With four hit albums and a Christmas album, under her belt, Colbie Caillat is ready to do things her way. This is why she’s launched her own label, PlummyLou Records, the first release off of which will be her first-ever acoustic album, The Malibu Sessions.

The Malibu Sessions is due out October 7, and Colbie will be hitting the road the following day for a month-long US tour. Myspace caught up with her before she packed her things, to find out more about the tour, the album and her very chill writing sessions on the beach.

For your upcoming album, and tour, you've gone acoustic. Other than the intimacy of playing acoustic, what inspired you to want to go this route?

It’s always been the form that I've loved best. Whenever I write a song it’s usually just me, or me and a couple of songwriter friends in a room with our guitars. I just have always loved the way that sounds.

I’ve always loved singing in my bathroom because of the reverb, and I think that as much as I love full music, where there’s tons of instruments, and beats, and all that, for me, as a singer, it’s easier to sing to something more stripped down, so I’ve always loved my acoustic shows.

Singing is my main instrument. I play a little guitar, and a little piano, to write songs, and I accompany myself on some of the songs, but if I can focus on my singing, and hear myself well, and then interact with the audience, and interact with my band members more, it’s my favorite. I’ve always wanted to do a full tour this way.

Tell us a little bit about what the live show will be like.

This is going to be a very storytelling kind of show. We’re playing the new album from start to finish, and ending the show with a good amount of old songs that people know. In between all of it we’re going to tell stories about the songs we wrote.

I’m really really excited. I kind of feel like I’m in a band now, because my favorite people, my best friends, my fiance, they’re the ones I wrote and recorded this whole album with, and they’re my band on this live tour, so we get to just tell stories, and laugh together, and I feel like the audience really is gonna get to know us personally, and get a better connection with the songs.

Rewinding a bit, you mentioned you enjoy singing in the bathroom. Do you have specific songs you sing in the shower?

I don’t have a go-to song. I catch on to anything that’s playing, even if it’s a song that I hear on the radio and I hate. I love singing, and melodies just get stuck in my head, so all day long you’ll find me singing, or humming, and I don’t even, honestly, realize I’m doing it. Especially if I have a new song written, and I just wrote it that week, that’s what I’ll be singing.

I know you also like to hike. What have been some of the most beautiful places you've hiked?

Oh my gosh, on the island of Kauai, everywhere. It’s an amazing hiking spot. I haven’t really hiked while traveling. The cities that we go to, usually we just jog through the cities for sightseeing, and for exercise, but I haven't done crazy hiking in different countries, or different states.

In a recent Instagram post celebrating your big sister you revealed A LOT about your younger years. I think my favorite revelation was that you partied on Sunset Boulevard with a fake ID. I want some details here. How old were you, where did you go, and how crazy did things get?

My sister’s five years older, so we started going out with her and her friends when I was 15. My two best friends and I, we would go with my sister and all her friends, because they were in a band, so they would always be playing at The Roxy and The Whiskey, so we’d get to go out with them. I looked so much like my sister that she got me another ID of hers, and we went in at separate times.

The thing is, I say we partied, and we did, we definitely drank. We didn’t do drugs, but we drank while underage, but my sister and her friends were super responsible, so I felt like we actually learned the right way. We learned the right things to drink, and not to over-drink, and her friends were really protective of us, so we would never just go off with random people. We felt like we were being taught the safe way to go out, and party, if that’s what you want to say. Then I feel like when I was 21 it was already out of my system. I’d learned it all. Now I’m a homebody, and I just go to wine bars sometimes.

Were you ever caught by your parents?

What’s funny is my parents totally knew, and they were cool with it because they knew we were responsible, and we were going to see live music, and we shouldn’t not be allowed to see live music just because of age.

In the same Instagram post about partying with your sister, you mentioned you’re a fan of whiskey. What's your main activity while drinking whiskey? Are you kicking back, or are you writing music?

I don’t usually drink while writing, now that I think of it. It’s not like I’m opposed to it, it’s just mostly with writing sessions, they’re more scheduled nowadays, so you’re not gonna go drink at the studio, but whenever we’re in Hawaii, and we’re writing naturally, we’ll definitely be having beers at the beach.

I want to hear some stories about having a few beers on the beach, and writing music, because that sounds awesome.

Yeah, it’s just so much fun. In Hawaii everything is super laid back. You don’t get in trouble for having glass, or alcohol, on the beaches. You’re allowed to park on the sand. It’s not like California, or any other beaches, where you have to pay to park, and they’re a stickler about everything. It’s more relaxed, and I feel like, in turn, everyone respects it, so people pick up after themselves. No one’s getting stupid.

We usually just bring our guitars and sit on the beach, jump in the water and stand up paddle board, and then open a beer, pick up the guitar and write a couple songs. That’s what we did for this album. A couple songs on this album were written on the beach in Kauai. It’s relaxing, just having a couple beers in the sun.