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Carly Rae Jepsen relishing a year of huge gigs as she prepares for Grey Cup

By: Michael Oliveira, The Canadian Press

Posted: 11/24/2012 3:02 AM | Comments: 0 | Last Modified: 11/24/2012 10:13 AM

Carly Rae Jepsen arrives at the 40th Anniversary American Music Awards on Sunday Nov. 18, 2012, in Los Angeles.It speaks to the amazing year Canadian Carly Rae Jepsen has had that her huge upcoming gig at the Grey Cup in front of more than 52,000 fans doesn't even rank as her biggest yet. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP,Jordan Strauss

TORONTO - It speaks to the amazing year Canadian Carly Rae Jepsen has had that her huge upcoming gig at the Grey Cup in front of more than 52,000 fans doesn't even rank as her biggest yet.

There was the time she sang her megahit "Call Me Maybe" at a Justin Bieber show in Mexico City in front of 300,000 fans.

Then on Thursday she performed her latest single "This Kiss" during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, an event which drew an estimated three million people to the streets of Manhattan and 50 million TV viewers.

Still, she's far from jaded about taking part in the Grey Cup halftime show on Sunday, alongside current tourmate Bieber, folk rock legend Gordon Lightfoot and the band Marianas Trench.

"It's hard to say what's the biggest (show) but it's definitely a huge honour to be a part of," Jepsen said in an interview on Friday.

"That being said, it doesn't mean I'm going to be any less excited or butterflies-nervous to be there for the Grey Cup, it's going to be a cool event."

She wouldn't say too much about the tightly orchestrated 15-minute halftime show but did reveal she'll be belting out her crowd-pleasing big hit, which has topped the charts around the world.

"I think you might" hear "Call Me Maybe," she said with a laugh. "I think you just might."

The song was originally released last year as the lead track on her debut EP "Curiosity" and was also included on her first full-length record "Kiss," which dropped in September. The enduring success of "Call Me Maybe" — which many considered the pop song of the summer, even though it began taking off early in the year — led to Jepsen being named Billboard magazine's rising star of 2012. Despite the dizzying accolades and platinum records that have piled up, Jepsen said she's not feeling any pressure to eventually top "Call Me Maybe."

"I don't look at it as pressure in a negative way, I look at it as a fun challenge, for sure, to always be pushing to be your best and make the career grow and spread the music and to be a better everything: a better performer, better songwriter," she said.

"I never really thought of 'Call Me Maybe' ... as something that needed to have a certain level of success for me to be happy about it ... and I still want to look at music the same way. My success isn't really in the numbers that we sell or anything like that but more that we feel good and hopefully make other people feel good too.

"Definitely we had a goal in mind with the album 'Kiss' that I really wanted to make something that I felt proud of and something that felt like me and I'll definitely want to do the same with the next album."

"Call Me Maybe" actually started out more like a Lightfoot tune than a Top 40 radio staple, as Jepsen initially wrote the track on an acoustic guitar with bandmate Tavish Crowe and Marianas Trench singer Josh Ramsay.

"I think all of my songs kind of sound a little folkier when they begin because I write on the guitar ... and we began 'Call Me Maybe' on the road like that, with the acoustic strumming along and kind of sang out whatever felt good. And we brought the idea to our friend Josh and he just dug it and helped us kind of pop-ify," she said.

Even though she's spent about a year travelling the world to perform and promote her album, Jepsen said she's still far from road weary.

"I've not really been in the same place for too long at all but I've made a little bit of a home on my bus and found a bit of a stableness in our band and the fact that we are each others' constant," said Jepsen, who just turned 27 this week.

"We sort of feel like we all joined the circus together. We're quite content in this adventure."

While she'll likely be working this album well into 2013, she is already thinking about the next one.

"I'm constantly writing, I'm writing on a weekly basis because it's something I kind of need to seem to do and I've got a couple ideas already afloat for what will happen with the next album," she said.

"It's a fun thing to talk about and dream about."

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