I've been in the songwriting circuit as well. I've been in a couple writing camps where there are seven top writers or whatever, and they're writing songs for a young girl or a young guy that are coming up, and they're kind of nuts.

Not to get mushy, but I realized after talking to my parents what absolute guts they must have had to let their teenage daughter be in a rock band, play in bars, do all of that.

What people don't normally know about us is the hustle is very real, and it's sorely driven a lot by how we consider ourselves. We don't pay a whole lot of attention to any type of judgment that we might get from outside people. I think that comes from growing up onstage.

It's important for people to realize that music is gender-less. We are proving that every single day. On this tour, there are more women than men in the audience, and it's beautiful to see these girls own these hard-rock moments.

I give a lot of credit to Darrell Bevell and to Tom Cable for their work and their development of the players that they had that was available to them. They did an extraordinary job, and I do think, as Bevell was our offensive coordinator, we broke every record that the Seahawks had offensively. So there's a lot to be said for that.

Now that virtually every career is an option for ambitious girls, it can no longer be considered regressive or reactionary to reintroduce discussion of marriage and motherhood to primary education. We certainly do not want to return to the simplistic duality of home economics classes for girls and wood shop for boys.

I will never say never, but I can tell you right now - I am perfectly happy with being who I am. I just - I really - I'm an entertainer, and the thing that I'd decided to work on was my career, and I decided the energy that I was putting in certain relationships - I was really kind of wasting my time, and I knew it.

I enjoy my job. And I love the city of Chicago, and this organization - it gave me the start to my whole career.