I became a very passionate Christian when I was 17. I started writing and performing poetry at different venues across the U.K. I started performing from then, really.
I love performing, it's my favourite thing to do. I think the music comes across even stronger live. I started performing first, before I started writing or being in the studio. I just love the energy that we can share together, for just one hour or however long it is. We all come together from all walks of life. I know it sounds cheesy.
I started performing at home as a kid putting on shows and lip-syncing Michael Jackson for the grown-ups. Then, in musicals and plays in school. At 17, I was performing in coffee shops and in parking lots at Phish shows. At 18, I had a band that played local shows in the Northwest.
My brother was older, very bright. He went to university. I wasn't academically bright - maybe at first, when I was little, but it was lost. I started doing a drama workshop and got really into it, then I did a BTec in performing arts and started to work.
From being a silent person, I started going on stage and performing. It gave me confidence and I started liking it. When the camera starts rolling, I am very different person.
When my YouTube videos started to get really big, I was like, 'Man, this is pretty sweet.' It started as my hobby, and then I started traveling and learning how to play different instruments, and then it just kind of became my life.
I started salsa dancing with a few different companies and started touring the country. It was fantastic, but I realized that I really wanted to talk every time we were performing. That's a problem because when you're dancing, if you stop to talk, that's not really cool to the other dancers.
I was nine when I started training and performing, my son is even more passionate than I was.
I started performing non-professionally at birthday parties and family gatherings doing 'Saturday Night Live' impressions at four. Then I started for real at seven.
While I love musical theater, it wasn't the right fit for me. It's so competitive, and I was at such a disadvantage, having started performing when I was 17.
Well I started out as a dancer, so I was used to this performing - performance arts. Started out getting used to being on stage. As I got a lot older that became public speaking or debate.
I started performing in college, but I wasn't writing a lot.
I've spent a lot of time in tiny venues in the way that I got my record deal and got my name out there just performing live. I was literally performing my songs in all kinds of different ways with different guitarists, and I didn't have an album up online or anything. It's been a lot of work; it definitely hasn't been a sudden explosion into fame.
My background was producing and writing and performing in television when I started out, and I really missed that, that whole creative process that comes from sort of 'me' storytelling.
I was really a very ambitious young girl when I started studying drama and performing art.
When I started writing music on the guitar, it started off very folky because of my limited ability to play. It was slow, soft melodies. But then, as I got better on the guitar, I started exploring different sounds.
I love being in the studio and singing on stage and performing. It's so much fun. I love every second of it - and I love the way you get to show who you are. I love the way fans are really passionate around the world, so I adore performing and hearing people sing along in different countries.