While many people may know her as a finalist on The Voice, Christina Grimmie has been singing both before and carving her path and career after the show. She has released her latest EP Side A, and while on tour with Before You Exit we had the chance to sit down with her to talk about her latest project. Grimmie also unveiled plans to release a full-length album and her excitement about the forthcoming material and more touring. Check out PopCrush’s full interview with Christina Grimmie below.

Talk about your latest release Side A lyrically and musically.

Side A was a project that I wanted to do, stuff that I produced completely and it was just stuff that I was dealing with. I haven’t had a lot of “hard times” in my life until recently, so I wanted to write about those things and get them out for my fans and not even worry about genre and just make music.

Any plans for Side B?

Yes, I have to complete the Side A with the Side B for sure, not really sure when that’s going to be out. I might want to pursue other projects before I release Side B because I just have so much going on in my brain, like “Is it Side B? Does it make sense for Side B?” Honestly Side A is supposed to be a project just from my heart and whatever is happening in my heart at the time and I want Side B to also fit that same thing. Until I go through a Side B, then that’s when I’ll release it.

Your decision to go independent, talk about that and how it’s influenced or shaped Side A.

Being independent had a lot to do with it for sure. And of course, being on a label maybe I wouldn’t have been able to do that. It was just a lot of emotional things happening for me. For instance, all my fans know about my mom, she has been dealing with cancer for a long time and things have just been going not so great lately, so there was that. There were a lot of other personal issues I was dealing with, friends, boys, whatever so I just wanted to get it all out on one record in four songs.

Was that challenging as a writer, to get all of that out in four songs?

It was actually free flowing for the most part, with the exception of one song I wrote called “Deception” on Side A. The song took me about a year to write, I started it ages ago and I had a chorus and tried to write the verse for a year, all the verses. I didn’t know why I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t struggling with heavy things until recently, and suddenly I wrote the whole thing in like 20 minutes. This is why you don’t finish a song in a rush. I consider the song my baby because of that.

Many people know you from The Voice but you were singing long before that. How have you changed as an artist since the show until now?

The show itself, being on it I felt like I grew as a person — just that amount of pressure, no one is under that stress on the norm and it was so weird to be under that, but it was awesome. I would do it again, as nerve-racking as it was. Now, coming off the show, I have so much experience under my belt and so much to go back to — you know I don’t really get nervous for anything anymore, because I remember that feeling and I don’t think anything can top national TV and learning a song in less than a week!

I was sculpting myself as I was on the show. You have your mentor which was Adam [Levine] in my case which was great. And that’s all they are, mentors. They help shape you when you don’t know your direction and they’re pulling things out of you, and you’re like “Wow, where’d that come from?” That’s what’s amazing about the show.

What does the rest of the year have in store for you?

So much awesome new music, I have so much stuff coming up! Right now I’m focusing on writing, I’m pushing Side A for this tour and want to play it for some people. I want to get a full length album out this year. You would be the first that I’d be telling actually, I haven’t really said much about it. With that being said, I definitely want to do that because there’s so much great music being made right now. I’m going to be writing for the next couple of months. I do want to go on another tour, maybe by the end of this year – if I do get an album out this year. If I don’t get an album out this year, crossing my fingers I hope I will, then I would just love to tour that album.

If you could choose anyone out there to go on tour with who would it be?

Someone like Ariana [Grande] or maybe One Direction, you know, if I had the dream tour. Even [Justin] Bieber. I’d love to open for Bieber it would be awesome, that would definitely be the crowd I would want to play to.

Order Side A via iTunes here.