Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I love, love songs, but sometimes it's okay to just be young and talk about something other than getting married or falling in love.
There are so many times I turn on the radio, and I hear a guy, and I have no idea who it is because it sounds like four other people.
There are the aesthetic pressures for a woman to be pretty and sexy, but not sexual or have desires beyond winning a guy's affections.
I'm not this bright-eyed 17-year-old that got signed to a label and is listening to all these suits tell them the best plan of action.
I'm just getting back into my songwriting groove. It's still pretty early. But I don't want to make 'Hero 2.' It's going to be different.
I wanted to become a better songwriter, so it seemed like a no-brainer to move to Nashville, where some of the best writers in the world live.
If I had been thrown out into a radio tour when I was 18, or 17, and given a record deal, I don't think... it would have been a total nightmare.
To turn the radio on and hear so much more diversity, it's so refreshing. That voice that cuts through what you've been hearing, it's inspiring.
Obviously, writing together is very intimate because it's sort of acting where you need to get to a really deep place to get the most emotional song.
I would love to see Regina Spektor, Bjork, and some really cool-sounding festival bands like 'Metric' and 'The Cardigans,' who are one of my favorite bands.
You either have to sing about being scorned by a lover or sing about thinking a boy is cute and wanting him to notice you. That's about as edgy as you can get.
I think I just knew in my head there was something special about 'My Church,' and getting to accept a Grammy for it was just proof that I made the right decision.
I drive to clear my mind, like many people do. It's like, once you get in the car, whatever song you put on, it's so symbiotic. Your mood could change in a second.
With streaming services, the walls have come down a bit on genres. So I never really set out to make a country record or a pop record. I just wanted to make it mine.
I always go back to old vinyl albums I loved, and that's sort of the aim I had with 'Hero' - just to make it look classic and feel like me, but also timeless in a way.
Fine arts education in public schools is really abysmal. The same emphasis should be put on music, theater, dance - anything creative - that's put on math and science.
That's the whole point is just to bring people together in a really positive way and laugh together and cry together and just be connected through a simple thing of a few chords.
I didn't move to Nashville with any inkling or dreams of getting a record deal. I didn't have those stars in my eyes. I just wanted to take a break, relax, and figure out songwriting.
My lyrics are more country - what I love is the storytelling and the structure, how tight the rhymes can be. But pop melodies have always been intrinsically linked to my writing style.
I'm not trying to dog any artist or genre, but to me, there is a lot of diversity missing from the radio. I miss turning the radio on and getting punched in the soul with a great lyric.
Being the everyman in the writing room helps a lot: you have to be a real collaborator and selfless, and not have ego when you walk in there. That's the antithesis of the artist mentality.
Being on the stage is the one place I don't get nervous. Before the show is another story, but once I'm up there, and the first chord hits, I go to this other place. It's like a dream land.
It's hard to say exactly when it all started or what show it was, but I started touring when I was 11. I played all over Dallas and Fort Worth, and eventually I was touring the whole state.
I've learned how to be a better performer on stage and interact with the fans, make it feel like a collective experience more than just me singing songs on a stage and feeling really detached.
It's such a changing industry, and I realize that it's become more digital- and singles-driven, but I still love listening to a full record. It's the artist's story captured in 12 or 15 songs.
Every time I've seen Sheryl Crow perform, it's like effortless perfection. She's so relaxed onstage, but she's really locked into the music and having fun. Vocally, I've always looked up to her.
I feel like when I get into most rooms, melodies come really easily to me, and they sound good in my head. I never really know until I hear the song back and it's finished if it actually is good.
Ever since the Dixie Chicks, the female perspective on country radio has been love songs. I love love songs, but we do have more to talk about, so it's nice that other perspectives are coming back.
A lot of new artists, especially girl artists, feel pressure to be so 'media perfect' and 'trained.' I'm intelligent, but I don't like hearing regurgitated answers in interviews that sound so rehearsed.
Don't forget to celebrate. When I was first coming up, everything was so serious - we were always rushing to get to the next thing - that we didn't take the time to say, 'Man, look what we did just now.'
I started to see this common theme with the songs that I was writing or co-writing, and it all had this really strong, independent point of view that I had subconsciously been craving from the music scene.
Sheryl Crow. I loved her 'Tuesday Night Music Club.' She expressed her own point of view, and she wasn't trying to be like anyone else, and I loved that. That's been the thinking of all my favorite artists.
I'm just so used to music videos or live TV, so to really see something that's scripted and you have to do it over and over again to get every angle - it's fascinating to me. I would love to do a little acting.
The songwriting community in Nashville really is all about your talent. It's not about your image, and you have to be humble. You have to be kind. You have to have zero ego when you walk into that writing room.
I internalize a lot of thoughts, and sometimes it seems like I'm not listening or totally zoned out, but I'm always on a loop of ideas and song titles. I'm definitely kind of a space cadet, but I'm very laid back.
Even when a drunk guy, a program director, was slurring his words and telling me what to do with my career, I didn't react to him in a negative way. You kind of have to joke back with them to put them in their place.
You can't be rolling into town with stars in your eyes. A lot of people get to Nashville and immediately start selling themselves: 'Let's go to lunch and talk about the business!' Then you realize everyone is talented here.
As a touring musician over the last 15 years, before streaming and iPods, you had to listen to terrestrial radio wherever you were. That's always been my way of connecting to a location. Turn on the radio, search through the dial.
The art of songwriting is just stumbling your way to something really special, and you don't know what you're going to write until you are writing it. There is no formula. And, sometimes, you really have to work at it and hunker down.
If you think about 'The Pill' by Loretta, that was totally blacklisted back then. But she revolutionized and liberated a generation of women - country listeners and beyond - that were sort of in that box and were able to break out of it.
I love love songs, but sometimes it's okay to just be young and talk about something other than getting married or falling in love. There are so many fun things that you live that you can write about and people of all ages can connect to.
I feel like it's improving a little bit as we go on, but I've never been to Lilith Fair. It always seemed so cool that it was started by women, for women, and it was a safe place to go and hear all of your favorite female acts in one space.
I've always had an ear for melodies, and they veer pop. My lyrics are more country - what I love is the storytelling and the structure, how tight the rhymes can be. But pop melodies have always been intrinsically linked to my writing style.
Performing with Thomas Rhett our song 'Craving You,' I'm so excited for the fans to see it and sort of see our worlds come together because I feel like he's sort of a genre pusher and boundary pusher, and I feel the same way about my music.
Definitely scatterbrained. I internalize a lot of thoughts, and sometimes it seems like I'm not listening or totally zoned out, but I'm always on a loop of ideas and song titles. I'm definitely kind of a space cadet, but I'm very laid back.
Texas is really special in that we have our own music scene, our own music chart. It's almost a genre on its own. It feels like you can make a great living just touring the state because it's so big, but eventually, I wanted a new challenge.
I've paved this road myself, and no one else has walked it the same exact way that I have. There are people that helped kick the door in, but it's really satisfying to be in a place where you know who you are and you've figured yourself out.
I don't want to get political here, but everything I've heard out of Donald Trump is definitely, um, shocking. The fact that he's got women fans is very alarming to me, because some of the stuff that has come out of his mouth is just so awful.
I think I've learned how to be a better boss. I'm the one running the show now, and in the past, I've always kind of been looking at other people to make the decisions. I feel more confident to run not just my show, but behind the scenes, too.
I'm young, but I've been doing this a long time... There's obviously a lot of hard work that goes into it. It's a hard town. There's a lot of talent here. It's all about timing, too. I just feel like I finally found the right town and the right song.