I listened to country music my whole life. I started writing music when I was a teenager. It all came out country.

I listened to country music my whole life. I started writing music when I was a teenager. It all came out country.

I kept writing all these ballads; they're me speaking about life. But how am I gonna do the live show I wanna do if I don't have something I can dance to?

I started to write a lot of ballads that were sultry and had a Norah Jones-for-country kind of feel. I wanted to bring elements of old soul music and old country music.

What I loved about country music when I was a kid was the Grand Ole Opry, was Hee Haw, was 360 degrees of entertainment.

I actually had a week where I literally wrote four songs and all of them are on my album. But sometimes you'll go a week where you'll write songs and they never see the light of day. So that process takes a long time.

I can't take the theater side out of myself.