There were two main points I wanted to get across in Valentine, the first being that yes, Valentine's Day is an arbitrary day, but why would you not take that excuse to celebrate love? The second point. . .since it is just an arbitrary day. . .why not treat every day like Valentine's Day?

I think a lot of singer-songwriters get compared to each other, but I'd like to think that what I'm doing is special and specific to me.

Not only am I putting music out there, I'm giving part of myself away.

My dream artists to collaborate with are probably Cee Lo Green and Imogen Heap. They're completely out of my genre but they're both musical geniuses.

The people at the label were great but at the end of the day our visions didn't match up and I knew I had to do it my way. The potential success that could come with signing with a major label didn't quite outweigh how important it was for me to make my music the way I knew it needed to be made. It was a hard decision to make, but I've never regretted it for a second and it's only become more clear to me after making and releasing Stairwells that it was the right one.

Since I don't feel like I belong solely to any one of them I find that it makes me even more interested and open to other cultures as well. It's also fun looking ethnically ambiguous because no one can quite put a finger on what I am and it's very entertaining to me!

I posted a video a day for almost two months and was hardly sleeping, but I think it really pushed me to give music everything I had in me. I knew it was a chance I couldn't miss. The funny thing is I never saw my music video when it aired during the Super Bowl because as soon as I heard my song start I was in tears for the next 10 minutes! The most amazing thing that came out of all of this, however, was the support that had developed online. Without the people that came back day after day to vote for me, I'd be nowhere, and I really owe it all to them.