The second record didn't sell as well and I think if we were on a big label, we might have been passed up on for the third, but they're a smaller label and the owner (Steve Gottlieb) likes us. So I think we deserve that chance with the first record doing so well.

After we wrote The Wreckoning, our record label did listen.

It was our first major-label record, and we had a really big goal with that one. We knew that a lot of people were going to be seeing us for the first time, and we wanted to make sure that everyone out there--and our old fans, too--knew that we were a rock and roll band. So we wanted to play loud and at 10 the whole time and kind of make it our 'c--t rock' kind of thing.

At my second record label, they told me and other female artists that some of us were going on the chopping block. I was 19... and it was devastating.

You are, in effect, selling the first fund and buying the second fund. And when you sell that fund, you have a taxable transaction.

I think I'm a living embodiment of, 'Don't try to push me around or squash me,' whether its how I talk to a record label or in my relationships.