Kelsea Ballerini

“I love when an artist can stand by themselves and play their guitar and hold a crowd, but I also love bells and whistles.”

“My biggest dream is to headline an arena tour.”

“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,...”

“On stage, you can get away with more, so I definitely use that to my advantage and go bolder with fashion, hair, and makeup. I love a smoky eye and long lashes.”

“I'm in this wave with Maddie & Tae and RaeLynn and Mickey Guyton and Cam. We're all kind of finding our niches and becoming successful. I think that it's just been really fun to be with them...”

“I remember telling myself when I got to start having artist opportunities, 'Let yourself be a fan, because you are. The minute that you walk in a room with Carrie Underwood, and you're too c...”

“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 wanted to be the girl that talks about getting a guy. I felt like that was a different approach to writing.”

“I would love to do a duet with Gavin Degraw. Or Ed Sheeran.”

“I get travel-sized versions of all of my essentials. That way, I can stay on the same routine whether I'm home or on the road.”

“I write everything. It's my favorite part of what I do. And lyrics are my favorite thing.”

“It's been really cool to me to watch someone like Sam Hunt, whose lyrics and roots are in country but you can hear that he listens to Drake and Justin Timberlake - and that's OK. It allows s...”

“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.”

“It took a while to learn to eat healthy on road. It's really hard. Really, really hard. But on the bus, I can use the stovetop in the morning to make a veggie scramble. And have lots and lot...”

“It wasn't supposed to work - being a new artist, a female artist, an artist on an independent. That's what made it so much sweeter when we hit No. 1.”

“People send me songs all the time that are literally no-brainer hits... but for me, I'm an artist because I'm a writer.”

“I grew up performing in glee club at my school; I was the ostrich in 'Peter Pan,' and then I was super-involved in church choir and worship leading at my church. So I always loved music and...”

“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...”

“'Peter Pan,' I think, was a game-changer. That was the first song that really had some heartbeat to it... I think that's the song that got people's attention.”

“It's so fun to make up stories, but I find that the songs that I'm most proud of came from a real thing in my life - 'Peter Pan' being one of those.”