Sharon Little clearly has a big future ahead of her

Our Style Idol talks about how she has fashioned her music career

By Megan Martin
Published: November 1st, 2010 | 7:00am

In Venus Zine's winter issue, on newsstands now, we bestowed our coveted Style Idol honor on country crooner Sharon Little, thanks to her ability to authentically pair petticoats with cowboy boots. Here, you can get a second look at the singer who proves she can just as easily move from the mirror to the microphone.

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From the outside, it could easily seem as if three girlfriends are having a pow-wow over breakfast. All the ingredients are present: Belgian waffles, check. Coffee, check. A teary-eyed blonde girl, check. Publicist, che—oh wait, that’s right. This is an interview.

It’s easy to forget that last part while chatting with singer Sharon Little at Le Pain Quotidien, a bustling café near Bryant Park in Manhattan’s midtown. Little is fighting back tears through a little bit of laughter as her publicist comforts her; it’s been an emotional year for the singer.

Little, born and raised in Philadelphia, went from being a full-time waitress with a solid singing voice to the opening act for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ 2008 Raising Sand tour. The last year was filled with touring, traveling, writing, singing and recording music, breaking up with her long-time boyfriend and bandmate Scott Sax, and settling into life as one of mainstream music’s next ‘it’ girls.

Despite the whirlwind, Little doesn’t seem all that affected by the stardom. She brings that down-home, country flavor along with poppy hooks, blues-meets-jazz vocals, and thoughtful lyrics to her latest release Paper Doll (CBS Records). She sat down with Venus Zine to talk about what life has been like for her over the past year.

Venus Zine: Is this whole experience completely surreal, going from tiny shows to huge venues?

Sharon Little: It is. I got signed in December, two years ago, and it all happened really, really quickly. Before my label even signed me, they had been pursuing me for an entire year. They already submitted me for the opening spot on Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' tour. They liked me a lot, let's put it that way. I got signed and a month later they asked me if I wanted to go on tour with the duo, and I said yes. Actually, I said, ‘I guess…’ [laughs]

I made that first album in a month. Before that I was a struggling waitress—a struggling waitress without a career—and then I was a struggling waitress with a career. It felt like I literally went from zero to a hundred.

VZ: How did you take to performing in front of the crowds?

SL: I hate saying this, but it’s just one of those things you have to say: If you’re in this field and you are the artist, it comes naturally. I just freakin’ feel it and it comes from my soul, baby. I don’t try. I went from singing in front of 50 people at the most to 50,000. It was crazy! It affected me and I was nervous, but when I got up there I couldn’t see anybody. It had nothing to do with fear; it was just a drive. It was good. It was really fun.

VZ: Tell us about the making of Paper Doll—how did you write songs?

SL: It was so much different. I co-wrote the first and second albums with [my boyfriend] Scott Sax. He’s an amazing song writer: He wrote a Grammy winning song, “Like We Never Loved at All.” He’s kinda like my mentor. So, I was really influenced by his writing style at first. I was kind of like a baby and he taught me the business, for the most part. He taught me how I could express myself without being offensive because it’s a very fine line for artists. My older songs were mostly influenced by him.

And then I was literally home for three weeks out of the entire past year because of touring. When I was home I would freak out. I felt more at home in a hotel room or in a gas station. I grew a lot from that experience, and I wrote songs over the entire tour.

I don’t write songs the way that songwriters write songs. I get drunk at like two in the morning with a bottle of wine after playing Madison Square Garden. It's just me and my friends on some rooftop and we write poetry and songs. Some people may say it’s destructive, but if I can get an album produced by Don Woods in a destructive way because he believes in the writing, then I’ll be fuckin’ destructive. You’re living life, you know. It’s not about making it perfect; it’s about experiencing it.

VZ: It seems as if you went through a lot of personal transitions during the making of this album?

SL: Scott and I were dating since the beginning of my career, about four years. But when you’re with someone every single day of your life for 24 hours a day and you tour with them, it’s a lot. I’ve been kicked out of the car on the side of the highway in Nashville after we had been fighting. I’ve locked him out of hotel rooms. I mean, dramatic! We have this really intense passion together. We’ll never stop working together. We adore each other, and we talk every single day still. He’s coming to town tonight for the show to play guitar. But we’re just giving each other space; we knew that something had to happen in order for the destructive behavior to stop.

VZ: Has performing in front of huge audiences changed you at all?

SL: It has really helped me become a better performer. My friends are too real. [They are] people who don’t get lost in the business, they don’t even know the business. So they help me from getting lost in my career. I just live an experience and write about it.

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Sharon Little official site

Sharon Little MySpace page

CBS Records