I kept writing all these ballads; they're me speaking about life. But how am I gonna do the live show I wanna do if I don't have something I can dance to?

I can only speak for myself and my own music, because that is what I am most familiar with, and I write about things that I am living or experiencing.

I am trying so hard to live in the moment and enjoy it while it's happening, because it feels like a moving freight train that I just got on, and I'm trying not to look back and get dizzy!

I listened to country music my whole life. I started writing music when I was a teenager. It all came out country.

I started to write a lot of ballads that were sultry and had a Norah Jones-for-country kind of feel. I wanted to bring elements of old soul music and old country music.

'Hairspray' was my first Broadway show. In the meantime, after the show was over, I would go down and do gigs at these clubs that I wasn't even old enough to get into. That continued on, and I think what ended up happening was that I just got these incredible opportunities on Broadway.