Kelsea Ballerini Recalls First Time Hearing her Song on the Radio
The first time Kelsea Ballerini heard herself on the radio was nowhere near how she imagined it would be like. The then 21-year-old was broke and unable to afford heat in her jeep at the time of her first single, “Love Me Like You Mean It.”
“I just remember being in my car, freezing, wrapped up in a blanket, and hearing my song on the radio and having this bittersweet, crazy moment of like, ‘Oh my God, it’s happening … and this is not how I pictured it!’ Ballerini told RADIO.com in an interview. “So, the first thing I did when I got that check was fix the heat in my car. It was very practical … it was like a full-circle moment because it was not this big, extravagant thing, but it was something that to me meant a lot.”
Ballerini dreamed of making it big in country music ever since she was a little but was unsure if it would ever come true.
“You don’t move to Nashville as a 15-year-old to be country singer thinking it’s not gonna happen,” explained Ballerini. “But you also don’t move to Nashville as a 15-year-old thinking it’s gonna happen. You’re somewhere in the middle, right? I believed in myself, but I also never thought it would become what it is. It’s this real interesting mindset that I think I moved here with.”
