Sara Bareilles takes a detour on the road to a music career

"Oh, my God, are we actually doing this or does it end tomorrow?"

That's Sara Bareilles describing life as a breakout artist.

Seven years after getting her start at college open-mic nights and then local clubs, the 28-year-old Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter and pianist behind the breezy "Love Song" off her 2007 Epic debut, "Little Voice," is following up on the success of her first international headlining tour.

"I feel like the stars have aligned," she says.

For Bareilles, it's been a long, slow uphill climb.

The Northern California native has been writing songs for as long as she can remember. But it wasn't until 2001, while studying abroad in Bologna, Italy, that Bareilles says she decided to pursue music professionally.

"While I was gone, I had a revelation about what music was for me in my life," she says. "It was no longer a hobby. It was very much a part of me feeling passionate and fulfilled. I really felt like it was my calling."

What brought it on, she says, was the feeling of alienation that came with living in a foreign country.

"I didn't know anyone," Bareilles says. "I also didn't have a musical outlet, and it was in the absence of music that I realized how important it was to me.

"I was so depressed, and I didn't know how to make it better, and then I happened on a little music school, where I met somebody. That day I found music."

When she got back to the U.S., where she was attending UCLA, Bareilles put her music front and center, writing poetry and songs about life.

She took her songs to coffee shops, restaurants and clubs.

"I played everywhere in L.A. and did it as much as I possibly could."

In 2003, Bareilles self-released the album "Careful Confessions" and shopped it around to various record labels.

She signed to Epic in 2005 and began work on her debut with famed producer Eric Rosse (Tori Amos, Anna Nalick, Lisa Marie Presley).

The two produced "Little Voices," an album that contains some of the songs featured on Bareilles' demo.

"It felt really good to put them together and make a collage, so to speak, of the chapters of my life," she says. "It chronicles my relationships and my breakups and things I see in the world and things I wish I could change. You know, It's very autobiographical."

Rolling Stone has called the album "slightly edgy, stompy piano-based pop rock" and praised Bareilles for a writing voice that is "uniquely her own."

Fans thought so, too.

Bareilles' catchy hit, "Love Song," found success on iTunes before landing at the top of the Billboard Pop 100 chart. More recently, her follow-up single, "Bottle It Up," was featured in a TV spot for Rhapsody that starred Bareilles at her piano.

"It's been a total roller-coaster ride," she says. "But you know, I feel like we just got lucky."