I was kind of a little redneck growing up, living on a farm, and running around in the country. I developed hillbilly tendencies, but I wanted to listen to something a little more meaningful than Redneck Woman or whatever.

I think I was six when I discovered the song White Wedding by Billy Idol, and that was the first time I thought I had discovered something on my own. It's the first song I remember hearing and liking without anyone telling me to like it.

My guitar player calls the process of writing lyrics based on another story, filling up the well when you can get inspiration from other people's art without stealing, more being influenced by it.

I was listening to country at the time too, mostly because when I was a kid growing up in the country, all my friends would listen to the CMT crap and I really hated it. That would make me really angry. But when I got older I started discovering that there was actually good country music that could sort of take me back to my roots.

My parents listened to the Outlaws when I was a kid and I just had no interest in it. But my boyfriend at the time listened to Hank Williams III, and I thought that was really cool because he was singing about whatever he wanted to but it was very country.

When you move to the city, you really notice how ugly people can be. And that's something you don't really have to deal with in the country. So I do miss that.

When I first started playing, I definitely had a younger scum-punk crowd, but as my music developed more and after I started playing electric guitar - you'd think it would be opposite - but a lot of people were like, You've changed. And I have more of an older audience now.

My idea of making time for myself is writing songs. I never stop beating myself up about trying to be productive, so I don't really like to do a lot of things other than write in my journal and write songs.