I never got lessons. I took influence from Chet Baker, Ian Dury, and Joe Strummer. I don't hear my voice and think, 'Yeah, that's a banging voice!' It's more about putting the right emotions into the right words and the lyrics than anything else to m...
I got a job as soon as I could - 11 or 12. I started babysitting and then I got a part-time job at a pharmacy in England. I just remember loving the feeling of going out and buying my own clothes! I'd go bargain-hunting and get secondhand vintage stu...
For years I’ve been trying to turn myself into someone I’m not. Because that’s what Court wanted. But you get me. I can be the man I want to be with you—the man I’m meant to be. You needed me to be that man. I’m a cop. Always have been, a...
Back in I want to say 2011, Taylor Swift was on her 'Speak Now' tour. She was kind enough to bring me out as one of the openers on that tour. Between her and Miranda Lambert, who also helped me out that year, I got a pretty non-typical first tour as ...
It simply becomes more and more difficult as you move further away from your heyday, music being the only format where you're treasured for your youth - that and acting. If you're a writer or a painter or any other kind of artist, your experience is ...
Mainly, I don't like it when music is made solely to impress people or in order to please business people; it doesn't sound good to me. If you're making music in order to become famous or loved by the masses... that's not what I'm about. When somebod...
I know that I'm here because of the grace of God. But I also know that I've been given this second chance for a specific reason, and that is to bring love to the world again through the voice of my music, and I'm so honored to be able to do it. I'm s...
I am just glad that I can take the music to the people who want to hear it. I love my audiences. I am deeply indebted to them for giving me the chance to sing my concerts, make records, and do what I love. Whatever people call it, it is great to have...
I'm in this really cool place in my career, where the stage I'm on that night, whether it's the Paisley tour, the CMT tour, or a bar with 10 people in it, it is the most important show I've ever played in my life. I go to the ends of my imagination t...
I do really silly dancing. I love dancing, but I'm not cool when I dance. It's not about my moves, it's not about how cool I am, it's not about how slick I look on the dance floor, it's about having a great time.
I don't have a Madonna-sized fan base, so I can actually e-mail and talk to everyone that e-mails me because I am totally appreciative, and I like my fans! They seem to have the same interests as me. They are kind of nerdy and cool - and have good ta...
I'm pretty much fully digital. I've basically spent a few painstaking days putting sounds into my laptop, just banking them, because I love playing, and I love visually seeing it on my screen and being able to change the sounds more, with different p...
When I was driving home after registration, I heard this song on the radio, a guy singing about not ever going to class in college and always hanging out and singing for his friends. I laughed and said, I can relate, because it was so much like me. I...
As you know, I'm a black girl out of the projects of New York City, raised in a single parent home because my parents divorced very very young... welfare and homeless at four and then again at 16 and just not having the things or the necessary tools ...
Technology has given us convenience, but at the same time it's making musicians work harder in that if you really want to make money making music and selling albums, you have to go out there and perform. And hope you sell stuff like merch, and get on...
I really love the EMS Vocoder 2000, which is a pretty nice little box. You put one thing in one end and another in the other end, and you're able to change vocals by the sound and do a lot - it's just got a great sound. But the thing is, it's a bit c...
I have a love/hate relationship with Amy Grant, but I do go back to her Christmas albums once in a while. They're dated and sentimental and the production is nearly unlistenable, but there's something about her vocal performance that just feels reall...
'I Know You Care' is about my dad. And I haven't seen him for a long, long time. And my parents divorced when I was really young. And I guess I just wanted a - it was my way of saying that I wasn't bitter or angry anymore. I was just sad and just fel...
Most of the time, the lyrics are kind of like my secret messages to my friends or my boyfriend or my mom or my dad. I would never tell them that these songs are about them or which specific lyric is about somebody. Often, when I sit down to write a l...
My dad was a huge country music fan, but he also had a band and he sang. So he'd listen to a lot of music and the songs that he'd learn for the band were more from the male artists. So my earliest country memories were Waylon Jennings, Conway Twitty,...
Right now, it hasn't affected my music other than the fact that I don't have time to write any of it. That's no different from when I first started and I lived at home. I would play the guitar in the afternoon and then my mom or my dad would come hom...
