8/27/2007 Stephen L. Betts Miranda Lambert tells the San Francisco Chronicle she gets a kick out of the fact that so many people assume she's the bad girl she portrays in her songs. “A lot of people tell me, once they get to know me, that they're surprised that I'm nothing like they think I'll be,” says the 23-year-old Lindale, Texas native. “Yeah, I have a tough-girl image. People see me as someone who doesn't take any crap from anyone - which I don't - but it's my shtick, and I obviously don't act like that all the time.” Miranda also reflects on her third-place finish during the 2003 season of Nashville Star. “I don't think I was ready to win,” she says. “Honestly, [winner] Buddy Jewell had been around Nashville for 10 years, singing and looking for a record deal. I was 19 and had never really been out of Texas, and I wasn't ready to make an album in two months. Getting third place got me all the exposure I needed, and I had time to do all I wanted to because I wasn't so rushed. The show was a huge steppingstone in my career.” And although she has something of a rebel-rousing image, with songs like “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and “Kerosene” Miranda says she’d like to convince people there's more than one side to her. “It's time for me, in my career, to really open up that vulnerable side of myself, even if it's scary to put that stuff into songs and put it out there in the world,” says Miranda. “I think my fans are ready for that. They're starting to notice that I'm a tomboy but that I also have a girlie side. I'm not always a gun-totin' mama! “But,” she adds, laughing, “I don't think I'll ever get tired of talking about guns.”
