You started playing piano at a young age. Was music always a passion for you? Did you grow up in a musical household? Who were your early influences?

 Yeah, I started playing piano when I was 4 years old. And yes, as far back as I can remember, I always loved making music. My dad was a self-taught piano player, and one of my fondest memories from my early childhood is my dad sitting down at the piano after dinner and playing old standards while I sang and danced around the living room. I’ve only recently realized how much those songs were early influences for me – many of the songs that I’m writing now have an element of the old-fashioned style of those tunes.

What music or artists remind of a good time in your life? Is there a particular artist you go to on a down day as a pick-me-up? What is your favorite song to karaoke to?

 A couple of months ago, I listened to a ‘best of’ CD of OMD and it totally took me back. I was unabashedly singing along at the top of my lungs in the car. Music from that era – Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, etc. – is really fun for me to listen to and seems to be a pick-me-up for me. Although, I don’t tend to listen to pick-me-up music on down days. On down days, I am much more likely to put on something like Beth Orton or Sarah McLachlin. You know, wallow in my sadness. I think I’ve done karaoke once in my whole life. It was in college, I think, and I can’t remember the song I did!

Explain the songwriting process for you. Do you have a special location or sanctuary for creativity?

The songwriting process seems to be different for every song I write. However, for the best of my songs, the chorus melody and lyrics seem to come first and usually together. One place that has been an increasingly productive songwriting venue for me lately is my car. Sometimes when I have a length of time alone in my car, I will come up with the seed idea for a new song. The other day, in fact, I was stuck in a line for 45 minutes at a gas station car wash that had broken down. By the time the wash was fixed and the car was clean, I had the entire chorus – melody and lyrics – of a new song written. Next time I have the opportunity, I’ll sit down at my piano and fill out the rest of it with piano accompaniment and verses, etc.

How long did you work on Boomerangs and Seesaws? Do you feel it represents where you are in your life now or do the songs date back to an earlier time? Where did the title come from and what does it mean to you?

Boomerangs & Seesaws represents songs I’ve written over the last year and a half. We started recording it about nine months ago, and worked on it in spurts until it was finished this spring. The songs are representative of experiences I’ve had in the last couple of years of my life. The title Boomerangs & Seesaws comes from the title of one of the songs on the record. It’s a song about the up-and-down, back-and-forth motion of a relationship that is cursed with bad timing.

How is the tour going so far and how is life on the road? What do you do to kill travel time and do you have something special that must come on trips with you? Superstitions on the road?

 The tour is going excellently! The response from people in every city has been overwhelmingly great. There is a lot of driving time involved in touring, that’s for sure. When I’m behind the wheel, I catch up on listening to CDs that I’ve neglected for a while or catch up with friends and family on the phone. When I’m not driving, I nap, I read and sometimes I knit. The something special that must come on trips with me is a box of Grapenuts cereal. I eat Grapenuts and yogurt with banana every morning for breakfast when I’m home, so having that option available to me when I’m on the road is comforting.