Years ago, I used to be in a band called Blondes Not Bombs back in Tampa, FL. I was heavily influenced by The Dresden Dolls, Something Corporate, and Fall Out Boy... The band was just me on piano and my friend Tommy on drums. We used to call it "the most fun two people can have sitting down"! Around that time I had also ended a bad relationship. I was enjoying single life, kind of dating around and feeling like myself again. It can be a very empowering time for a woman to leave someone who has been holding her back. "I Said" is not just about the break up, it's also about the dating scene and how people can play games and break hearts almost for the fun of it.

I was in college, and a regular couch-surfer at the time... sleeping where I could, crashing in my minivan "Bertha" some nights, and waiting 'til payday so I could get gas money to drive home. I used to spend a lot of time at my friend Ethan's house. He and I used to play gigs at a local coffee shop called Sacred Grounds all the time. It's safe to say I played or hung out there at least once a week. One day while jamming out, I remember showing him "I Said", with that constant, driving piano melody, a nod to my Something Corporate influence. I had a few lyrics for the chorus, but I was still working it out. After the first octave-jumping line "And I Said", I had the melody, but no more lyrics. I was showing it to Ethan just on "la la la" or something. And he said "it sounds like you should say 'we're over we're over' and I stuck with it!

It became my break up anthem, and an account of my times dating guys who played the field. I thought I had them all figured out! Aren't we all just a bunch of crazy kids out there breaking hearts? But, the funny thing is, and the moral of the song... is that the lifestyle still leaves you all alone. "It gets YOU nowhere" (verse one) "it gets ME nowhere" (verse 2).

So, "I Said" became the song Blondes Not Bombs was known for. Tommy eventually got married and started a family, and soon I was itching to get out of South Florida. I had met Steve Tobi and our original drummer Cory Walen through their band, Dangerflight. They were planning on moving to Nashville from Tampa to get more exposure in the music business. They knew me from mutual friends and also from playing gigs around town - so they knew the song "I Said". Long story short, I tagged along to Nashville and the bands eventually joined forces. I became the front-woman, and years later when we started working on "Invisible Tonight", "I Said" was still stuck in everyone's heads. We turned it into a full band song, and breathed a life into it that I never could have imagined all those years ago in the coffee shop in Tampa.