Tattooed Talent Allie Colleen Infuses Personality into Her Music 'and' Her Ink — What Makes It 'Worth It'

Tattoos line the arms of country artist Allie Colleen, tattoos that tell random pieces of her incredible story, from her days growing up in Oklahoma to her time performing at honkytonks up and down the streets of Nashville.

But her newest tattoo might just tell her greatest tale.

"Have you ever seen The Princess and the Frog?" she asks during an interview with PEOPLE while describing her newest addition to her tattoo collection. "There's this beautiful firefly and he's in love with the North Star. He thinks that she's the brightest firefly on the planet and her name's Evangeline. I think that is the sweetest love on the planet ... to be a firefly and be in love with a star and have no idea."

Her sweet and genuine aura can be heard within her words, as she describes the story of her newest tattoo, a firefly that now has landed on the center of her neck.

"Those last 20 minutes were, I mean, a hundred percent like the pits of hell," she laughs of the painful tattoo session. "But it was all worth it."

This juxtaposition between the strong voice and the sweet demeanor paired with the sass of her live show makes Allie Colleen one of the most intriguing characters in country music today. With talent literally spilling from her veins, the life she leads and the music she makes comes as a result of the sweet love that she has witnessed growing up in the spotlight of her famous father, Garth Brooks.

"I had such a privilege as a kid to grow up and watch my dad fall in love and have an amazing relationship with my bonus mom," she says of her father's marriage to Trisha Yearwood back in 2005.

And in an Instagram pic Colleen shared last month, not only can you see her new firefly tattoo proudly displayed, but you can see the love between the slew of strong women in her life.

"I don't have a picture in my adult life with my mama [Sandy] and Trisha — that was the very first one," Colleen explains. "My mama lives in Oklahoma, you know, and [the rest of] my family lives here with me in Tennessee too. We're never around each other much anymore like we used to be. So, to have a picture of me and my mama and my bonus mom and my sister – that picture will always mean a lot."

The strong women gathered together on the occasion of the April 9 release of Colleen's debut album Stones, an album of songs that put Colleen's heart on a page and her strength in the hooks of songs such as "Make Me a Man," "Don't Give Your Heart to a Cowboy" and "Playin' House."

"When I think about those songs that have shaped me and that I connected to and that changed my life and saved my life in so many ways, those songs would not have impacted me in any kind of way if that vessel and that artist didn't believe in what they were singing," Colleen explains. "If I can't sing that song for 30 years and still remember why I'm singing it, you know, then that's not the song for me."

And it's this focus on vulnerability and this drive for authenticity that has built Colleen a strong and loyal fanbase made up of a majority of fans who could care less who her father is.

"Maybe, some of them come to see if I'm going to smash my guitar into 700 pieces and all that kind of stuff," she jokes. "But when they really start listening, they realize there's not a similarity between my dad and me — aside from how much we care about our music."