Eventually as a teenager, I was pulled up on stage by James Brown's saxophone player, Maceo Parker, during one of his concerts and scatted on his stage for 20 minutes. After I was done, Maceo's bass player got down on one knee as if he were proposing, took a string off of his bass guitar and coiled it up around my ring finger. He hushed the crowd and said into the microphone, "Wendy, from this day forward you are married to music. You have a gift from God. You must devote your life to using this gift or else you will deprive the world of something so special." I got the chills.

I love the songs we've written together [with Ivo Moring] and believe that Rock music is coming back with a vengeance. There are a lot of new and exciting things on the horizon and the next chapter is going to be amazing.

My goal is to always contribute a part of myself to my music that will result in it sounding authentic, timeless, and real. I feel that this truly comes across in my new album, which is in the Rock genre.

Pressure is high and jobs are at stake. There is nothing wrong with having commercial music to pitch for those situations, as well as for ad campaigns.

In Europe, radio stations are owned by a variety of different entities, so there is less uniformity on radio programming and more opportunity for artists to get radio play and break overseas.

Being in the music business requires having a very strong resolve. You must be completely committed to the craziness that will inevitably ensue when pursing a career in music. There is no one who is immune to this. Not even the biggest music icons.

I have to say one of the lessons I learned is to always be prepared.