Bankrate: It's unusual for an opening act to develop this sort of bond with a veteran headliner. How did that happen?

Vanessa Carlton: I've been analyzing that from a gender point of view, which is, men mentor other men. They tend to take pride in raising an apprentice. I know it happens more often than women mentoring other women. Women are more territorial, more innately competitive. This is a general theory I have.

I've met other legendary rock chicks, and the connection I had with Stevie, it wasn't gonna click in like that. But Stevie is extraordinarily generous. She has a very high IQ, and very pure -- no (B.S.). So our personalities just (connected).

I'm very sarcastic, but very transparent. You always know how I feel. I'm not sycophantic, but I'm respectful. For whatever reason, we just jived on every level. I almost don't wanna talk about it because I don't wanna exploit it. But here I am singing about her because she put me back in the fight, and believes in me so much. What she's given me was so necessary, although she would disagree. She would say, "This is a dying industry. Your record has to work."

Bankrate: You mentioned your transformation before. What did you mean by that?

Vanessa Carlton: I think a general way of looking at my life. It's kinda what "Heroes and Thieves" is about, the premise that when heroes and thieves show up at your door, you can't tell them apart anymore. There are a few unsteady years -- for some people it lasts longer -- but it's hard to be in your 20s and just figure out not only what kind of artist you want to grow into and what kind of artistic impressions you want to make, but what kind of woman you want to be.

You have to be able to suss out the heroes from the thieves in order to create the world you want to exist in, and how you want to carve out your life. So I started asking those questions two years ago, when I started to go through another set of changes, and (there was) a lot of growth and a lot of lessons learned. The transformation never ends.

Bankrate: You've talked about how the sentiment you expressed in the chorus of "A Thousand Miles" is one you would never express today ("You know I'd walk/ A thousand miles/ If I could just see you"). How do you think your evolving maturity made this a different record than your previous two?

Vanessa Carlton: I think it's just the idea that none of us are in control in this life, really. You can decide what kind of person you want to be and what kind of people you want to interact with, but ... I don't know. I'm so convoluted in my own mind, because I think there are some dark, Debbie Downer songs. For instance, "Fools Like Me." It's a song about a relationship and betrayal, and even as dark as that is -- and that's the worst kind of pain, we all know, aside from, like, your child dying -- the idea is that it ends with, "I'd pick the fool any day."