Florida native Brooke Eden is building traction with country fans thanks to her honest songwriting and top-notch pipes. The singer-songwriter recently spoke with The Boot, chatting about her newest single, "Act Like You Don't," her connection to Cassadee Pope and the gig that helped her build her undeniable stage presence.

First, let's go back a year: Right around this time in 2016, Eden was promoting her single "Daddy's Money," written by Kallie North and Jessy Wilson, specifically for Eden and about her life.

"My dad worked so hard when I was growing up. I always asked him, ‘Daddy, can we please move to Nashville? I want to be a singer.’ He said, ‘Honey, we don’t have the money to move, but I promise you that I’ll give you all the tools so that when you’re ready to move, you’ll be able to do it on your own,'" Eden recalled to The Boot last year. "And he did."

Eden's dad moonlighted in a country band, working his carpenter job during the day and heading to bars as a drummer at night. Since he was familiar with the life of a musician, he was able to give his daughter very sensible advice.

"Dad was kind of the realist when it came to my career," Eden admits. "I was all butterflies and rainbows with my head up in the clouds, and he said, 'Honey, this is a really hard life, and i want you to know that before you really dive into this. You could very easily be a businesswoman, have a 9-5, come home and have a family and kids -- it's a lot harder to do it when you're in this industry.'"

Eden's father taught her about rejection and helped her develop a thick skin: "He always showed me the reality of the music industry," she adds, "instead of letting my head be up in the clouds."

It's because of her father's country band that Eden got her start onstage early: Because she was singing around the house "all the time" as a child, he asked her if she wanted to perform with him. Eden was only five years old at the time, so she "never had the chance to be nervous or scared onstage."

"It definitely gave me a leg up," she notes.

Eden's connection to Pope also goes back to her childhood: The two have known each other since they were about 10 years old, they attended the same high school, and their mothers are best friends. Although they're both in Nashville now, Eden and Pope don't get to see each other too often, due to their busy schedules, but they're scheming something: "We really want to do a duet soon," Eden confesses.

Eden had only written two songs before moving to Nashville, but she immediately dove into Music City's writing community, with several writers taking her under their experienced wings.

"My whole life, I've really loved English," Eden notes. "I love to write stories, and when I was in college, I really just wanted to start writing."

For now, the song Eden's concentrating on is her current single, "Act Like You Don't," from her 2016 release, Welcome to the Weekend. She wrote it to overcome what she calls a "strange and hard" breakup, which happened two years ago. She was trying to move on, but her ex would text, saying that he missed her and still wanted to be friends.

"Then we would be back together again, and then we would break up [again]," remembers Eden. "It was a really long breakup. We knew it wouldn't last, but we kept sitting on this thing because neither of us wanted to be lonely."

The inspiration for "Act Like You Don't" came from the moment she told him, "If you ever loved me, I need you to act like you don't. I can't do this anymore."

Welcome to the Weekend is available now. Visit Eden's website for more information.

Listen to Brooke Eden, "Act Like You Don't":

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