter method proved to be more satisfying (and productive). "It felt much better, in a way, to do it on my own," says Mesirow. "I just did it without telling anyone because if anyone was waiting to see what I would do, I would just clam up. So I had to do it privately."

But with time, Mesirow built up the courage to share her material with friends. "It took a long time of me playing it for people who I know would love me no matter what, if I made a s--- thing or not."

And even though she's still not the most skilled musician, Mesirow believes her inexperience played a large role in the development of Glasser's acclaimed sound.

"I have such eclectic taste that I would always try to start writing something on the piano or guitar and feel like I was always going in one singularly-focused direction. That wasn't me, though. Those are just parts of a whole -- and what I'm doing now feels so much closer to a whole."