Carrie Underwood was “super nervous” to open a few shows for Guns N’ Roses on the band’s ongoing world tour, but she couldn’t turn down the opportunity.

Underwood, a powerhouse country singer-songwriter and avid rock fan, recently spoke about her shows with Guns N’ Roses with Las Vegas Magazine as she returns to Vegas for the next set of performances in her residency, REFLECTION. Underwood opened for Guns N’ Roses on three tour stops this year, including two in Canada — in Moncton, New Brunswick, and in Montréal, Québec — and one in Nashville, Tennessee. The performances included epic onstage collaborations between Guns N’ Roses and Underwood, including “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Paradise City.” Underwood also powerfully covered classics by Joan Jett, Motorhead and others.

“I was super nervous going into the whole thing because it’s not my audience,” she said. “I haven’t been an opening act in a very long time and I would only do it for Guns N’ Roses. When they called us up and said, ‘Hey, do you want to do this?' I was like, ‘Yeah, you could pay me in tickets! I’ll sit up there and watch the show and just have fun.'”

Underwood recently released her deluxe edition of Denim & Rhinestones, introducing several new tracks just in time to perform more REFLECTION shows in Vegas. Speaking with Las Vegas Magazine about other recent career highlights, she said “it’s like there are no rules anymore. I felt like when we were writing and recording and stuff, I just wanted to be creative and make music that I wanted to listen to, and that’s what we did. ... It was just like, ‘What do we want to create?’”

Todd Matthews