Kelly Clarkson's Stories Behind Piece by Piece, Hosting American Idol, and a Taylor Swift Cover

Kelly: I met one of them when Rozzi Crane opened up for Maroon 5 and me on the Honda Civic Tour. She's friends with them, and [Pentatonix member] Scott [Hoying] and I met backstage. Literally four days before that, somebody had mentioned Pentatonix to me because they covered my song ["Since U Been Gone"] and my assistant and I got lost in a YouTube vortex and googled all their songs and everything they did and we were so impressed by them. Then I was walking backstage past Rozzi's room [and saw Scott], and I started flipping out on him, like, "I am not bullshitting you. We YouTubed you for an hour!" I was such a fan, and then it came they were probably going to be touring at the same time, and I was like, "I want to tour with them!" I love them, and they're from the same area as me in Texas.

Do you think you guys will team up onstage?

Kelly: I want to! I'm looking forward to doing that…I have an idea in my set list where I'd love for them to join, but we'll see if it works out.

Is there anything you've been loving lately that you want to cover on this tour?

Kelly: This is the most ridiculous idea, but it's gonna work! [Laughs] I love "Drunk in Love" by Beyonce, and I'm really looking forward to doing it. I want to do it a little differently, production-wise. I have this idea, and I really hope it comes to fruition because I love that song. It's just melodically great and the production is so cool, so I'm hoping with my background singers we can do something really cool.

It's a lower range for you…until it gets super high.

Kelly: Yeah, that's what I love about Beyonce—we have a very similar range! That's why I love covering songs by her and Sia and even Adele. I just never really sing low because everyone loves me in the stratosphere, but I love a good alto part.

You and Taylor Swift have similar careers in that she went from country to pop and you went from more pop to dabbling in country. Are you ready to go full-on country next?

Kelly: Yeah, she likes different genres, and I love her new record. I'm obsessed with it. It's one of those things that I have a 13-year-old daughter, and we can both listen to it in the car and enjoy it. But I get what you're saying. We are similar in the sense that she doesn't look at music as a boundary or a limit, and I don't either. I never want to limit myself. At the core of me, I love anything soulful, so I've already been working on something country, and I'm very excited about it. I had been working on this record at the same time and had one more record to release that definitely had to be pop, so who knows what the future holds. I think it's more exciting for the audience not to do the same thing all the time. I've always loved country and R&B. I love mixing it up, and I love that Taylor's doing that. I like her country stuff, but [1989] is my favorite record of hers.