KINA GRANNIS

Making a video is one of the most exciting things for artists and fans. It's like a payoff.

Not only am I putting music out there, I'm giving part of myself away.

I'm kind of feeling like I don't mind being open with the random details of my life, like I'm at a coffee shop or my toe hurts or something, but obviously other more personal areas of life where I will just never really go there.

I started teaching myself guitar because I loved singing so much. Then one day kind of out of the blue I found I was writing a song. It just happened organically.

I want to encourage people to make healthy life choices, whether it's training for a half-marathon, or eating more vegetables.

I'm really into good nutrition and keeping healthy! That said, I'm also addicted to candy - It's my biggest weakness.

My first performance was in AP Calculus when they forced me up into the front of the classroom and made me sing a song, which was really scary, but it was fun.

The first video I ever made, announcing 'Crash the Super Bowl,' I did about fifty takes and I wanted to die. It was awful.

I think a lot of singer-songwriters get compared to each other, but I'd like to think that what I'm doing is special and specific to me.

The potential success that could come with signing with a major label didn't quite outweigh how important it was for me to make my music the way I knew it needed to be made.

My two sisters and I sang all the time. Whenever we cleaned the kitchen, we sang in three-part harmony.

Ever since I was really really little, I was just singing all the time. Like one of my favorite games when I was little would be to just have one of my sisters pick a title, and I would impromptu create that song.

In finding love, I think it's important to be patient. In being in a relationship, I think it's important to be honest, to communicate, to respect and trust, and to strive to give more than you take.

In college, I faced an interesting problem. I wanted to play music all the time and yet I wasn't ready for anyone to hear it. To remedy this, I took to retreating to stairwells as a safe place to sing and write music. It was there that I wrote most of my songs in college and really grew into an artist.

I've loved singing since forever. Whether it was with my sisters while cleaning the kitchen, putting shows on for my stuffed animals, writing songs about my stuffed animals, starting an a capella group with my cousins while on vacation, or awkwardly singing along to karaoke tracks alone in my bedroom - singing always found a way into my life.

I went into college undeclared. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew that music was obviously this central big important thing in my life that I was gonna keep doing.

I don't have any rock star demeanor to me. I just can't pull that off.

If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I'm just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I'll have a song in an hour.

My dream artists to collaborate with are probably Cee Lo Green and Imogen Heap. They're completely out of my genre but they're both musical geniuses.

If you're looking to make a basic living selling and playing your music, the Internet is all you really need.

I get to travel around the world and meet all of these amazing people, and they're singing my songs! And to me, that's crazy.

However, it [singing] wasn't until halfway through high school that it dawned on me that singing wasn't just a hobby, it was something I had a growing need for in my life, and that was about when I adopted the neglected guitar I found under our piano and started singing about all the things I could never say.

The people at the label were great but at the end of the day our visions didn't match up and I knew I had to do it my way. The potential success that could come with signing with a major label didn't quite outweigh how important it was for me to make my music the way I knew it needed to be made. It was a hard decision to make, but I've never regretted it for a second and it's only become more clear to me after making and releasing Stairwells that it was the right one.

Being hapa, or more specifically, half-Japanese half-Euro mutt (English, Irish, Scottish, Dutch, French, Welsh, German. . .in case you were wondering), has definitely helped shape who I am. It's very cool to get to identify and learn about all these unique cultures and I think it's helped put the world in perspective.

There were two main points I wanted to get across in Valentine, the first being that yes, Valentine's Day is an arbitrary day, but why would you not take that excuse to celebrate love? The second point. . .since it is just an arbitrary day. . .why not treat every day like Valentine's Day?