In finding love, I think it's important to be patient. In being in a relationship, I think it's important to be honest, to communicate, to respect and trust, and to strive to give more than you take. As for heartbreak. . .there's no easy way out, but it's important to remember that even though everything feels awful now, it will get better, you will meet someone else, and in the meantime, you can continue to grow and learn and live life surrounded by people that love you.

In college, I faced an interesting problem. I wanted to play music all the time and yet I wasn't ready for anyone to hear it. To remedy this, I took to retreating to stairwells as a safe place to sing and write music. It was there that I wrote most of my songs in college and really grew into an artist.

I get to travel around the world and meet all of these amazing people, and they're singing my songs! And to me, that's crazy.

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.

In finding love, I think it's important to be patient. In being in a relationship, I think it's important to be honest, to communicate, to respect and trust, and to strive to give more than you take. As for heartbreak. . .there's no easy way out, but it's important to remember that even though everything feels awful now, it will get better, you will meet someone else, and in the meantime, you can continue to grow and learn and live life surrounded by people that love you.

However, it [singing] wasn't until halfway through high school that it dawned on me that singing wasn't just a hobby, it was something I had a growing need for in my life, and that was about when I adopted the neglected guitar I found under our piano and started singing about all the things I could never say.

I started teaching myself guitar because I loved singing so much. Then one day kind of out of the blue I found I was writing a song. It just happened organically.