Singer Brandi Carlile on success and her job

Brandi Carlile has toured with the Dave Matthews Band and collaborated with Elton John. She’s worked with the most sought-after producers in the business and counts childhood hero Amy Ray of The Indigo Girls as among her friends.

Gene: After your first album came out, 2005′s “Brandi Carlile,” Rolling Stone and Paste magazines were calling you an artist to watch. Did that create pressure for you?

Brandi: Well, that’s the thing…pressure to do what? When music is innate in you and it feels like who you are, as long as you’re doing it at whatever level you’re doing it at, you feel successful. So when those things happened, I just felt successful. Even when I could just fill up a bar on a Sunday night, I felt successful. If I could get somebody to stop and listen to me play a song, I felt successful.

Gene: What do you enjoy the most about your job?

Brandi: I enjoy the exchange of energy with a multitude of people. I really enjoy standing on stage and projecting as much energy as I possibly can to a thousand people and having them project it right back. That feeling and that rush of being an entertainer and also being entertained is what I’m happiest about with my job, and the platform it gives me to affect important change in the world that I’ve always thought about but never been able to do.