Katy Rose has spent the last few months in promotional overload for her strong debut album Because I Can. She's touring Europe, Australia, and Japan as well as North America. Not bad for a 16-year-old who writes and sings like she's in her mid-twenties.

"I write about a lot of older type things that most people my age don't write about," Rose says. "I don't know what it's like to be a kid my age really. I've always just been older."

Being her age and in the music industry, she says, though, has its pros and cons.

"I think it must be difficult for people to take me seriously considering my age, but I think as soon as they meet me, they don't have a problem," she says. "It seems to me to be an advantage especially in the music world because people flock towards very young artists these days.

"But it's a disadvantage otherwise, really. I think it's because I can relate to people so much older than me more than someone my own age. So it's kind of frustrating to be my age and have the kind of thoughts that I have and still be so young."

Rose grew up outside Los Angeles and was basically born into the music industry. Her father, Kim Bullard, was a supporting musician for Crosby, Stills and Nash and a member of Poco. Rose says she was well prepared for what the industry entails.

"You grow up fast in Los Angeles, especially when you have parents that are in the rock 'n' roll business," she says.

A lot of people might see Rose as this year's Avril Lavigne, but her album, being released on Tuesday, seems to tell a rather different story. Overdrive sounds like Sheryl Crow, while I Like, the punk-ish Vacation and Catch My Fall resemble Liz Phair, whom Rose will open for in March and April. Rose says Lemon is her favourite track on the album and says writing is cathartic for her.

"It's a thing that I've always been doing," she says. "For me it's just a great way to get out all of my emotions and I was really needing that."

Rose, who lived in the same house where the '60s TV show about a talking horse, Mr. Ed, was filmed, says she knew early on she would be signed to a label.

"I had made some songs when I was younger and my father was playing them to some people in the industry," she says. "They told my father, 'When does she want the record deal?' That was definitely overwhelming. That's when it occurred to me that this could actually be something in my life. So I was very excited."

Rose, who describes the record as a musical journey through her head, had some help from her father, who produced the record. She also says that the personal side and professional side were kept separately.

"It's the only way to do it; otherwise, it would've become very messy," she says.

The singer says she doesn't mind the road because she gets to see new places and meet new people.

She also says, without much hesitation, that the album title, Because I Can, was quite simple to choose.

"A lot of people ask me why I made the album: It's because I can," she says. "I could and I did."