Ashley Monroe

To just get in front of different kinds of audiences is important for me. I do think it's important for music to be a big family. Whether it's country or not. ”

Roy Acuff's from Maynardville, and that's where a lot of my family's from. So he's, I've been told, a distant cousin, as well. ”

I make up stories in my head all the time, but I've never written them down. But I write a lot of story songs. Any song I'm singing, I sort of see it like a movie in my head. That's why a lot of times I close my eyes when I'm singing. ”

Baseball fans! Good lord! I feel like sports fans get mad at you easier than country music fans. It scares me. I'm glad that country fans don't get mad every time I mess up. ”

I always sang when I was little-bitty girl. I sang all the time. And then I'm from Knoxville, Tennessee, so I sang in a show at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. You know, they have all those variety shows where Dollywood is. And I sang there and yodeled and clogged, but I never wrote my own songs. ”

The first record I made when I was 17. Labels merged and plans didn't work out, but plans never work out as planned. But I never stopped making music. I never had a backup plan. I never thought, 'Maybe I should just write, or maybe I should...' I just kept going. ”