And, we have no such thing as a budget anymore. Our manager freaks when we show him the bill. We're lavish to the bone, but all our money goes back into the product.

I sacrifice in my love life and my social life, but those things will be there in three or four years. This is a really important time in my life. I can't just be the girl who sang 'I Kissed a Girl.' I have to leave a legacy.

I write songs because that's the thing I chose to do. And I can't help writing them, that's a fact. Sometimes I felt as though you worked to justify your existence, but you don't; you work to exist, and vice versa, and that's it, really.

For me, living and making music, they're one thing. It's not like a job that I go to a studio to do, or a chore that I have to get myself in the mood to do, or something. It's the thing that I need to do every day.

To live is to be musical, starting with the blood dancing in your veins. Everything living has a rhythm. Do you feel your music?

Being on stage is magic. There's nothing like it. You feel the energy of everybody who's out there. You feel it all over your body. When the lights hit you, it's all over, I swear it is.