I think we are drawn to different people at different times in our lives and there is always a lesson in our meeting. I felt incredibly creative around Ashlee because I was allowed to be the seventeen-year-old girl I had always wanted to be. I was able to live out my fantasy of teenage badassness and say unrepressed, un-Catholic things like “you make me wanna la la” which was about doing “it” in unexpected places. Who we choose to surround ourselves with can make or break our success. Some artists and producers simply move and melodies/lyrics come pouring out of me, while with others, it’s like pulling teeth. I wish I had spent less time beating myself up when it didn’t work and more time seeking out those relationships that did work.

With Ashlee, songs came to me quickly and ferociously. Like they had been waiting for years to flow out of me. I buried my teen angst, broken heart, and longing for love in her first album. She was the perfect person to carry these pieces into the world. She was on a hit MTV show, and she was young and fearless. She was an embodiment of everything I wasn’t as a teenager. I was happy a piece of me was on her record.