My parents moved across the country so I could pursue a dream.

I've never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn't feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you've got to work as hard as them.

When I was 9 or 10, I used to get all the lead roles because I was the tallest person. But my interest in music soon drew me to country music. I was infatuated with the sound, with the storytelling. I could relate to it. I can't really tell you why. With me, it was just instinctual.

You can't generalise about an entire country, but I like the energy of British men.

Country radio is much more like a family than any other group of people that I've met.

It never mattered to me that people in school didn't think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it - though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, 'I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.'

One of the things people don't really recognise about the similarities between country and hip-hop is that they're celebrations of pride in a lifestyle.

I know that a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania is about the most random place for a country singer to come from, but I had an awesome childhood.