I grew up in the South with my father; blues and country, that's always been my core. But I had it in me not to do what was expected. I wanted to find my own footing.

I take a situation, analyse it, break it down, put it in the form I want it to be in, and then I toss it away. Let somebody else go deal with it.

I don't think I realized what was going to be the hardest part of becaming an artist until I dove off the diving board ... first I had to overcome a pre-speculated idea of me. I had to sort of burst through that and introduce myself, and that was the first hurdle, and then now sing in front of everybody, and then that was the second one, and I'm the offspring of - you know, who I'm the offspring of - I had a few hurdles to get through, no doubt about it. But the scales never tipped in the other direction too much.

I sit with the intention to write a record.

I think most artists start off playing in front of people and are used to doing it before they go out. I kind of did it the opposite. The thing got blown sky high and I'm on TV on "Good Morning America" doing my first performance in front of everybody. I think it was backward and from that, what I got out of it, the end is what I wanted, which was headlining my own tour, having people come because they loved my record and loved my music.

I have a lot of memories, but I don't go into capitalizing on that. Something's got to be my own. I'm not doing the record to sit here and broadcast my memories of my father.

If I'm alone too long I think too much, and I'm not interested in doing that. That won't lead anywhere good, I'm sure. If I'm busy I tend to stay out of trouble. An idle mind is the devil's playground.