Kate Nash Grows Up on 'My Best Friend Is You' -- Exclusive Video

While some artists rush back into the studio after their first hit record, Kate Nash wanted to get away from music and live a normal life. "Taking time off is the most important thing an artist can do before a second record," Nash tells Spinner. "People make such a big deal out of it -- as if it's such a really difficult thing to do -- and it can go so badly. The reason that happens is because there's not enough time in between to actually live and have anything to write about."

Instead of sitting at her keyboard and penning lyrics for her sophomore album, the newly released 'My Best Friend Is You,' Nash got her driver's license, moved into her own place, started doing some charity work and even got herself a pet rabbit. Although she wasn't onstage every night, Nash admits that she couldn't step away from music completely so she started a new band with her friends called the Receeders in which she plays bass.

"I never really learned to play [bass]," she says. "I just picked it up and [my bandmates and I] decided we were gonna be in this band, the Receeders. We didn't really take it very seriously. I called them from my rehearsal room and I was like 'You've got to come down 'cause we're gonna do it today.' And so we did it."

With everything else Nash was doing, she finally got back into the studio to work on her new album. Staying true to her sassy and playful style, the new 14-track album shows how much the 22-year-old pop singer has grown up. "Some of the songs I wrote for the first album, I was like 16 maybe, so I'm five years older and I've learned," she says. "Being older, you've lived more, you've had more experiences, you hopefully get older and wiser. The more that you go through in life, the more you can learn and the more you've got to write about."

Although Nash doesn't hold back from writing about what frustrates her, she made sure to include songs inspired by sweeter things, such as her relationship with boyfriend Ryan Jarman of the Cribs. While she doesn't directly admit that the song 'I Hate Seagulls' is inspired by him, she does deem it the most personal tune on her new album.

"'I Hate Seagulls' is probably the most personal because it's a real, heart-on-sleeve track," she says. "It's really honest and it means a lot. It's about being in love and hating the world, hating everything that's rubbish about it, but being OK because you're in love and someone loves you back. So, you're kind of like a team -- you can block everything else out."

One surprise people will get with the album is a book of love stories to which the singer asked her friends, family and even fans to contribute. "I was trying to figure out album titles, and I came up with this idea of the book I wanted to have loads of short stories in, and I wanted people like my friends to contribute in some way," Nash says. "I wanted to get loads of different types of love and everyone's different experiences so that people could sit and read it and not feel like they're a freak or they're alone."

To hear more about 'My Best Friend Is You,' watch our exclusive video interview with Nash below.