Christina Perri performed a special Mix Lounge show in Boston Tuesday afternoon, and interspersed her performances with questions from Gregg Daniels. She kicked off the show with her “fairy tale”-esque story on how she broke into the music business.

Perri moved to Los Angeles at age 21, and spent all of her time there working as a waitress while she created demos. She describes her early days there as saying she “did all the wrong things and went through what I thought were all the wrong doors, and ended up in the right place at the right time.”

A friend of Christina’s eventually gave her demo to makers of the TV show So You Think You Can Dance, but thought nothing of it. Five days later, she received a phone call from the show telling her they loved the demo and wanted her to perform on the show.

As she says, that “never happens” in Hollywood! Christina also admits the show was her first live performance ever. She said she “grew like 10 grey hairs” just anticipating the performance.

She continued talking about Jason Mraz, who lent his vocals for a duet version of new single “Distance,” which she performed as part of the Mix Lounge show. Check out the Q&A in the video at the top.