She’s keeping it country. Brittney Spencer is a singer / songwriter who’s worked with Maren Morris, Brandy Clark, and thee Carrie Underwood. (She’d also like to add Megan Thee Stallion to that list, which we 1000% endorse.)

Here the Baltimore native, who’s currently on a nationwide tour, tells us why she obsessively listens to her demos, how Taylor Swift sparked her career, and what it’s like singing with a true American idol.

7 A.M. I have big windows in my room, so I just let the sun wake me up. I play an atmospheric piano playlist at night when I’m sleeping, and I let it run until I’m done looking at emails or messages. Then I’ll stop it and [listen] to a demo I recently did or a voice memo from a song I wrote to see how it feels. I have studio speakers in my apartment and also a Sonos, so I’ll play it on different speakers to see how it sounds and if it inspires a new idea. A lot of times I spend an hour just in my room.

7:30 A.M. There wasn’t a specific moment where I said, “I’m going to be a singer.” I’ve just always been singing since I was like 3 or 4 years old. The moment I decided I wanted to be a country artist was as a teenager, shortly after hearing The Chicks. I wanted to be a country artist, but didn’t honestly think I could for a number of reasons. A few years after hearing The Chicks, I heard Taylor Swift for the first time and she was poetic. She’s from Pennsylvania, so she doesn’t have a twang; she was youthful. For whatever reason, that sparked something in me and made me feel like I could actually do this, too.

8 A.M. I spray water on my hair and some leave-in conditioner a few times a week. If I have straggly pieces, I’ll use some Design Essentials curling mousse. The foundation of everything I use on my face comes from this brand Alaffia. I use their black soap, and I feel like it makes my skin ready for all the other serums I’ve been using… You know how everyone says Rihanna smells amazing? I don’t know why anyone would touch my face, but if that ever happened, I want people to be like, “Oh my gosh, her face was so soft.”

9 A.M. I love breakfast, but for me it feels like a moment. Maybe it’s because I’m kind of bougie in that I really do like breakfast at restaurants. I don’t have time for that in the morning… I wish I was a coffee person, but I’m not. I’m a tea, matcha, chai, herbal person. I’ll [drink] that and then rush to get to the thing I need to get to. I’m never not rushing in the mornings. It’s so crazy. I was literally just on the phone with a best friend of mine who’s been trying to call me for 5 days now.

9:30 A.M. I’m driving to a writing session, and sometimes I listen to my demos to hear how it sounds on the car speakers, or nothing at all… There’s something so freeing about being in the car and writing a song, because that’s how I started. As a teenager, I didn’t know how to play any instruments, so I had to hear the music in my head. In the car, it puts me back in that place, and it’s probably where I write a lot of my best songs. When I was working at a grocery store, I started my song “Sorrys Don’t Work No More ” while I was juicing [a drink]. I just started singing “I try, I try, I try to apologize,”… Just having that alone time in the car is so paramount for me.

10 A.M. Nashville’s really based on collaboration culture and songwriter culture. In the first 30 minutes [of a writing session,] people are talking, just trying to get a sense of the person. Where are they from? What are their influences? What’s their style? If you already know the people, you just catch up. I bring song starter ideas to every write, and I’ll present a few. Sometimes the people there have song ideas as well, or sometimes in the middle of that 30-minute conversation, someone says something and it’s like, “Oh, that could be a really good song idea.” That happened to me about a week or 2 ago when I wrote with Lori McKenna and Jessie Jo Dillon. We had this really cool idea that we came up with in conversation, so we went with that.

11 A.M. I once wrote a song with some friends, and it took 9 hours. We had experienced something similar and we were combining our stories. But we have no regrets. We love that song!… A song idea might only take 3 hours or several days. I’ve written songs with people, and we send messages back and forth over the course of a few months, and we’re still tweaking it. That’s why I listen to demos so much and voice memos. I’m like, “What needs to change?” I’m very analytical in trying to figure out, “How can we make this thing better if it needs to be better?” It took me a year to finish “Sorrys Don’t Work No More.” My friends and I were literally in the foyer of the studio, still tweaking lines up until the moment I walked in to sing it.

12 P.M. I sang background for Carrie Underwood at 2 different award shows. She’s incredible and just watching her process was so fascinating. I grew up in the church where everything is improv. There’s rehearsal but singing in church is literally just about feeling out the moment and responding to it. When I watch Carrie, she’s so meticulous and she rehearses almost every single thing—her runs, her riffs. She’s just a pro, so I love that I’ve learned so much. Also, just having access to the stadium [was helpful]. After we were done with soundcheck the day prior to the award show, I sat in the balcony and watched other artists do their sound checks. I watched Maren Morris, Lady A, Runaway June… Just being in the room and being able to soak up all of the inspiration, and what essentially turns into advice, was invaluable for me.