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When I got to Nashville, people started asking me about how I got into country music. I'd tell them I came from a place where people wore cowboy hats for a real reason.

I was into all kinds of music as a teen - country music, because my dad was in a band that played country, and whatever my sister and brother were into.

My mom wanted to be a country singer, too, so country was always being played. And my girlfriends and I used to go to concerts, like Brad Paisley, in middle school and high school.

As soon as I got into country music, it was like hook, line and sinker. I was so focused on country, I ended up leaving all those '80s hair-band CDs behind - which now I still wish I had, but I was done with it.

I didn't grow up listening to country music. I pretty much grew up rebelling against country music.

It never mattered to me that people in school didn't think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it - though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, 'I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.'

I came to town thinking that everybody had the same idea of what country music was that I did.

I didn't think I liked country music. Then I got into Garth Brooks.

The one thing I wanted to do more than anything else was sing country music.

I was tossed all over the place growing up, which I guess prepared me for the music business, but the one thing that has always been there, that has never ever left me, has been country music.