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I was raised on a farm in East Tennessee, and my first concert was Britney Spears. It's my job as a country music artist to be honest about that.

I can only say the first thing that pops into my mind is I remember, years ago, seeing kind of a has-been country singer working - when I first moved to Nashville - in a bar in a Holiday Inn.

I grew up on a farm where we had one radio station and it was all country.

My love, growing up on the Prairies, was country music.

I grew up on Loretta Lynn and Dusty Springfield. I remember lying about it; it wasn't cool to listen to country when I was 12.

Well, you know, people don't know me as a country artist and I am new to the genre. But that's how I grew up singing.

I was writing country songs, but I wasn't listening to country yet. I grew up on a farm in East Tennessee, so my roots are country, you know? But I didn't know where those songs came from or where they fit.

Growing up I played piano and I sang at a lot of weddings; I grew up in a very small town, a little coal-mining town in Virginia called Grundy. And my family was very sing-songy at home.

I grew up listening to everything. I was in rock n' roll bands and punk bands, and I loved bluegrass and country music, too. Then, when I moved to Nashville, I put out a very traditional country record because that's just what you do. I had a bunch of very traditional country songs. Next thing you know, you're a country singer.

When I was a child, I was living in the housing projects of Philadelphia. I didn't even have a Christmas tree.