If there's anything to learn from Kate Voegele's success, it's that anything is possible. Just two years ago Kate was an up-coming music artist juggling getting her music career off the ground, with life as a college freshman at Miami University in Ohio. She had just signed with the new label MySpace Records as their first artist. Fast forward to the present, and Kate's not only got a guest stint on One Tree Hill under her belt, but also a debut album, a crazy load of tours around the States, and quite a few of songs being used in film trailers such as The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 and in television shows such as Kyle XY, The Hills, So You Think You Can Dance, and of course One Tree Hill. But before we jump about declaring how awesome this girl and her music are, let's rewind a bit and take a look at Kate's humble beginnings...

Kate chilling with her guitar.

It could be said that music has always been in Kate's blood. Born on December 8, 1986, Kate Elizabeth Voegele is the daughter of Bill and Betsy. Kate claims that she learnt everything about music from her father, a musician, who has also released an album. Mother, Betsy, also sings, but not professionally. Growing up, Kate listened to much of the music her parents did – Carole King, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Eric Clapton – all artists which influence Kate's own music today.

"My dad has always played the guitar and was a songwriter just as a hobby. So I grew up with him singing James Taylor when I was a baby, my mom would sing me to sleep with blah blah blah, so I kind of learned to sing and stuff when I was really little and was really interested in music and stuff , I was in choir and everything, but I didn't start playing guitar until I was 15 really. My dad bought me one in 5th grade, he played and he wanted us to play, but I didn't want to cut my fingernails." revealed Kate in an interview with thedeadhub.com earlier this year.

Unlike her OTH alter ego, Kate is really outgoing in real life.

At the age of 10, Kate began singing with The Riverside Children's Choir. Attending Bay High School, Kate was in the chorus for a production of "Once Upon a Mattress". She was also a "Rockettes" cheerleader in High School. Her spirited personality saw Kate join the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority at Miami University, once she attended college. And if her savyness didn't already clue you in, Kate is one intelligent chick – during her two years at Miami University where she studied Art Education, Kate scored pretty much close to straight As. She had actually been accepted into New York University, but turned it down in favour of staying closer to home.

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You wouldn't guess it, but Kate was only 15 when she began writing her own songs, inspired by a break up with a former boyfriend. In fact her first single "Only Fooling Myself" was partly written when Kate was bored in Health class! How's that for being productive with class time hey? "I kind of decided to become a singer songwriter by accident. I guess I never really thought, I'm gonna try and be famous someday..? I just picked up the guitar because it seemed like a fun thing to learn how to do and started writing songs just for fun. Soon enough, I had stuff recorded and people wanted to hear more, so I started thinking this was something I'd want to do for a career," said Kate in an interview with Parx-E Web Zine.

In 2003, Kate released an EP titled "The Other Side", which was followed by the EP "Louder Than Words" in February 2005. In 2005 Kate was the first prize winner in the USA Songwriting Competition Pop Category for her song "Only Fooling Myself. The following year she won first place in the New York Songwriter's Circle Contest for "I Won't Disagree". But the real success story begins in October 2006 when Kate became the first artist to sign with MySpace Records. MySpace founder Tom Anderson sent Kate a message asking if she had been signed yet. Kate had been talking with a few labels but didn't feel that they were right for music and agreed to meet with Tom. From the start, Kate was made comfortable and had no hesitations in signing with MySpace Records and their partner Interscope Records. Today, the number of song plays on Kate's MySpace is well past the 17 million plus mark, so it's safe to say that Kate has no regrets with signing with what was a virtually unknown label at the time. "They believed in me from the beginning. Without them and my management–everybody on my whole team–I think it would be impossible to be where I am now. That's probably been one of the greatest milestones in my career," Kate told LiveDaily.

Kate, sharing a scene with Bethany Joy Galeotti on OTH.

Kate's debut album Don't Look Away was released on May 22, 2007, and it was during this time that Kate realised that she could no longer juggle studying with her growing music career, and left her Art Education degree at Miami University in Ohio, to focus on her music career. "It was hard when I was trying to pull it off. I was there for two years, and I stopped going in May [2007], so I would be a Junior now but it got way too hard. It was so much and I'm glad I did it but it was like giving 200% all the time which was impossible so...but it was a great great school," Kate told thedeadhub.com earlier this year. No stranger to the innovative online world, Kate is now undertaking a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, online with the University of Phoenix, which allows her to study at her own pace.

Kate signing autographs at a Meet and Greet.

2007 just kept bigger and bigger when Kate auditioned for the role of shy-keyboardist-turned- sassy- rockstar Mia Catalano. Rumour has it that Kate beat out a couple of Grammy winners for the role of Mia. If that's true, we're impressed! When we first met Mia, she was the shy keyboardist in Kevin Federline's arrogant character's band, lurking in the background, a character that was opposite to the person Kate is now. Despite this, Kate got actually relate to the character of Mia quite a lot and found herself at times bringing bits of "Kate" out in "Mia". "When I was 15 and I was just starting out, I didn't have any confidence that this was what I was going to do. Mia starts out not believing in herself quite yet. There were other parts of the character that were really similar to me. She's just young, and I'm really young. She was supposed to be 17, and I'm 21, but I'm very young-spirited. I love to have fun, and I'm very spontaneous. She ends up coming out of her shell a little bit—not giving anything away—but there's a lot of my own personality in her career. It was cool to do something different than playing myself," Kate told artistdirect.com

Kate's OTH character Mia, went from shy girl to rockstar

Fans were immediately drawn to Mia and Kate when One Tree Hill returned at the start of this year. The exposure that Kate received from the show, prompted her to re-release her album with a few bonus tracks. Last month you may have heard Kate's song "Lift Me Up" used as an Olympic anthem. She's also recorded "When You Wish Upon a Star" for the DisneyMania CD. And rumour has it that we will see a bit more of Mia in Season Six of One Tree Hill which begins airing this month, leaving fans quite excited. Additionally, Kate is quite the busy girl, currently touring all over the USA, playing in 40 cities right through to October.

You know you've made it big when you appear on TRL.

In spite of all the touring, Kate does have some material up her sleeve for her next album, claiming to have enough original material for 10 studio albums! "As an artist, I'm always writing because I'm always inspired by everything that's going on around me. I'm having all these amazing experiences, now that I'm on tour and meeting people and hanging out with everybody and seeing new places; it's incredibly inspirational. I'm always writing. I can't wait to get in the studio again, although I'm definitely still really excited about doing this record and riding it out," said Kate in an interview with online magazine Fanvasion.

At the end of the day, Kate's an ordinary girl who was lucky enough to make it big, proof that you really can reach the seemingly impossible – all you have to do is try! "You know, if you had told me when I was in fourth grade that I would be writing music someday that the Hanson brothers thought was good enough to take me on tour with them, I mean, I would've stopped breathing. So, it's a pretty cool thing! It's awesome and it's very flattering and it's encouraging, and that's one of the coolest things about this, you know when people who you really look up to and who you really respect artistically, respect what you do also," she told Fanvasion a few months ago.

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