From the moment she wrote her first song at the age of 15 years old, viral sensation Alexandra Kay has always known she wanted to live a life immersed in music.

"I started writing music so I could deal with everything that I had going on in my life at the time," explains the now 29-year-old during an interview with PEOPLE. "As a teenager, I was trying to figure out who I was and where I belonged and how I should deal with things like love and heartbreak. And all of the intensity surrounding all of those things went into my songs."