I went from a naive, regular girl in high school to trying to realize my dream. When my family moved from the East Coast to California, I thought in my little brain, "Wow, I'm going to Hollywood. I could actually make this happen." It was easier for me to think it's possible living in a place like Los Angeles than trying to do it in suburban Maryland.

Performance-wise, you really need to be down in the trenches; you need to do the hard work, for a lot of reasons: To build yourself as a performer, to get a sense of the audience, to work hard and to wonder, 'Do I really want to do this?'

I'm really happy doing what I'm doing. I'm not looking to do anything else. I love what I do. I love music. I love playing. I love touring.

My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am.

I wouldn't say no to other kinds of musical opportunities. I guess that it just depends on what it was or what it required me to do, and if I felt that it compromised my own soul.

The thing that sometimes gets lost is people look at the harder edge of me ... the leather jacket and the tough rock 'n' roll attitude... and get the wrong impression that I'm mean. That's really something I don't want people to think because I don't think that's the case.

I really wanted it to be organic and coming from my heart. So, I think maybe the initial thought of wanting to go in that direction, I had to wait until things happened in our world and in our country that fired me up enough where the words came out organically.