Allie Colleen might be the daughter of country music royalty, but her mother also had a lot of influence in her music, influences that reverberate through all of Allie’s music now.

“Mama listened to 2000s’ R&B and punk music,” Allie tells Everything Nash. “Anything from Cher to Christina Aguilera to Michael Jackson, to a lot of Destiny’s Child and early on, Beyoncé and stuff like that, and Mariah Carey. That was her stuff that she loved. My sisters brought in stuff like Evanescence and Three Days Grace, and a lot of alternative music. That’s what I fell in love with.”

Allie, perhaps surprisingly, was more drawn to music that was anything but country when she grew up, but she still remains a fan of the genre. In all of her music, the singer-songwriter finds a way to blur the lines between the music she was raised on, and the country music she loves.

“I predominantly grew up on pop music and alternative music, and it’s my favorite thing, but nothing tells a story like country music,” Allie explains. “And as a woman who has so many things that I care about, that I would love to say, what an amazing time to be in country music when you have independent females putting out what they wanna sing about. I love women, and I love the ’90s women country era.”

Allie is still a big fan of country music as well, but it’s a fondness she developed later in life, even though she watched her father, Garth Brooks, become one of the biggest country music stars of all time.

“I did not grow up on country music at all,” Allie admits. “I grew up on my dad’s music, which, I’m the biggest fan on the planet. I love it. I love everything about it. The Chris Gaines project is my favorite album. I think it is the coolest thing on the planet. I also think it’s maybe the closest we’ve ever gotten to sounding like each other, and that’s very cool to me. But dad didn’t play a lot of music in the house growing up. And if he did it was Queen or Kansas.

“The most country was James Taylor or Randy Travis,” she continues. “So it was all still very, to me, pop. And then my mom, for all the reasons you can understand, we didn’t listen to country radio at all. She never knew what you were gonna hear about.”

Fortunately, Allie doesn’t have to decide if she wants to be a country music artist or a pop artist. It’s a freedom she doesn’t take for granted, praising other artists who have helped pave the way to make her creative dreams come true.

“It’s so cool now to be in this independent era of young females, and hearing them put out what they want to put out, and what they want to sing about,” Allie tells Everything Nash. “I’m very excited to see what we get to continue to sing about. I think Ashley McBryde‘s been a huge trailblazer in that for us too. It’s not the same narratives you’ve heard a hundred times, sung by females. As rad as they are, it’s all new stuff. I love country music.”

Allie’s single, “Honest Man,” is out now. Find music and tour dates at AllieColleenMusic.com.