Simply put, Danielle Anderson is an entertainer. As one-woman band Danielle Ate the Sandwich, she can make you laugh right before she makes you tear up. After a few tours, a couple of homemade albums and plenty of well-received YouTube covers, Anderson is looking forward to her first studio caliber album.

IG: Have you ever thought about having a full band? What instruments compliment the ukulele?

DA: I haven’t thought about having a full band. That’s one of my biggest fears, is to be “Danielle Ate the Sandwich and the Dorky Douche Bags” kind of a band. I feel like that’s a crime of a singer/songwriter that we commonly do, but that I never want to do. But, I’m actually starting to accept and enjoy playing music with other people. For instance my friend, Dennis Bigelow, plays stand-up double bass with me sometimes on stage. I think it’s a perfect compliment. Not only because it’s kind of cute, because [his bass] is really big and [my ukulele] is really small. But, it just seems to fit really wonderfully and nowadays, when I play without him, it feels like I’m missing half of my act. So, I definitely want to play with him more, in the future, if not every time. I’m also working on a new album right now and I’m having some violin on the tracks from my friend, Chris Jusell. Also, I actually just got out of practice with a couple of the guys from Boulder Acoustic Society, and they’re going to play all kinds of instruments.

So, as far as actually playing frequently, I think the double bass is the best match. And I like the idea of having one other instrument as kind of a complement, to add a bit of a color and a vibe.

IG: How did ukulele become your instrument of choice? How long have you been playing it?

DA: I have been playing [the ukulele] for about three years now and my friend Brandon had one and I just kind of picked it up and fiddled around on it and really liked it, then wrote a little song on it. He got me one as a gift and left it on the doorstep of the coffee shop I worked at and loved, it was like the “Cheers” of my college years. [The Coffee Shop] closed down, so I was such a bitchy-grump-pants that he kind of got it for me as a “here is a ukulele, don’t be such a bitch” kind of present. So [the ukulele] kind of happened by accident and then it was fun. I feel like probably a lot of musicians can pick up an instrument and fiddle around on it and say they wrote a song, that’s kind of what I did for a while. Eventually, I wrote enough songs to play at an open-mic night. Then I wrote enough songs to do a set at a concert of just ukulele songs. Now that it has been a few years, I think that the ukulele has definitely replaced my guitar as the primary instrument I write on and prefer to play on.

IG: What can listeners and fans expect from your new album? Did you record it in a studio, outside of your home?

DA: Yeah, I recorded in a studio in Denver, Macy Sound Studios, and the main guy I’m working with is John Macy. He’s the owner, I think. I’m a little nervous about it. Because, it is going to be a lot different than what I’ve done. Obviously it’s natural to grow as a musician and whatever, but I feel like [the album] is going to be so different that everybody is going to be like, “Oh! Why did she do that? Why did she make those choices? Why did she add this and that? It’s so gross!” And that is probably natural, I guess, for people to worry. But like I said, I’m adding more instruments, and it’s obviously going to be better quality. Which I don’t think will hurt at all. I think it will only help. But I think it’s going to feel a little less intimate that way. It’s going to be crystal clear and beautiful, but I still cling to those old recordings that I did myself, because they’re my first recordings and they’re kind of naïve and vulnerable and I think that kind of the crappy recording quality compliments the vulnerability of the songs, in general.

Basically, the biggest thing [listeners] can expect is a professional product, which I hope helps me more than hurts me, and I’m sure it will.

IG: Which specific songwriters affect your writing?

DA: It’s hard to answer that question nowadays. I would say my biggest influence is Simon and Garfunkel. As I got into college, I listened to Regina Spektor. I would consider her one of my main inspirations. Not only because my songs are lovely and bizarre, but also because I watched her, as a woman, doing something totally different and weird. I was like, “Whoa? Whoa! I could do that? I can be as weird as I want but still be really beautiful and enjoyable.”