Q&A: Lainey Wilson, Country’s Next Superstar, On Success On Her Terms

Lainey Wilson is having her moment. The singer/songwriter recently dominated at the Academy of Country Music Awards, winning Album of the Year, Best Female Vocalist and two other awards.

The night was a big part of Wilson’s continued rise to country superstardom. But it is only part of her journey. Between doing an upcoming song with Dolly Parton, her role on Yellowstone, a current tour with Luke Combs and more, Wilson’s big night at the ACMs was just the icing on the cake that has been her last year since releasing Bell Bottom Country.

I spoke with Wilson about why as great as awards are nothing tops the respect of her peers, her new single, “Watermelon Moonshine,” how country music is in her blood and why she is glad success came later in her career.

Steve Baltin: Are you enjoying this? You work your whole life to get this busy and then you get to this point and half the time it’s all a blur and you don’t even know where you are.

Lainey Wilson: Oh, I’m telling you, I thought people were full of s**t when they said that they didn’t know where they were or what day it was. And the truth is, there’s definitely been a couple times where I’m on stage and I’m like, I knew where I was when I walked on this stage. And right now I couldn’t tell you. I am enjoying it. I’ve got a great crew. I’ve got a great team, where it is become like family out here. Last year I slept in my bed a handful of nights, probably 15, maybe a little bit more. And this year it’s about the same. So we spent a lot of time together. It’s just like finding home out on the road. I’ve really kind of turned this bus into my house.

Baltin: You’ve worked so hard to get to this point that now when you’re winning awards as for Album of the Year and Best Female Artist. Do you feel you’re appreciating it more right now because it has been a long road?

Wilson: That’s right. Everybody’s got their own journey. For me, I will tell you, when I moved to Nashville, I was 19 years old, I thought I was ready. I thought I was ready to sell out some shows and get a publishing deal, get a record deal. But the truth is, I had not lived enough life at that time to tell the stories that I needed to tell. And so I’m thankful that I’ve been in Nashville for 12 years. I’m thankful that I just turned 31 yesterday and wrote my first song at nine. I’ve working on this my entire life, I’ve dedicated my life to country music and I’ve loved it so much and damn, it feels good that it’s finally starting to love me back.

Baltin: At what point did you get that perspective?

Wilson: I definitely feel like, of course I’ve grown as a singer and songwriter over the last 12 years I’ve been in Nashville, but more so I’ve grown as a person. I feel like I can read through things. I feel like I’m a real good detective. I feel like I know who’s got my best interest at heart and who doesn’t, and I think that probably does come along with just getting older and being around a lot of different folks. It’s taken me the 12 years of being in Nashville to find this exact team. It’s like, I met my manager, Mandolin, probably back in 2016. I had been in Nashville at that point for five years, and didn’t get a publishing deal until about year seven and then a record deal year eight. But I believed time was supposed to be a part of my story, I think for the little boys and girls sitting at home, watching people’s journeys. I think mine was supposed to show them like, “Hey, if you got a dream, then don’t have a plan B. If you got a plan B, then plan A is not gonna work.” And that makes me sound a little bit psycho. And I guess to be honest, you’ve got to be a little psycho to do this [laughter].

Baltin: I think you’ve got to be a lot psycho. But in a very positive way.You know that you are going to be facing rejection, all these hard times. So, yes, you have to be a little bit psycho because you have to know that you can’t function in any other job. That this is the only thing that you can do.

Wilson: Oh my gosh. I could go home to Louisiana and help my daddy farm and do stuff like that, but this is all I’ve ever wanted to do. And like you just said, this is really the only thing I know how to do. This is the thing that gives me life. It has kicked me in the gut a lot, but I’m so hard-headed and my parents taught me that if you fall off, you get right back on. I grew up riding horses. My daddy’s a farmer. Also, farming really goes hand in hand with really the music business. You get up every day, you bust your tail, you have good years, you have bad years. A storm could roll through and wipe it all away, but if it’s your livelihood and in your heart and in your soul, then you just get up and you just deal with it. And so that’s what I have chosen to do, and definitely have to be a little borderline crazy to do that.

Baltin: To me there’s nothing that means more than having the respect of your peers. So when you’re doing a song with Dolly Parton, is there that moment where you’re like, “All right, yeah, I’ve been kicked in the gut 150 times and you know what, I’d do it 150 more because it brought me here?”

Wilson: You are dang right. I wouldn’t change any of it. I’m thankful for every single no, I’m thankful for, “You are not good enough.” I’m thankful for, “You’re too country.” I’m thankful for all of it. And, it really is crazy, just like you said, for me, winning the awards, of course it feels like another notch on my belt. And one of those things of like, all right, it’s proven to me that we’re on the right path. That listening to my heart and my gut about these songs that I’ve been writing, I was right. That little nine-year old girl who wrote her first song and had stars in her eyes, like she knew that she was gonna do it. And it’s one of those moments for me. But I will say I definitely did not move to Nashville to win awards. I moved there to tell stories and it feels really cool to tell my stories and have my people who have influenced me and people who have paved a way. People I have looked up to, start to notice. And to me, that is more powerful right there.

Baltin: I think writing is a great teaching tool. Do you learn a lot writing?

Wilson: There’s no better feeling than writing a special song. I enjoy putting myself into the shoes of whatever it is that we’re singing and talking about, because it really is therapeutic. I’ve learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about the folks in the room that I’m writing a song with, but also just about life in general. And I want to be the worst writer in the room, to feel like I have learned something.I’m learning that I change daily. I’m learning that, my gosh, it’s really important to live somewhat of a normal life in the midst of all this craziness right now in order for me to write the kind of music that I need to write to connect to my fans. My fans are hardworking, blue collar folks who take pride in what they do. They take pride in busting their tail to earn a living for their families. And it’s important to me that if I’m singing songs about riding horses and changing tires and doing those things, the things that I grew up doing — my parents kind of raised me like a little boy — it’s important to me to make sure that I carve out enough time to do those things. It’s like practicing what you preach. And even I wrote this song called “Atta Girl” that was on my last record, it was pretty much a letter that I wrote to myself, when I felt like I was never gonna see the light at the end of the tunnel, when I felt like I was never gonna see better days. It’s also a song or a letter that I would write to my girlfriends, my sister. Just a reminder to keep your head held high. And so sometimes, I’m writing these things and I’m thinking about my fans and the girls and the audience, like, “What are the things that they’re gonna really latch onto and connect to?” But the truth is, in the process of doing that, I feel like I’m healing myself as well.

Baltin: When you think about the music that you grew up on, who are those people who practice what they preach for you?

Wilson: Folks that I think of, Reba [McEntire], I think she has done a great job and even Dolly, at remaining herself throughout her entire journey. And not being scared of experiencing new things and trying new things. Kind of straddling the line of doing the acting thing, doing the music thing, always making sure that the music is the priority. But I really look up to women like that. And in the ’90s I think of Shania [Twain], I think of those women who just went for it. And when I think about folks nowadays that I feel like practice what they preach in their music and in real life, I think of Eric Church. I’ve never even met him personally, but if I had to guess the things that he is singing about, it’s true. I believe him. And if it’s not true, dang, he’s done a great job at making you think that it is. I think of Chris Stapleton, I think of those songwriters, the kind of artist who make sure that their songwriting is the main focus and the main priority.

Baltin: You mentioned Reba and Dolly in the acting and obviously, you’ve had now Yellowstone. When you find you’re doing something like Yellowstone, does it feed into the music?

Wilson: Absolutely. I feel like even just spending time out on the Yellowstone Ranch, when I got pack off that ranch I was just wanting to write Western stuff. I felt it in my soul. I felt that deep connection to it. And so for me personally, I do feel like the places that I go or the places that I am even in mentally or emotionally, they do play a big old part into what I’m writing.

Baltin: Are there moments on this record now that kind of surprise you?

Wilson: For sure. I feel like every time I hear it or listen to it or, because I’ll be honest, I’m so proud of the record that I’ll hear a song and kind of forget that it’s me. So I definitely feel like I learn something or see something from a different angle every single time that I sing it or that I listen to it. During the Pandemic, I wrote 300 plus songs. I had a lot of time on my hand, so I wanted to make dang sure that if we were gonna cut 12 songs that or however many we were gonna go in there and cut at that time that I had written three, I wanted to write those 300. And after I really kind of figured out which songs were the cream of the crop, I did understand that there was kind of an underlying sentiment to all of them. And the reason I called it Bell Bottom Country is because to me bell bottom country means country with a flare. And it’s about finding whatever it is about you that makes you different and unique and leaning into it as much as you possibly can. It could be the way that you talk, the way that you dress. It could be your story, where you were raised. Anything that you’re like, “You’re dang right, this is me and not giving a crap what anybody’s got to say about it.” And I feel like I’m also learning how to do that a little bit more every single day, especially with the way things are growing and moving right now. A lot more people have a lot to say than they did even six, seven months ago. A lot, a lot more great comments, but also some bad ones. And it’s about figuring out and finding out which voices are the only ones that matter and it’s the people who know me to my core. And being okay with that when I lay my head down at night.

Baltin: I know you’re here in LA in July, you’re doing SoFi, which is, 60,000 people or whatever it is. Are there songs for you right now that when you look out and you see an audience of that size, you just can’t wait to play them?

Wilson: “Watermelon Moonshine,” that’s my next single. And it is one that it seems like everybody already knows. I’m playing these Luke Combs shows right now and we’re playing stadiums and everybody’s singing it. It’s about that young, wild, crazy love, like a time in your life when nothing else mattered. A lot of folks have compared it to a modern day “Strawberry Wine” and I’m fine with that. That’s one of the songs that was the soundtrack of my childhood.