LeAnn Rimes photo courtesy of Curb Records.

When a performer grows up in the spotlight, it’s often hard for public perception to mature along with them. Some people still picture LeAnn Rimes as the pretty teenager with the incredible voice who first burst on the national scene with the hit "Blue." In reality, LeAnn Rimes is so much more. As an artist, she’s matured into a songwriter of considerable depth and as a vocalist; she’s grown into her gift in an even more impressive way.

Her new album, Family marks the first time LeAnn has written or co-written every song. "I’m just completely baring my insides," LeAnn confesses. "People feel like they’ve known me for so long. They’ve grown up with me and I’ve grown up with them. A lot of people believe what they read and what they see on the surface, but there’s so much underneath for me as a human being, not as an artist, and that’s where this is coming from. It’s coming from real life." Read More >>

LeAnn Rimes photo courtesy of Curb Records

Family
My mom lost her child really to the world and I definitely heard about it for many years. She had to share me with a lot of people and that was really hard for her. Then my mom and dad got divorced when I was 14 and my dad got remarried and I did not like her at all. They are not still together. He’s now married to a wonderful woman that I adore. I talk about my Uncle William who died of AIDS when I was 11. That hit me really hard because I was very close to him as a kid. So those kinds of real things came out on this record. I wanted people to realize that we are still family and I’m as much to blame as they are and I take on as much responsibility as anyone. No matter what, I love them."

Nothin Better To Do
"There are songs on the record that are flirtatious and fun, songs like ‘Nothin’ Better To Do.’ I was born in Mississippi and grew up in Texas, but before we moved to Texas we lived in a tiny little town. I grew up across from a bait shop. Literally across the street was a shop that sold bait and ammunition. We wanted to write a song from this alter ego. What would have happened if I never left small town Mississippi where there’s nothing better to do than to cause trouble? It was so fun to create this story around something very real to me, but kind of playing around with what would have happened."

Fight
"This is a song that I wrote with Darrell Brown and Blair Daly, and this song came from all of our relationships. The song is about being in a relationship, and wanting not to spend any moment fighting because that’s a moment that could be spent loving each other. It came from a conversation about these stupid fights we go through and wanting to end them so fast because those are precious moments we are losing. I think it’s a powerful ballad and a song that everyone in a relationship can relate to. It’s one of my favorites definitely."

Good Friend and A Glass of Wine
"I think this is every woman’s theme song. No matter what crap goes on, all you need is a good friend and a glass of wine. That’s what we do and it’s great. One of my very best girlfriends and her husband and Dean and myself, we sit down with a glass of wine at the end of the day and hash it out. That’s what this song is about. It really is about my life."

Something I Can Feel
"This is one of those big rock anthems for me. It has a great drum beat and great music. It came from my relationship with Dean. It’s something you feel that’s really deep inside of you, like no other feeling in the world. It’s a fun, up tempo rock song that we wrote about our relationship. I wrote that with Blair and Darrell also."

I Want You With Me
"I wrote this with Blair and Dean. This song is really about wanting that person with you for every moment in your life-- good and bad--so you have this one person you love so much to share everything with, to be there for you no matter what happens. We all have those relationships. Everybody on this record has that relationship so we all shared the same feelings and emotions. It’s definitely one of those tear-jerker songs."

Doesn’t Everybody
"This is about not judging people. We’re all here looking for the same thing and that’s to be loved. You might be a doctor or whoever, it doesn’t matter, we’re all looking for the same thing. It was one of those moments I had when I just realized that we’re all here for the same reason."

Nothing Wrong
"This is a duet with Marc Broussard. I love being able to blend the country side of me and the really bluesy backwoods Louisiana gritty thing from him. It’s about two people having this kind of weird attraction to each other, saying they’d never cross that line, but there’s a little bit of a flirtation. We had fun writing it."

Pretty Things
"This is a song that Darrell, Dean and I wrote and it’s for every parent in the world. It’s telling my mother that she raised a good woman. I can take care of myself now and eventually when she gets older and I’ll have to care of her because she’ll be fragile and won’t be able to take care of herself. This is my favorite vocal performance on the album because it was done in one take and it was just this magical, magical song. It’s the most stripped down. We just left it as honest as you could get."

Upper Hands
"Upper Hand" is really fun song. It’s basically talking about my Godmother who is like my second mom. When I was six-years-old, she had the whole sex talk with me because I asked a question and she was one of those women who felt like if I was going to ask, she needed to tell me. My mother flipped out. I was always a very curious child about everything and my Godmother was very honest with me. She is a very strong woman and she told me to always have the upper hand in the relationship and to take care of myself. So we put a little bit of a twist on what my Godmother told me when I was a kid."

One Day Too Long
"Darrell’s significant other had been gone for a week and they hate being away from each other, as we all do when we are that much in love. He said ‘She’s just been gone one day too long.’ And I said ‘Man, that’s such a good title! "One Day Too Long" is the closest to kind of a blues/rock thing. It’s just about a woman who’s telling this guy, ‘You’ve been gone one day too long and now I need somebody who’s going to be here and be with me.’ It was a totally different thing for me as far as the sound. It was fun to record and I talk in it, which I’ve never done before. That was fun to be able to do something a little different."

What I Cannot Change
I think it’s just a universal message about how people feel. I went over to my friend Darrell’s house and I was mad about something. He was typing on the computer and I didn’t think he was paying attention to what I was saying. Then he said ‘Come over here and see what you just said.’ He wrote down almost everything in that song that had just come out of my mouth. We took it and just formed it over a melody. We wrote the verses about what I had said. I felt like I was changing, just growing and learning so much about myself. I asked Darrell, ‘How do you deal with people who don’t change with you? When they are stuck in a place and you are moving ahead, how do you incorporate that and give them a little bit of grace?’ So that’s how that chorus came about."

LeAnn's highly-anticipated album Family is in stores now. Order your copy now at GACTV.com!

LeAnn Rimes photo courtesy of Curb Records

Watch "Nothin' Better To Do" using Real Media

Watch "Nothin' Better To Do using Quicktime

Watch "Nothin' Better To Do using Windows Media