TORI KELLY

I would like to be somebody young people, young girls, can look up to.

All my life, I was even just wanted to attend the Grammys, like, just be there, so the fact that I'm nominated for Best New Artist, it feels like a dream.

One of the most important things to me as a songwriter is to make music that's young and fresh but also soulful and real. I want people to feel like they know me once they listen to my songs.

When I walked into the studio, the chorus of 'Nobody Love' was already set. For me, the challenge was to make it have depth.

I know Pentatonix. I knew them before they were even a group.

I use this brand called Ouidad; they're great. Not Your Mother's is another one. Garnier Fructis. I use a bunch of stuff. Literally, I just throw a huge concoction of stuff in my hair after I get out of the shower, and then I diffuse it.

I really grew my own fan base. I started posting videos on YouTube with the help of my parents.

My style is very laid back. I like to be comfortable, but with some kind of piece that pumps it up a little bit - something more high fashion.

People will come up to me at shows and tell me that a song touched them in a completely different way than I wrote it. That's fun. Fans translating it in their own way.

The first time I worked out I almost threw up. I did not feel good at all. My friend said, 'You have to get past the first month, you're going to feel so much better.' And she was right: After about 30 or 40 days, I saw changes.

My first competition, I guess, singing-wise, I was six years old, and there's a video of it, too. I'm just, like, stick straight. I'm not moving at all, and I'm just singing.

I think, for me, the goal was never really for my EPs to go mainstream. I think the intention of them was to create a little bit of buzz and to show my musicality because I wrote and produced the EPs myself. The goal was to experiment, with no rules.

I think with my journey so far, it never felt like an overwhelming, overnight success story. I think that's good for me because I really got to take my time.

I started writing music when I was 15 in my bedroom, and I'd post them on MySpace, and from there it shifted to doing covers on YouTube and building my Twitter.

Everything I write about either I have gone through or I know somebody has gone through, so it's very close to me, but sometimes it's about taking those feelings and exaggerating on them a little bit: being a bit more dramatic but still keeping them relatable.

When I'm on stage, I generally wear what I would wear every other day, but I think my hair is probably bigger on stage - it seems to be my accessory!

'Funny' is really cool live. You break it down into an acoustic set, and sometimes I'll do that one unplugged and off the mic, depending on the venue.

I've never seen myself as a pop singer. I grew up listening to gospel, soul and rock. My approach to pop is that, when I was doing my album, I wanted to have raw, genuine lyrics, but wanted it to be easy to process.

Reggae is definitely a natural influence. Even living in Southern California, near the water, you get that reggae feel.

I was actually signed at a very young age - I was 12 - and one thing led to another, and I ended up in a mutual split from the label. But it was probably the best thing that could have ever happened, because I was able to kind of leave the industry side of it for a minute and focus on the independent side.

Nineties hip-hop was a big influence for me; it still is. I love '90s everything. And it's when I was born, too. I'm a '90s kid for sure.

I'm a '90s kid, so I went into the entire album process wanting to incorporate little touches of that sound from hip-hop and R&B. Just enough to where you hear it subtly and then go, 'This kind of reminds me of that time.'

I think in 2016 I'm going to focus on performing a lot more and doing as many shows as I can. There's plans to tour more, and that's where my heart is - doing the live shows.

I remember growing up singing; even when I was just three years old, I was singing all the time in the house. My parents said I was singing before I could even talk properly.

My style is understated because everything I wear, I want it to have an effortless feel to it. I always want to be comfortable in my clothes and feel like myself, but I like to usually throw in some edge in there somewhere, even just with a leather jacket. But overall, always gotta keep it classy!