GETTING TO KNOW: SKYE SWEETNAM

Skye Sweetnam

This rising Canadian popstar landed in showbiz by accident! She wanted to go to snowboarding camp but her mom signed her up for music instead! Three years later, Skye's CD, Noise in the Basement is getting great reviews – she's even opened for Mrs. Federline and Ashlee Simpson's on-again/off-again bf. Ryan Cabrera. Here, courtesy of Miss O's friends at teenmag.com, is Skye...

Q: What's the audience response been like?
S.S.: It's been positive. I've been so fortunate throughout my career to be able to be paired with artists that sometimes I may not think that we have the same kind of fans, but they've been so great to me. Even on the Britney tour, the Ryan tour. They've been so amazing. And it's kind of a challenge sometimes when you see people that come, they obviously don't know who you are, it's kind of your first introduction to them, and I'm kind of glad that my first introduction to them could be a live rock concert. And it's really kind of a challenge just winning them over and kind of get them to buy into everything you do and kind of make them understand. I think it's really fun and a lot of Ryan fans do really like a lot of the music, which is really cool, so it's not like we have totally different styles.

Q: What's your favorite thing about touring?
S.S.: So much! I love my band; they're like my big brothers! I love hanging out with them. I love visiting all these different, beautiful places and cool experiences. I love when I have a good show. It feels so good. 'Cause you can tell. When you're on and everybody's tight and the crowd's lovin' it and the whole thing just comes together, and you get out there, it's like we're ready to party! You're up all night and you're so excited and I get really inspired after I do a good show. I wanna write songs, I wanna do all that kind of stuff. But it's really amazing when you finally see that all this work and all the recording finally pays off and you see the reactions on their faces in the crowd.

Q: Is life on the road as glamorous as we'd imagine?
S.S.: It's tiring. You get so disoriented. Like I couldn't tell you what day of the week it was today, what time it is, and we're definitely on totally different time schedules. I'd never thought that I'd be waking up at 2pm but [when you play all night...] It's kinda crazy. Then we go to sound check at 2 and then I stay up all night doing stuff, like reading books, doing my homework, and I'm like, "It's like 2 in the morning right now."

. Q: What's been your favorite city?
S.S.: Oh my gosh, I've been to so many amazing places. I love the show I did in Paris. It was really, really fun. I loovve Tokyo. I've been there 3 times. Not all three times I played there, but I got to experience the fashion, so I love it. And I'm going back to Asia [for a tour]. I think sometime in May. We haven't planned it yet, but we're really hoping we get to do it. My album's blowing up out there, which is amazing.

Q: What about plans for the future? Been bitten by the acting bug yet?
S.S.: This morning I actually had an audition for a movie, so there's always that idea floating around. And in this day and age, so much has to do with, not only your music to be an overall star, you have to have all these other things going for you.

Q: We heard that your label wants you to do a reality show. True?
S.S.: A reality show is a little too much 'cause I could never have a camera in my face 24/7, but I've grown up with acting, so I'm totally open to that. But I definitely want to make sure when I pick something to do, I want to make sure I'm able to put my whole heart and soul into it and really focus on doing the acting thing, rather than trying to squeeze that in between everything else because I think it's really important that they make a smooth transition rather than trying to be all cool by doing the acting thing and people are like, "That's not going to work," so I wanna make sure that people take me credibly too, so that's important.

Q: So you have prior acting experience?
S.S.: I did this one TV show called Radio Free Roscoe on the N and I sing the theme song as well, every week, so they had me kind of guest star in an episode, which is kinda cool. And then I've done a reality TV show called Switched, and on an episode I switch lives with a girl in Kentucky, and she lived my life and I lived hers. It was really fun. It was so different. They had no idea what rock and roll was. I'm like, "Do you guys know who Zeppelin is? Led Zeppelin?" and they're like, "What?" It was kind of a little bit of culture shock a little bit. And I've done a lot of things that aren't really like professional, but I went to a high school, an art school, for drama, and did lots of musicals and dance competitions all over North America.

Q: Are you in school now?
S.S.: I'm in school. I get tutored. I have kind of a home-schooling thing going. I don't go to school regularly 'cause I'm only home for like 2 days every month. I wish I had more time for school actually. I kind of feel guilty sometimes, but my tutor's so sweet, she was actually my first musical theater teacher. She's really good about, if I'm too busy, she'll understand, but I still feel guilty. It's kind of like an all-year thing since we don't have intensive study sessions.

Q: What do you do when you're not on tour?
S.S.: I'm traveling somewhere for press usually. What I do in my spare time is sleep. I love playing guitar. I love learning, I'm trying to learn more about producing and stuff like that. I love doing my own videos, I love designing clothes, I love writing in journals and making books, like scrapbooks and pictures, like that. I love documenting my life 'cause it's a crazy cool life and I don't wanna forget about all the good times, so I really wanna make sure that I never forget all these crazy experiences I've had. I like making jewelry sometimes, hanging out with my sister, my brother, and my friends.