  Taylor Swift |
Taylor Swift isn't always as fearless as she's cracked up to be.
Case in point: The cat-eyed country-pop phenom was plenty anxious about heading out on her first headlining tour.
"I had a lot of fears," 19-year-old Swift admits. "You don't know if 15,000 people or 4,500 people are going to want to buy your tickets ... There were some serious nerves going on."
Clearly, she hasn't been paying much attention to her own career stats. According to Nielsen Soundscan, Swift -- who first landed on the public radar barely three years ago with the song Tim McGraw -- was the biggest-selling artist in America last year, moving more than four million copies of her two CDs: Her self-titled 2006 debut and last year's Fearless, which topped the Billboard 200 chart for 11 weeks, the longest run in a decade. Toss in a couple of million downloads -- her single Love Story is the most-downloaded country tune in history -- and it's no surprise that Forbes ranked her the 69th most powerful celebrity in the world.
Simply put, Swift has nothing to be afraid of. She's music's current It Girl. Her fans include everyone from teenage boys to housewives. Award shows are clamoring to celebrate her -- she's already snagged half a dozen trophies from BMI, CMT and the ACM this year.
Artists are lining up to work with her -- she recently taped a Crossroads episode with Def Leppard, shot a hilarious gangsta-rap parody video with T-Pain for the CMT Awards, and invited John Mayer onstage at L.A.'s Staples Center last month. And even if she did get dumped by a Jonas brother, she got her revenge by penning one of her typically confessional songs about him.
As her elaborate and theatrical Fearless tour -- which features a fairy-tale castle set and umpteen costume changes -- makes its way north of the border (it's currently rolling across Western Canada), Swift chatted with reporters about her music, her career and staying grounded.
Here's some of what she told us.
On headlining for the first time:
We wanted to make sure I never went out to headline before I was ready. So we waited. I had the opportunity to headline last year or to open up for Rascal Flatts. I decided that I wanted to learn more. I wanted to keep developing and growing. And I'm so glad we waited until the Fearless album came out, because my career hit a completely new level.
On her broad appeal:
The funny thing is that I never, ever think about demographics when I'm writing a song. I never think about what genre of music this is going to fall under or what stations are going to want to play it or who's going to relate to it. The only thing I think about is the person that I'm writing the song about. Music is very confessional to me. It's a chance for me to say things I wouldn't be brave enough to say to a person's face. A lot of times I feel things for somebody that I'm just not going to tell them because they're not in my life anymore or I've got too much pride to say it. I think it's a universal feeling.
On working with T-Pain:
I'm a rapper now! (Giggles) CMT came to me and said, 'We want you to be the focal point of the intro (for the Country Music Awards).' I was so flattered and so excited. They wanted to play on the fact that all of these specials I do focus on me having a dream and setting sights on it and accomplishing it. They said, 'We want you to think of some crazy things people would not expect you to do.' And the first thing I said was, 'I wanna do a rap video with T-Pain.' (I chose) T-Pain because if I had some other rapper do it, I would probably be the one singing the hook and the other person would be rapping. But I wanted to be rapping and I wanted the other person to be singing the hook. I told them I wanted it to be called Thug Story instead of Love Story. So we had a track made up and they let me write the entire rap and it was really hilarious to be in the studio with T-Pain ... I got up and rapped this thing for him and he could not stop laughing. To shoot the video was really awesome too. I went to the mall and bought bling at one of those gangsta-street jewelry places for, like, $40.
On collaborating:
It's been really cool to collaborate with different artists. I have so many different levels of respect for people who make music that's different than mine. Stepping into somebody else's studio is one of my favourite things to do. And getting to watch someone like John Mayer or Def Leppard or T-Pain, you just learn so much. There's so many people I would love to collaborate with ... Because you learn something different every single time you try new things like that. You know, I'm having a lot of luck right now and things are going great. But I'm never going to sit there and think, 'Oh, I've got this. I know everything that I need to know about making music.' Because I don't know half of it yet. And I'm actually very excited by that. The idea that I still have a lot to learn is kind of exhilarating to me.
On fame:
Keeping myself grounded is really not a hard thing at all. The core people in my life haven't changed from when I was playing at the Bluebird Cafe or in coffeehouses or at boy scout meetings. Now, when I'm playing arenas and stadiums, I've got the same family around me. And they're proud of me, but they don't believe the hype. That's a really nice balance -- to know that your family is proud of what you've done and proud of who you are, but they don't look at you as superhuman and they're going to make you do chores and clean up after yourself. (Laughs)
On her tour:
I've been thinking about it for years and years and years ... I wanted to make it more theatrical than anything I'd seen in the country shows I'd opened up for. Theatre is an element to music that I love. I grew up doing children's theatre and just have always had this deep love for seeing something played out before your eyes. What I thought would be cool would be to have the tour revolve around the theatrics of my songs. Because really they're all just dramatizations of what I've gone through. I wanted to take that opportunity to show the audience what I'm seeing in my head when I'm playing these songs. There's one song that's just really emotional and personal and it comes from this place of anger and hurt. And so, in the song, I freak out and throw this chair off a giant balcony of the stage. Things like that just really showcase what I was feeling when I wrote the song.
