Tate McRae

I'm really good at envisioning things. Even when I haven't experienced something, it doesn't mean that I haven't felt it before.

I'm still dancing - my mum owns a dance company - but I felt like there was more freedom in the music industry. You can take your vision and really bring it to life no matter what, because it's just you.

Coming from a dance background, I was in competitions every single weekend, so I've been put on the spot since I was eight years old. When I first got into singing and went on tour, it kind of just felt like home, because I'd been there so many times.

It felt like dancing was my only way of expressing myself until I got into writing, and then I realized that there were two sides of my brain that I needed to work all the time.

Obviously I'm very proud to be Canadian because there's a lot of crazy cool artists that come out of Canada. It's always been my home ground, even if I'm traveling around the world dancing or singing or in L.A. all the time. But Alberta doesn't really have a music industry.

I have this thing in my brain that I just wish I lived in a different time era. And I think that's honestly just because of social media and everything, like phones and the whole shebang. I feel like relationships are more superficial.

I would love a career on Broadway. It's always been my dream ever since I was a little girl and some of my biggest idols are on Broadway right now, like Melanie Moore and Ricky Ubeda.

New York City is so big with all the lights and the people and it just makes me feel like I'm living in a dream when I'm there.

I like to try to analyse structures of different albums and see what kind mine might be similar to.

I have to juggle school, dance training every night, work-outs and all the writing sessions.

My favorite way to get into the songwriting process is to get into the studio, and then usually, they play a loop of four chords, or something, or guitar, and then I just start singing.

I feel like I kind of go with the flow. The biggest source of pressure is most definitely from myself because my opinion changes every second. One day I'm literally obsessed with all my songs, and the next I despise every one of them and want to throw them all out!

I go through regular problems. It's funny - there's still two sides to me: the normal one and the work one. I feel like I'm pulling a Hannah Montana.

There's this big rumor that I was a backup dancer when I was 11. Not true!

Since I danced really intensely, singing was more just something that I enjoyed.

My writing was very much like my diary, and I just put it out there to put it out there because I didn't really know what I was doing. The fact that people related to the songs made me feel less alone in a lot of situations.

I really want to start pushing my merchandise. I want to design something clothing-wise one day. I think that would be really sick.

When I was 13, I started posting songs every week that I'd written. They weren't fantastic, but people connected to them in some way. And that's the only way that I grow my audience as a writer.

Post Malone is one of my biggest inspirations. I just love his songs and his writing. He's a genius. Then person-wise, I'm a huge fan of Zendaya. I love her. I watch her interviews and everything she does all the time because I think she's just such a crazy good human being.

Dancing used to be my one and only thing and then I started getting into poetry and writing stories and then music just ended up taking over my life and it's been amazing.

Canada in general is a beautiful country.

I love Christmas. It is my favorite holiday of the year. I love being somewhere cold at Christmas so that there is snow.

I think performing has been the weirdest realization, because for the longest time I thought that no one was listening to my music. Now seeing people let it affect them emotionally and put it into their own lives is the coolest feeling.

I traveled so much as a child. When I was four, we moved to the Oman in the Middle East. We lived there for three years and I got to explore Oman, as well as many places around there.

I put the most pressure on myself. I'm so critical and I think that's a hard mentality to live with. You're not really satisfied with anything you do.