My mom was always pretty supportive. She saw me do plays and she'd always act out the parts I did. My aunt who played a big part in my life was a little bit more reserved because if they don't see you on TV every week they think you must be starving.

I wanted to get us a place of our own with a little bit more space. The kitchen is just huge because my mom... lives there man and she loves being in the kitchen.

Well when I was a little girl we had 17 cats once. They all lived outside and they kept having more kittens. My mom made us put little ribbons around each kitten's neck put them in a wagon and go door-to-door around the neighborhood to try to give them away.

But my mom was a pianist and she taught piano out of her house. I was just so excited being a little kid and having all these other kids come to my house twice a week. I thought it was a big party.

I would go visit my mom on Sundays and my brother was working on stuff. I'd go in there and sing a little melody then we started working with words and the next thing you know it was just born organically without really trying.

Sure my childhood was unusual. All these eccentric wild people frequented our home: rock stars drag queens models bikers freaks. But I was not this little rich girl. My mom and I lived in an apartment.

My mom would put me in these preppy little suits and slick my hair to the side. I have these baby pictures of me where I'm this little preppy kid with a sweater tied around my neck.

My mom won't let anyone treat me like a little princess.

We didn't have movies in this little mining town. When I was 12 my mom took me to New York and I saw Bye Bye Birdie with people singing and dancing and that was it.

My mom played the recorder. But not having electricity we had minimal exposure to music. As I got a little older we had Walkmans and things that were battery-powered but it would have been nice to be growing up in the iPod era. A tape only has six songs on a side.