"Nashville has pushed me to improve constantly as few other places could, and I'm grateful for that."
"I'm definitely someone who's really picky about who I work with and how I want things to go, because I have a high standard of integrity for my music. I want it to be genuine."
"After graduating college in 2010, I got to work - writing and co-writing all the time, playing and touring in bands, playing for other people's bands, working in coffee shops all over town."
"I don't think I'm the most talented musician or the best singer, but I work really, really hard."
"My dad gave me the 'Introducing Dionne Warwick' album when I was, like, 14. It was the first time I'd heard Burt Bacharach's songwriting and her voice, and it rocked my world. She's such a great singer and communicator. It really helped me shape my own style."
"I'm really into the 'classic' thing - the craft of writing something that will last, that won't die by next year."
"When I made dog sweaters, as goofy as that was, I made this product, and people could buy it, and I got money immediately. Music was just this ethereal land of maybe, a lot of waiting and waiting. You live your life around hoping you get a five-thousand-dollar royalty check that usually doesn't come."
"I had a fairy shrine in my room, and I went to fairy LARPing camp, and I played Dungeons and Dragons in the woods."
"Audrey Hepburn is a huge influence on my style. She's classy, confident, and simplistic. She's a tomboy and also super feminine."
"I love wearing dresses, but more simplistic, classic-looking dresses."
"My dad had his own business and was extremely busy, but on a very rare occasion, he would play guitar and sing a bit. I was always fascinated by it. I wrote my first song in first grade because my dad was making songs up during those special moments, and it seemed like a fun thing to try myself."
"I used to come home and play piano all day by ear and make songs up or figure out my favourite Elvis songs. I'd make up games by blindfolding myself and singing the harmony to whatever notes I'd play."
"I blindly loved music and never once questioned if I was weird or not. I didn't care. Still don't!"
"Growing up, I had a natural love for women like Diana Ross, Mary Wells, Ella Fitzgerald. Then I got into Dionne Warwick, Nina Simone, and Patsy Cline."
"Music is all I've ever done."
"I come from the most normal family. I've always been the oddball."
"I've never wanted to be like anybody else. I'm me."
"I try as hard as I can to write from a personal place and be genuine."
"I'm a real musician's musician: I get really geeky on chords and arrangements."
"My path has been a little weird. I hope that it can inspire people."
"Like Lenny Kravitz, I wanna make the world a better place; I wanna unify people."
"Gospel talks about life's struggles, but you always feel like it recognizes these struggles and that you can overcome them."
"There came a point when I was thinking, 'I'm now 26, 27, working on music every day, but I'm not making, like, a lot of money. What's happening? I guess I'll just start making dog clothes.'"
"That's what's so wonderful about collaborating: your idea can explode and become something else."
"Break-up albums are the best kind."
