Glamour: It seems like in country music especially there are a lot of mentors in the industry—who's been giving you great advice?
KB: It's really funny because when I went to my first CMA Fest, I wanted to be an artist, but I was such a fan girl—I still am—and the two people I waited in line to meet were Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum. Taylor, I haven't gotten to sit and talk with her as much as I hope I get to one day, but even with her just supporting me on her social media has been incredible.
Glamour: I saw she tweeted and Instagrammed you.
KB: Yeah, it was so cool! On a personal level, Hillary Scott [of Lady Antebellum] has become like a sister to me. It is so new, and I am so young—I'm 21—so it's just a lot sometimes—good, frustrating, confusing—so I've sat on her couch so many times and just bawled, and she's just one of the most gracious and kind and smart people. So she's kind of my go-to.
Glamour: Is there any advice she gave you that really stuck with you?
KB: You know what, she does she gives great advice—but my favorite advice that I always go to is ever since I was in middle school is from my mom. Every day before I left the house, she would say "Remember who you are." Every day. So when I started getting into music, every day she sends me a text saying, "Remember who you are and remember why you're doing this." That's always in the back of my head and what I go back to.
Glamour: That's a good thing to remember. So, you've been writing since you were really young. Tell me about how you go about writing a song and what your process is like.
KB: 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? But that's the cool thing about song writing: You can make it whatever you want. I was literally on Pinterest one time and saw a quote and wrote a song about it called "Stilettos." And there's a song—the title track of my album called "The First Time"—that I wrote the first time sitting on my front porch. The story in the song is a real-time story of what was happening in my life at that time in my life, so it just depends on what's happening and what I'm inspired by. But that's what's fun about it, because it can be anything
Glamour: Tell me about putting your first album together. What story did you want to tell with it?
KB: So for me, it was a first record, an introduction, and I wanted it to be something where people could listen to it top to bottom and feel like we're friends by the end of it. It was really cool that I got to write every song on it, because I made it as me as I could make it. My goal was to make the underlying message of the whole record empowering and have sassy songs and sad songs and stuff like that, but have the general message and song writing be confident and empowering for girls, so I hope that's what you'll hear.
