On the heels of her tour with The Script and the release of her new album Cedar + Gold, Tristan Prettyman filled us in on how she’ll only sing the songs she can relate to and just what she’s thinking while performing onstage.

“I think most of the songs I’ve written do come from personal experiences and that’s the only way I know how to write,” Tristan told CBS Local. “When something happens to me or I’m observing something or something’s happened to a friend of mine, that’s my personal way of dealing with something. It’s like my therapy to work through it is to write about it.”

Tristan said it feels more authentic when she’s writing from a personal place.

“I’ve been in co-writing sessions where someone has an idea to write about something and I don’t really [relate]. It’s not personal to me. So I have a really hard time singing it,” she said. “When I get onstage and I’m singing about something that actually happened to me it’s like I can go right back to that place and put that into my performance and really be there with the audience to connect with them in that moment.”

So what exactly is Tristan thinking about while she’s onstage?

“I really love to make eye contact with the audience. I love observing the crowd. I love when I see a cute couple canoodling or girls in the front row singing along,” she said.

But sometimes even her mind will wander mid-song.

“Sometimes honestly I’m thinking, ‘I’m so hungry. What am I going to eat after?’ I’ll be thinking about something tomorrow or, ‘Did I call so and so back?’ And then I’ll be back into the moment of the song.”

Despite all these thoughts Tristan said what she loves most about performing is being there with the audience and being attentive to her fans.

“I’ve become more playful at my shows dressing up and wearing heels onstage and getting more done up which I’m really enjoying,” she said. “It’s been really fun to dress up and be a little bit more girly since I spent so much time performing in jeans and t-shirts and bare feet.”

Tristan Prettyman’s new album Cedar + Gold is available now.

-Annie Reuter, CBS Local