Kaylee Bell on touring NZ: 'Giving the fans a cuddle is a highlight of the night for me'

Two years after her song 'Keith' had "a massive global moment" via The Voice Australia, Kaylee Bell is now the most-streamed female country music artist in Australasia.

But although Australia was where it all started and the crowds there are great, performing for Kiwis has become one of Bell's favourite things to do in recent years.

"Meeting the fans at the end to say thank you and give them a cuddle is such a highlight of the whole night for me. It's getting to that point now where I'm actually starting to know these people and their lives the third year round, you know," she tells RNZ's Music 101.

In the song 'Heartbeat' from her new album Cowboy Up, Bell "timestamps" the joyful surprise of discovering she was pregnant last year in Nashville.

Seeing a positive pregnancy test was "shocking" as someone who'd struggled with a series of debilitating health issues since her teens, she says.

"I've had a lot of issues over the years with my health, and just didn't think it was something that I'd ever have the chance to do. I kind of burst into tears, and was like, 'This is my life. I need to write the song.'"

For the first time, Cowboy Up was recorded not in Nashville but at Bell's home studio in Auckland, while she was 34 weeks pregnant with her now eight-month-old son James.

Banned from flying, Bell flew in her producer, Tom Jordan.

"We actually got to take our time the morning, grab a coffee, head into the studio, just work as late as we wanted to.

"We're already plotting how we can bring Nashville to New Zealand."

Six weeks after James' birth, Bell was back on stage at this year's CMC Rocks festival in Queensland, playing one of her biggest-ever shows to more than 30,000 people.

While it was "a lot" to get herself there, with James on the side of the stage and also her sister, Bell says it was one of her best gigs she's played to date.

"You have moments where you work really hard in this industry, and then you see something like that happen, people singing back your songs. We were like, that is what all the hard work is for. It felt very fulfilling in so many different ways."

As an independent artist who's never had a record deal or a manager, Bell knows firsthand that the relationship between a musician and their fans is "a solid two-way street".

Her eight-month-old son, whose "wee face" lights up when he hears female singers, seems to be one already.

"We have a morning routine where we get up and make a coffee and I put on a record, and I've just been slotting in a lot of female artists.

"He very much loves female voices, which I think obviously comes from hearing his mum sing all the time when he was in the womb."