For a long time, because I'm pretty tall, I was scared to wear heels, but now I wear them all the time. I feel like I'm still discovering my stage style, but I love - well, I'm not a huge color person onstage, but I am in real life. I like short stuff, big heels, fringe, lots of fringe, sometimes sparkle, yeah!
— Kelsea Ballerini
Blake Lively is my style icon, and she always has rocking clothes and shoes. She keeps it really simple with hair and makeup, and I try to do the same thing. Onstage, I do a little smokier, a little more contouring, but I still always want to be an approachable and real artist, so I never try to go overboard.
I wouldn't be an artist if I didn't have Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Taylor Swift to look up to.
I'm so weird and quirky, and painfully awkward sometimes.
The greatest gift I've been given is being naive, because I don't know what I can't do. And when you don't know what you can't do, you think you can do everything.
Before I really knew country music, I listened to pop, and I still do.
My favorite songwriting trick is writing something like 'XO.' In my brain, I thought, 'This is probably going to be a love song. How can I change that and find ways to twist that.' As a songwriter, it's your job for the song to take twists and turns that people don't expect.
When I was 13, I started writing songs, and it fell into my lap all of a sudden. I wrote poems and journals, but that's when it switched for me to songwriting. That's when I wanted to do everything. It was like a fire all of a sudden. I started coming to Nashville and moved here when I was 15.
We had three cows and a goat. People from New York and L.A. are like, 'Oh my gosh, that's a farm!' But people in Tennessee are like, 'That's not a farm.' I've never milked a cow or anything like that.
I think that I've just kind of found my niche, if that makes sense. I still write the same, but I feel like I've found what separates me, and I always try to stay in that when I write. It took me a long time to discover that, so I try to be protective.
There's a YouTube video of these two kittens that just fall over and pass out. My blood sugar's crazy, so I would pass out sometimes, like the fainting kittens.
I was raised on a farm in East Tennessee, and my first concert was Britney Spears. It's my job as a country music artist to be honest about that.
As a fan, I connect with realness. Whether it's strong or vulnerable, if it's real, I can connect with it.
I am such a girly girl, and I love not playing it safe. I'm so new to this world, so it's fun to establish myself as a fashionista.
I get to remind myself and other people to be yourself, to rock you who you are, and don't worry about if it fits.
Being a songwriter is really the base of being an artist, for me.
I grew up loving music, like, loving it. I was involved in church choir, leading worship and all the choirs in my school - even glee club.
I was this little blond girl with a guitar case bigger than me - it was pink and sparkly at the time. But I always took myself seriously, and I think that people took that seriously. I would tell them about my goal list, and they listened. I was like, 'I want to be the one that swings the pendulum.'
The fun thing about song writing is that it's just creative. It can be whatever you want it to be. For me, I'm really protective of that. I'm not going to write something because I feel like it fits here or it fits there - I just want to write music that feels good to me, you know?
I always thought it was a goat that kicked me over the fence. My mama told me the other day it was a cow. Now I'm sort of scared of both.
My theory is the root of a country artist is truth and honesty. For me, I look at Sam Hunt. The truth and the honest thing is we have southern roots, we were raised in a southern way, but we listen to Drake and other stuff, too.
I have a picture of me with Lady Antebellum, when they released their first single and I was at CMA Fest as a fan. I'm in flower-power shorts and a headband - so not cute - and I'm fan-girling next to Hillary. I couldn't believe I was standing next to her.
I also grew up on a farm in east Tennessee, so my roots are just naturally super southern, so I've always had that southern country lifestyle.
I am a fan before I am an artist. I was that twelve year old girl that looked up to Taylor Swift. I get what that role is as a fan. I think that because I know that, I'm really careful and intentional about what I say and what I put out. I want to be that role for anyone who wants me to be that.
I started writing songs by myself. That always came from whatever I was feeling and being honest about that because I never had any intention of anyone ever hearing them.
I was writing country songs, but I wasn't listening to country yet. I grew up on a farm in East Tennessee, so my roots are country, you know? But I didn't know where those songs came from or where they fit.
There's value in being a normal person.
