I always felt like I was stuck in between my parents, relaying information back and forth and walking on egg shells, not knowing what was going to trigger something to make them mad and not knowing what to say in front of them.
I feel like Nashville has watched me grow up in front of them, which is cool, but it kind of sucks at the same time because you get pigeonholed, like, 'Oh, she's the girl with the long hair that wears fairy dresses.' That was me at one point because I was new and I was young. But we all grow up.
I got to go back and perform 'God Made Girls' on 'The Voice,' which was awesome. I also got invited to sing on the 'Grand Ole Opry,' which was another unbelievable moment.
That's my favorite part about songwriting, the way you write a song, and someone else might hear it a different way.
I love whimsical things and forests. I'm really into all that.
The coolest part about 'God Made Girls' is you had all these different women writing it, so you had all these different perspectives in this song.
My mom is the most amazing woman ever. She grew up a single mom raising five kids, and she's always told me to follow my dreams. One thing I've learned about her is she sacrificed her whole life for me to focus on my dream, and I cannot wait to do that for my kids.
You're only as good as your last song. That's something somebody told me, and it's so true. You've just gotta keep putting yourself out there, even promoting 'God Made Girls.'
I believe that women should be treated just like men.
It's just so cool to be able to go out to dinner and buy my mom's dinner now. You know what I mean? She's just done so much for me. I love that I can give back to her now because she's the most amazing woman ever.
I'm never nervous about being vulnerable with my songwriting because my favorite artists are ones that are vulnerable. I want people to feel like they know me.
There's just something so special about 'God Made Girls.' It comes from a girl's perspective, and there's nothing like that on radio right now, and so I think that's what made us able to pick that song as a single.
'The Voice' ignited a fire in me to be an artist and to be a country singer, but not winning ignited an even bigger fire, because I was just like, 'First of all, I know that I want this'; now I wanted it even more, 'cause I didn't know if I had a record deal.
I'm doing a program with NAFME for music and education in schools, and for a week, we will be getting in a bus and traveling across the United States. We're starting at Disney World and ending at the Grand OIe Opry. We will be performing at different schools, and I wrote a song for the program called 'Always Sing.'
I've been writing since I came to Nashville when I was 17. I've been blessed to have written with so many of the biggest names around. They took me under their wing and taught me the ways of writing. They saw something special in me, which feels great. Every song on my record is going to be original, and that's just a really cool feeling.
There is nothing cooler than to have them singing your words back to you. The last show I did, I was kind of nervous about putting the mic out there, because you're not sure how it's going to go. But I did, and they sang the whole chorus. I thought, 'Holy crap! That is the coolest feeling.' It's the biggest rush ever.
Songwriter friends will be like, 'Oh my God, when are you going to put out 'Love Triangle?'' It's just been that song for me that really helped me get a lot of writing sessions and helped jump-start my writing career.
My dad would pick me up every other Friday at 6 o'clock and drop me off every Sunday at 6 o'clock, and I remember those last couple hours, like around 4 o'clock, my dad would get kind of sad because he knew that he was about to not see me for two more weeks.
'God Made Girls' was such a success for me. I'm so blessed to have over half a million downloads on that song. I was the highest-charting new female in 2014, and I couldn't have done that without Big Machine and their support.
