My Blog!!

Always wanted to do that... (acms)

What a night.

I can't even tell you how excited I am. Tonight was SO unbelievable, and I've never had more fun onstage. I've wanted to tell you guys all the little surprises we had planned for the performance for so long! I've dreampt about that performance since I was in middle school. I've always wanted to perform an angry song and have water rain down from the ceiling and have a little freakout onstage. Always wanted to do that. So a few months ago, when I was offered a performance on the ACMs, I had this epiphone: I need to do that rain idea on the ACMs this year!! So we met with the producer of the show in my tour bus and I got a black hoodie and acted out how I was dreaming up the performance. And the Academy of Country Music rules because: they made my dreams come true tonight. I'm about to post the video of it on my page, if you missed it. Oh, and the water was like 40 degrees. So cold.

Honestly I didn't expect to come away with an award, and I have you to thank for all of the things you've done to support me. You're the reason my album is 3x platinum. You're the reason the concerts sell out. You're the reason I'm able to be out here in Vegas. And you're the reason I'm taking home my first ACM Award for Top New Female Vocalist. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I got to pose with Kellie for some People shots after the awards. We posed like we were beating each other up in a huge catfight. Haha. (She was pulling my hair and I was tugging at her dress and trying to push her off me while we both made grimacing faces) It was pretty awesome. I hope they run those shots. hahah. I got to see Heidi Newfeild, who sings one of my FAVORITE songs out right now "Johnny and June". I have a total song crush on that song. Brilliantly written. She's so sweet too. It was such a joy sitting so close to George Strait and his wife Norma. Touring with him was an honor, and every time I get around him, I realize what composure and grace he carries himself with. Nicole Kidman is so incredibly gracious and friendly, and gets the "Most Beautiful in Person" award. Hands down.

I'll write more about the night, and all the things going on soon. I have to get to sleep now though! I'm flying home tomorrow. Can't wait to hear what you guys thought of the night! Love you so much.

lovelovelove

-T-

Blogging from New York!

Checking in from New York City! I just played on Good Morning America this morning and it was SO much fun. We flew to New York late last night, as in.. got to our hotel rooms at 2AM... Then I had a 4:30AM call time for hair and make up and sound check at GMA. Awesome. So I was running a little low on sleep, just a little. Ok, a lot. But I woke up and it was all good.
I hadn't seen my band in about 2 weeks because I'd been doing media interviews and recording vocals and all that stuff.. When I walked into the Good Morning America studio and saw my band, I just ran up to them and gave each of them a huge bear hug. I miss them so much when we're not on tour. Much like I miss youuu when we're not playing every night. Like crazy.
I got my hair and make up done and picked out what dress I was going to wear, and started walking down to the studio. I met Barbara Walters in an elevator and she was really nice! When we walked into the studio and up to the stage, there were all these people with signs and t-shirts and my cds, and it was so cool! I always used to watch Good Morning America and see the fans supporting whoever was there, holding up signs.. never actually thought I'd luck out and get to have my own people with signs. :-) Thank you for being there, you guys.
At the start of the show, they unveiled my Seventeen cover! It was so cool to get to ACTUALLY see the ACTUAL cover. It was so crazy to be in that moment.. on Good Morning America (wow) and watching them unveil my Seventeen Magazine cover (wow) and then get to announce that you guys have made my album TRIPLE platinum (WOW). I love you.
The other night, I went to the Young Hollywood Awards in LA. They're not televised or anything, but it's a fun night in LA and so many of my favorite actors and actresses were there. I was one of the only musicians there, and the only country artist for sure. So I didn't know many people. Ok, I didn't know anyone...So I made some new friends. I met Abigail Breslin from Little Miss Sunshine in the bathroom and she was precious. I spent most of my time there talking to Emma Stone and Teddy Geiger. I love them both so much and Emma's the coolest chick ever. She played Jules in Superbad and is hilarious. Everyone knew what awards they were getting in advance, and it was cool seeing some of the acceptance speeches. Brittany Snow got the "Best Smile in a Movie" Award made this hilarious and awesomely self-deprecating speech and thanked her dentist. It was really funny! I got the "Superstar of Tomorrow" award, and I had NO idea that it was the last award.. And on top of getting the award, they gave me these gorgeous diamond earrings. I couldn't believe it. Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue came up and talked about how much he liked my song writing, and then presented the award to me. It was so cool. It was so nice of Hollywood Life magazine and everyone at the Young Hollywood Awards to invite me and give me such a cool award.
Tomorrow morning I get to play on Regis and Kelly! Wish me luck. Then we're flying home and then back out to Cali for some CONCERTS!!!!

lovelovelove
-T-

FREAKING OUT jklsfkdjfkdjvdf!!!!! {cmt awards}

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! I CANNOT believe last night actually happened. CANNOT believe it. I am absolutely in awe of you and what you've done for me. The CMT Music Awards are COMPLETELY fan voted. And I have no idea how I was lucky enough to have a night like I had last night. It was you, and your votes and your loyalty. I didn't see it coming. You completely caught me off guard. I've never been so blown away. To win Female Video of the Year and VIDEO OF THE YEAR?? Are you serious?? I'm so blown away and I can't thank you enough. Last night was amazing. I got to the arena the CMT's were held in at about 1pm, and stayed there ALL day.. At rehearsal run-throughs, I got to see Miley Cyrus again for the first time in a while. I love her. She did such an amazing job of hosting the CMT Awards, and just think.. she had a 103 degree fever THE DAY before. That blows me away. And what an incredible friend she's been to me.. I got to say a quick hi to Billy Ray, who's also a sweetheart. Her older sister, Brandi, was backstage and I talked to her for a while. They all looked amazing and have been so great to me. I did a run-through of my performance with my band, and we have a new ritual that we do every single night on the Rascal Flatts tour before we go on.. We all tell each other "I love you" before we go on. We did that last night too. After the rehearsal, I went back to my dressing room and talked to the girls of Little Big Town while they were getting their hair and make up put on. They're amazing people. Then it was time to get ready for red carpet, and my stylist Sandi did my hair and I put on my dress. The red carpet was really cool, less frantic than I remember from award shows. I don't know, it just seems like at every other award show, we've somehow gotten lost trying to find the limo.. or gotten lost on the way to the red carpet entrance.. Or had to run somewhere in heels. Last night was just really low key and cool. I got out of the limo and went and signed for the fans who were waiting out in the rain ( you guys blow me away ). Then I went on the red carpet and did all of the interviews. Fun, fun. Then they took me to my seat at the awards, and at this point, my feet were KILLING me. It hurt SO bad. I was hobbling up the aisle to my seat. It was not ladylike. As I passed Faith Hill, I stopped and talked to her (LOVE her) and I said "My shoes are KILLING me" and she said "TAKE them off!!". So I did. And I went up to present the award for Breakthrough Video of the Year barefoot. Speaking of Breakthrough Video of the Year, can I just say that I was CRYING like a proud mother when Kellie won?? She's got a heart of gold, and she's like my big sister. She's ALWAYS been there for me. I can't even explain how unbelievable it was to see her win her first award. We had no cell service in the arena, so as soon as the show was over and we left, Kellie was my first call. Can't wait to see her. After I presented the award, I was seated again because I was nominated for Female Video of the Year. And just so you guys know, I was just thrilled that I got to perform last night. That was all I was expecting out of the award show, and I was REALLY excited about it! I will never forget the look on my mom's face when they called out my name as the winner of that award........ For the first time in my life, I was speechless. I had NO clue winning that was a possibility. I remember just looking out into the crowd and thinking "How am I this lucky.. How do I get to live this life.. ?" The performance was a blast for my band and me, and they were all decked out in their "agency" gear. Ever since the Picture to Burn video, my band members refer to themselves as "The Agency". Haha. At the end of the show, it was time to announce the winner of "Video of the Year", and they seated me again. But I'm like "Seriously? Come on, there's no chance I'm going to win this. But ok, I'll sit back down. ha". During a commercial break, these two little girls came up to me in the aisle and asked for my autograph. One of them started bawling her eyes out and saying "I can't believe I'm meeting you". It was the cutest thing ever. I gave her a big hug, and she was still crying. I said to her "Do you want to sit down next to me?" and my mom moved over a seat, and we squeezed these cute little girls in next to us for the announcement of the award. It was so cute, they were crossing their fingers for me the whole time. So if you were wondering who those little girls were next to me, there you go. :-) And then I got the BIGGEST pleasant surprise of my LIFE. THANK YOU so much to everyone who voted!! I CAN'T explain to you how grateful I am. I've never seen Trey (my director) that excited, and she has worked so hard on my videos. I will NEVER forget what you guys have done for me. You know I love you. Last night was just over the top! I can't believe I'm this lucky. I never thought this stuff was going to happen to me. I just can't believe it. It hasn't sunk in. I hope it never does. You guys are the best thing that has ever happened to me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. lovelovelove -T- PS: PICTURES LATER!!!

RF::AI::LA

Hey! I’ve been in LA for the past two days having meetings with people and stuff like that. It’s so cool to get to feel the California weather this time of year. It’s BEAUTIFUL out here on the west coast. I get to wear my sundresses again. :-)
Ok, so this is the most random thing in the world, but a cool story. In a rare moment of down time the other day, my mom and I went shopping at the Beverly Center in LA. When you go in, there are like 6 different escalators that take you to different floors in the mall, and you can see them all from the bottom escalator. So we’re coming up the escalators, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this girl standing at the top of one of the highest escalators. When we got up there, she was still standing there, and I realized it was Kristy Lee Cook from American Idol! She came up to me and introduced herself, and we stood there talking for like twenty minutes. She was so sweet and invited me to come watch American Idol the next night! Sure enough, my schedule ended up freeing up and I got to go. It was so cool watching it live. After the show, they took me up to a room where all of the contestants were. We all hung out and took pictures and it was so cool. They were all so fun and I loved the whole experience.
I got some good shopping done and got a bunch of new performance dresses to wear on tour. I got one that’s blue and is THE sparkliest dress I’ve ever seen in my life. I look like a walking disco ball in it. Nice. The Rascal Flatts tour is SO much fun. I’m loving it so much, and the guys are so cool. They’ll just walk onto my bus and say hi. It’s so cool that the guys from Rascal Flatts are so down to earth.

So it’s down to some of the last voting days for the CMT Music Awards, and I’d love it if you would vote. Preferably for videos featuring some blonde chick laying in a pile of flowers and painting her nails. Or that one with the girl in the high school who makes a total mess in the science lab and has all this glitter on her face. CMT.com. Pleeeease?

I love you. See you on the road!
lovelovelove
-T-

Dance Wars and photo shoots with rabbits.

I just finished playing on the show Dance War, and I'm out in LA in my hotel room. Today was so much fun! It's such a cool show, because it's singing AND dancing. All the contestants were so cool and were all at my dress rehearsal and sound check. At that point, I realized I actually know one of them! Elizabeth Huett is on Carrie Ann's team on Dance War, and she's been at a few of my shows! Whenever I'd talk to her in the meet and greet lines, she'd tell me about how bad she wanted to be a singer and ask for advice. It sounds strange, but there was always something different about her that stuck out in my mind. I'm SO proud of her and I hope she gets everything she's dreaming of, because she's a sweet heart! Carrie Ann and Bruno were so cool, I originally met them on The Tonight Show a few weeks ago. They were kind enough to invite me to play on their show, and I had a BLAST. So, there's a 4-page spread and article in Entertainment Weekly magazine this week on me. It's got Juno on the cover, and the photo shoot is really funny. My favorite shot is the table of contents picture where I'm holding a white rabbit (yes, a live white rabbit) and looking up towards the sky like I'm about to be abducted by aliens. Sweeet. Maybe check it out, that would be cool. I'm out in LA for a bunch of media stuff, and then the Grammy's! Wow, I can't believe I'm actually going to the Grammy's. I can't believe I'm actually nominated for one! This year has been a series of realizations that I'm the luckiest person on the planet and I want to thank you AGAIN for EVERYTHING you do for me. See you on the road! lovelovelove -T-

And.... Calling in for back up.

And.... Calling in for back up.

Hey! So-- I just found out that the first round of nominees for the CMT Music Awards voting starts TODAY at 4pm. You guys rocked the vote last year, and I was lucky enough to take home a buckle for Breakthrough Video of the Year. This year, we're nominated in a few categories! Video of the Year, Female Video of the Year, Director of the Year (Trey is awesome, please vote for her), and Tyler Hilton is nominated for best supporting character!!! Show him some love! I'd love it if you'd vote for Kellie for Breakthrough Video, she really deserves it. The coolest thing about this award show is that it's FAN VOTED and you guys have all the control, so I'm calling in the back up. Rock the vote!

4PM. CMT.com. Be there. :-)

blender <3

Hey guys! I'm really excited, I'm going to be on the cover of the issue of Blender magazine that's coming out March 11! Blender's a really edgy music magazine that almost NEVER has country artists on the cover. I think I'm the second one they've ever had on the cover! I'm really excited about it. The photo shoot was crazy, with really fun outfits and insane shoes. The interview was amazing, I hung out with Jody Rosen (the writer of the piece) all day in my hometown and we drove around and had a blast. I hope you all go out and get a copy when it comes out!! That would be amazing. This whole week was CRS week in Nashville. CRS stands for Country Radio Seminar. That's when all the country radio programmers and DJ's come to Nashville and get liners from artists ("Hi this is Taylor Swift and you're listening to...") and get to all mingle and see the people you haven't seen in forever. There are a bunch of showcases and concerts for new artists just going out to radio, and all the labels have parties. There's a really cool show that ends the week, and it's called New Faces. Earlier in the year, radio votes on their favorite new artists to play in this show. I got voted on to play it, and it was SO much fun. I had a blast. After the New Faces show, there was the Disco Party that's put on every year by Blair Garner with After Midnight. I'd never been. IT WAS SICK!!! Everyone dresses up in 70's attire and the artists sing 70's covers. The more you get into it, the better. Gloria Gaynor was there singing "I Will Survive". It was AWESOME. I sang "I Love Rock-n-Roll" in full costume with a brown wig and leather pants and a purple slasher guitar and everything. I'll put up the pictures in a minute. It was hilarious. THE CMT AWARDS ARE COMING UP!!! I'm so happy you guys voted my videos into 3 categories: Video of the Year, Female Video of the Year, and Supporting Character. THANK YOU!!!! I'll be performing on the show, and I can't wait. I'd love it if you'd vote on CMT.com. But you know that. Because I say it every two seconds. :-D I just saw the video for Picture to Burn and it's AWESOME. Lots of fire and my band in all black suits looking like CIA/Men in Black and me and Abigail sitting in my car spying on my ex boyfriend. Sounds like my typical Friday night. I'll let you know when it's premiering. Can't wait to hear what you think about it! The second album is coming along quite nicely. :-) lovelovelove -T-

New video, Ellen, and back from LA!

The Grammy's were a BLAST!!! I had so much fun, and I've never seen more famous people in my life. I have like a hundred new famous people to add to my list of favorite famous people. It was a really great week! I got to go to Clive Davis's legendary Grammy party. It was amazing.. I talked about it on Ellen, which I taped the day of the Grammy's. If you missed it, I posted the Youtube video on my profile. So I know some of you mayyyy be wondering why we're releasing a video for "I'm Only Me When I'm With You" when my new single is "Picture to Burn". Here's why: I looked at my schedule and saw how long it was going to be before we could fit in time to shoot the video for "Picture". We still don't shoot it until next week, and then there are weeks of production after that. So, I decided to put together some home movie clips to the music of one of my other songs so it wouldn't be FOREVER till we had another video out. Sorry if it's confusing! It's just another cool exclusive thing I wanted to do. I've always wanted to put out some sort of behind-the-scenes video, but I really like full-production music videos for my singles. So for the in-between-videos time, I put out this little video. I was the only editor or director for it, so I think it's the only video CMT has probably ever played that cost like $5.00 to make. Haha. I hope you like it! You can see it on CMT.com. It's got clips of Kellie, Abigail, and I attempting the Soulja Boy dance, me playing with a hermit crab, dancing randomly, me opening up my Horizon award when it arrived at my house, and some live footage. And oh so much more. If you're bored, vote for the CMT Awards. It's a wonderful hobby. :-) Thanks for everything, guys. I'm having the time of my life because of you! lovelovelove -T-

TRL a new video

Hey!

There is SO much I'm freaking out about right now. First of all, the video shoot was HILARIOUS. It was a two day shoot ( all the videos I've done before have been one day shoots so this is new territory for me ). The first day we shot in Nashville where the Predators hockey team practices. It's basically a big, empty room. Which is good for video shoots. And hockey practices apparently. The first day was what I like to call "pyro day". There was a massive amount of fire and sparks and people waiting on the sidelines with fire extinguishers in case my hair burst into flames. Always a good precaution. My band was in the video a lot, and they were wearing these amazing black business suits and aviators. They looked like secret agents. Except with more highlights.

The second day of shooting was "storyline day". This was shot at a house in Green Hills. There were two actors who we had there to play "my ex boyfriend" and "his new girlfriend". There names are Solome and Justin, and they were incredible people to hang out with. Abigail was actually a co-star in this video as well. She's been my best friend since 9th grade. She made a cameo in the Teardrops video, but that was just the back of her head so I'm counting this video as her first actual cameo. It's not fair to count it as a cameo if it's just the back of someone's head. Yes, that would just be wrong.

T-R-L!! Wow. Never thought I'd get that phone call. Honestly. I'm a country artist and I'm really proud of that. But when MTV called and offered a performance on TRL, I'm not gonna lie. I was VERY excited! It's going to be an acoustic performance. February 27th. That's Wednesday. Check it out! And also, I'm pretty excited that you guys voted so much on TRL, that "Teardrops" was NUMBER SEVEN last week on the Top 20 countdown. THANK YOU so much! I couldn't believe that when I saw it.. You guys rock.

Also, don't forget about my favorite thing to bug you about........ The CMT Awards! Mentioning it is like a hobby for me at this point. It's not subtle, I know this. But hey, voting is cool. And I'm really grateful that you voted enough to get me nominated for some awards again this year! You're rocking the vote everywhere, and I appreciate it so much. CMT.com....... ha. You know that.

You have no idea how happy I am to be here. I never thought I'd get to do this stuff. :-D

So, again, thank you.

lovelovelove
-T-