I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, 'Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we'll talk.'

There's so much about Dolly Parton that every female artist should look to, whether it's reading her quotes or reading her interviews or going to one of her live shows. She's been such an amazing example to every female songwriter out there.

I love to write honest songs that name real people, then get up onstage and live out those emotions in front of 15,000 people.

My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it's so drawn from my own life and my own stories.

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.

I used to write random little stupid things when I was five, but then the first song I really wrote was one called 'Fingers Crossed,' which is on SoundCloud.