Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I played cover gigs and traveled the country in my mom's old car, and my drummer and I set up a fake email and sent it out to agents. We pretended to be our own agent.
I love helping friends, and I like to think I am a good listener and supportive. I'm also just kind of nosy, so it would satisfy my need to know other people's stories.
I'm a closet outdoorsy athletic enthusiast, and I would love to do a rafting and hiking trip someday and maybe sleep in a treehouse and bathe in a chilly winding river.
I get really excited about other female acts. I feel inspired when I see another women succeeding in music because it makes me realize that if they can do it, I can do it.
I've had to do a lot of growing quickly for my career and owning that I'm the boss. I used to play every single one of the roles and now I have to remember that I'm the boss.
In general, I think the world is a good place if you work hard, believe in yourself, have good intentions, and if you are kind to people, I believe that good things happen to you.
I think, like any artist, those baby songs are not the best things you've ever written, but they count because they're you're first attempts at creating art and expressing yourself.
My biggest fear is that I'm not good enough. I have this voice in my head that I've been battling for years that says, 'You're not really talented enough. You don't really deserve this.'
Though I played classical piano since age 5 and sang in a cappella groups, being an artist didn't seem like something I was talented enough to do full time. So I kind of buried that dream.
I have a song about being in love. I have a song about being supportive. There's inspiring ones, and there's some that show a little bit more fun and daring. It really is a range of who I am.
There's this misconception in the industry that you might have to go a little lighter or skate on the surface in order to reach people - and then in your second album, you get to tell who you are.
I've always sung in choirs and acapella groups, but when I was in college, I finally started writing songs and playing with a band, and that ignited a desire to do it full time and pour everything I had into it.
I think you find universal truth when you get really honest with yourself and you can reach people. If you go deep enough, you have that core feeling, and that feeling can transcend the details of your experience.
I have volunteered for Musicians on Call for the past 12 years because of the incredible one-on-one experiences in hospital rooms when no one other than the patient and I would remember the love that was exchanged.
My friends and family have always been extremely supportive, but the support I've received from fans has been so overwhelming. I love hearing all of their 'Fight Song' stories; I have been so inspired by so many of them.
Andy Grammer is probably the closest friend I have in the music industry, so touring with him was just incredible. He's such a soulful, kind guy, and he gives great advice. And he also scares me a lot. He does a lot of pranks.
I wrote 'Fight Song' as this declaration to believe in myself, and that is similar to what you are taught to believe in Girl Scouts. Building confidence. Building character. And above all else, being there for each other as a community.
If I wake up in the middle of the night and have an idea, I want to go to my computer and be able to do it. So I hired someone at Guitar Center to come over to my house and teach me Logic music program, and I learned it over a couple months.
Food-wise, oh man, I tend to really indulge on vacation because a lot of my friends are incredible chefs. One friend makes an eggplant parmesan that is heavenly and melts in your mouth, and another makes a chocolate pudding that I can't resist.
I have always loved music. My mom used to sing with my sister and I when I was younger, and I was in choirs and loved to perform, but when I was in college, I went on a study abroad to Trinidad, and while I was there, I sang backup at my first concert.
I think I made this decision that I just loved making music, and it didn't matter what level I got to do it on, and 'Fight Song' was this declaration that I'm going to keep going, and I'm going to keep believing in myself, even if it seems like it's impossible.
I'd faced a lot of rejection from labels and the industry, and it was getting hard to keep believing in myself. But something wouldn't let me - inside - I had this voice that was relentlessly hopeful, and honestly, I just loved performing and writing too much to ever really quit.
I love... different kinds of music. I like classical music and pop music. I like alternative, and I like rap, hip-hop, and I kind of collected all these things that I love, and they infused my sensibilities, and I just wanted to sing because it felt like it needed to come out of me.
I got a little bit lost in the writing process: like, that moment in the 'Fight Song' music video where I'm throwing the crumpled paper on the bed, that was really true life. I was filling journals with different possibilities of lyrics for the first verse. And none of them felt right.
Even if the songs are at times painful - 'cause some of the songs are not all roses and balloons; some of them dig into deep things that I've been going through - there's a joy that I think people feel from my music and, hopefully, from my performance because I am so in love with doing what I do.
We all look up to these strong women who we see in magazines and on TV, but it's even more empowering to realize that change comes at the smallest level. It starts with us. It starts with me and my best friend, who I'm out on a walk with today, hearing about the amazing things she's doing for her kid's school. It can be everyday heroes and everyday women who work 9:00 to 5:00 and have kids and still balance a healthy social life.
I've been working with a lot of girl power organizations this year. I have so many incredible women in my life that I'm supported by, and I wanted to shine a light on them and encourage other women and girls to do the same. We're often encouraged by the media to compete with one another, to bring each other down, or to feel small when seeing the success of someone else, and I just wanted to flip that script and challenge us to do the opposite. Instead, feel inspired and ignited by someone else's success.