Did you know what, or where, Nashville was?
I was watching a special on TV about the singer Faith Hill, and she talked about how she went to Nashville. That’s the moment that I realized that Nashville is where you need to be if you want to sing country music. And so every day I would beg my parents nonstop: “We need to go to Nashville. Can we please go to Nashville?” When I was 11, we went during spring break. I had been singing karaoke and I competed in karaoke competitions. So, I had this little demo CD of me singing karaoke music, and my mom would pull up outside one of the record labels on Music Row in Nashville and I would run in and say to the receptionist, “Hi, I’m Taylor. I’m 11. I want a record deal. Call me.”

Did you wear a cowboy hat?
No. My hair was always too big for that. I wore jeans and probably some sort of sparkly shirt.

How did your classmates regard your music?
I didn’t really have that many friends at school. Kids would just heckle me: “Oh, go sing that country beep.” It just dawned on me that I had to love being different or else I was going to end up being dark and angry and frustrated by school. Sometimes I felt like I was some sort of spy because I would go to school during the day, and then, after school, I had this life that was completely different. I definitely was more nervous walking into my first day of freshman year in high school than I was walking up to record labels and handing them my CD. In school, I learned to stop talking about music because they didn’t like it when I did. I led a double life. I kind of started to live in fear when I would sing the national anthem at the 76ers game. If there was a write-up about it the next day in our local paper, I knew it was gonna be a bad day at school for me.

Your mother loved Def Leppard. She played that nonstop when she was pregnant with you.
I love Def Leppard! It’s comforting for me to listen to them. I love a great song. If that great song is by 50 Cent, I’ll listen to it.

You started writing songs when you were 12, and nearly all your songs are autobiographical. Was that a way of coping with being an outsider at school?
Absolutely. I would sit on the edge of class and watch people interact with each other. I’d watch guys flirt with cool girls and I would watch best friends talk, and I would go home and write about it. If you listen to my albums, it’s like reading my diary.

And you always use real names in your songs.
I don’t hesitate — people who have no idea that I have a crush on them won’t find out through me telling them, but they will find out when they hear their name in a song. There was this guy who opened a couple of shows for me on tour and I talked to him a couple of times, but he never knew that I liked him. So I wrote this song called “Hey Stephen,” and when my album came out, I sent him a text message: “Hey, Track 5.” It was so funny. He sent me back a long e-mail saying, “Oh, my God!”

You recently finished filming a movie called “Valentine’s Day.” Did you like acting?
Yes, but it’s a small part. I play the kind of girl I didn’t like in high school. She’s forced to go to gym class and doesn’t want to be there. The director, Garry Marshall, was wonderful — and both of our lucky numbers are 13, so we talked about that most of the time.