Taylor Swift wants to “honour” her country roots “more and more”.
The singer-songwriter, 36, has enjoyed a glittering career since she dropped her self-titled debut album in 2006 – which was classed as a country record – and she now feels “more tied” and “more loyal” to the genre.
Speaking on the Grammy Museum’s Icon Sessions, the pop megastar told Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr: “I love my country roots more and more the further along this path I get and I want to honour them more and more.
“I feel more tied to them, more loyal to them … the people that shaped who I am as an artist and as a writer, that all happened in Nashville.”
Swift was discovered at Nashville’s Bluebird Café, the same place as country music icon Faith Hill, 58.
Taylor – whose 2006 debut single Tim McGraw was named after Faith’s husband and fellow country music icon – added: “I had heard that Faith Hill got discovered at the Bluebird Cafe.
“I started learning about the Bluebird Cafe, made it a personal life goal to get to perform there.”
Taylor has also told how she initially intended her 2012 hit single I Knew You Were Trouble to be a “really sad piano ballad”, but producers Max Martin and Shellback suggested introducing dubstep to the song.
While Swift wasn’t sure at first, she now admits the move was the “best thing” for the track.
She added: “It can either be compelling to make a song sound exactly how it feels or to flip it, which the people that really taught me the most about that are Max Martin and Shellback.
“I was really excited to bring it in, and I played them this really, really sad ballad, and I was like, ‘I think just no drums,’ and they’re like, ‘What if it’s dubstep?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, guys. Let’s give it a run. I don’t know.’
“[It] ended up being the best thing for it, and I think as a collaborator, my favourite people to be in the room with are ‘Yes, and?’ people. So why not try it?
“If they heard it and they thought dubstep, and I came to them specifically because I didn’t want to be making lateral moves creatively, why wouldn’t we go down that path? Why wouldn’t we?
“I really think that enthusiasm in the studio, it can really make or break what you end up creating.”