Apple Music Archives - off the record

INTERVIEW: Joy Oladokun Launches ‘Light on Radio’

Imogen Marshall — Sat, 28 May 2022 06:00:00 +0000

Joy Oladokun launches ‘Light on Radio’ an interview show on Apple Music Country. Listen to the first episode here.

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Acclaimed singer and songwriter Joy Oladokun launches ‘Light On Radio‘, a new bi-weekly radio series airing on Apple Music’s global live-streaming radio station Apple Music Country. On ‘Light On Radio‘, Oladokun celebrates music’s power to bring people together and shines a light on her favorite artists, songwriters, and storytellers.

“This is a radio show about life, love, mental health, and good tunes. I’m really excited to share songs that I love and songs that I’ve forgotten about and also to talk about things that really matter to me. I think that music is this great medium that we have to say things that really mean a lot in ways that aren’t as offensive to the palate, so let’s have some hard but good discussions,” says Oladokun in the premiere episode.

She adds: “I really do believe with my whole heart that music is one of the means that we have to help each other and heal each other and it’s this really spiritual cosmic force that can be used for great good if you’re paying attention. I’m gonna play songs that I love and play songs that have helped me through hard times or play songs that have asked hard questions of me or the people who wrote them.”

On the inaugural episode, Oladokun touches on mental health, current events, the importance of self care, and being influenced by the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Maren Morris, and Aretha Franklin. She also plays an eclectic mix of tracks from Brittany Howard, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, The Chicks, Michael Kiwanuka, and more.

With ‘Light On Radio‘, Oladokun joins the ranks of Tim McGraw, Fancy Hagood, Rissi Palmer, Dave Cobb, Morgan Evans, Dierks Bentley, and Maren Morris, all of whom have helmed original radio shows on Apple Music Country.

Listen to the first episode of Light on Radio at apple.co/_LightOnRadio, anytime on demand with an Apple Music subscription.

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INTERVIEW: Jenna Paulette on Apple Music

Imogen Marshall — Sat, 07 May 2022 06:00:20 +0000

Jenna Paulette joins the latest episode of London To Nashville Radio With The Shires on Apple Music Country. During the chat, she tells Ben and Crissie about being mentored by legendary songwriter Ashley Gorley, being inspired by Kenny Chesney to apply her degree to her career in music, and more. Listen back on demand anytime with an Apple Music subscription here.

Jenna Paulette Tells Apple Music About Being Mentored By Ashley Gorley…

Honestly, he was brutal with me, and I say that in the best way, because I never wanted anybody to just be nice to me and say, “Oh, that song is good. That song is good.” He would dissect my songs with me and say why something could be better. There were just so many things that I didn’t know how to think critically about that he helped me think critically about, and it completely shifted my perspective on songwriting. It became more of, “Oh, yes, this is an artsy thing, and yes, we get to write cool stories, but how do we do this in a way that is the most effective on the listener’s heart and mind?” Their mind is important to keep engaged throughout the whole part of the song, and you want them to want to listen to that second verse. I think if he hadn’t been so critical with me over my own music, that a lot of my songs would probably lose people after the first chorus. You have to make them want to come back and listen again and again and again.

Jenna Paulette Tells Apple Music About Her Applying Her University Experience To Her Work In Music…

I was reading an article about Kenny Chesney, and Kenny had gotten his marketing degree. I just thought that was awesome, and just have seen how strategically he has pursued his career and how much he owns his slice of pie, his part of the market. Yeah, so I just thought maybe that would help me out there, and it really has. I went to all of my professors and just said, “Hey, I want to do country music for a living. Do you all mind if I just apply this class to doing that?” None of them said no. So I felt like I had a leg up going into country music because I was looking at it from a marketing and business standpoint as much as I was from an artistic standpoint. Yeah, so thanks, Kenny Chesney, for being my inspiration for that.

Jenna Paulette Tells Apple Music About Her Move To Nashville & Hopes For The Future…

For me, it was family. I love my family. We are all extremely close. And being far away from the ranch. It was both of those things for me. I always tell people I want to pull a George Strait on this place. I’ll be here as often as I need to be, and write songs here and do all of that; but the goal for me is to be able to tour and perform all over the United States and the world, and be able to go home to raise some cattle and kids too. Yeah, I want it all, and I want to do it all on a very high level. So the hardest thing for me was leaving all of that behind and not feeling like I was home home, like I do when I’m back in Texas.

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INTERVIEW: Riley Green Joins Thomas Rhett

Imogen Marshall — Mon, 02 May 2022 06:00:40 +0000

Riley Green joins Thomas Rhett for an interview on Where We Started Radio to share how he first got involved in music, the story behind his hit “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” and how their collaboration on “Half Of Me” came to be. Tune in and listen to the interview with Riley Green in-full on-demand with an Apple Music subscription here.

Riley Green on doing music in his teen years

You know, in school, I wasn’t a big… I wasn’t a big music guy. I would never really consider myself a musician. I played three sports. I did construction work in the summer with my dad. And my musical influences, and I guess passion for it, kind of came from my granddaddy, Buford. He was a big country music fan. I wrote a song about him, I played at his funeral in 2010. He wasn’t good. He didn’t play guitar, but he had one and we both liked it so much, we’d just sit around and try to play it. It led to him calling up some buddies that played and we started a little music hall at my grandparents’ house. And that was just kind of a little side project and they never had any goals or aspirations of being in music, but just… He enjoyed it, so that’s what we did.

Riley Green on being a college athlete and doing music at the same time

So I walked on at Jacksonville State, I was initially a walk on. The college, like going to class part, was not for me. I struggled there. My mom would say I could get up at four o’clock in the morning and go walk through a swamp and try to kill a duck but I couldn’t make it to a 9:45 class. What was really been beneficial for me in the sense of my music was I met all those people in this college town. That’s when I started playing the little music was in college, on weekends I go play in bars. People came to the shows not because I was all that good, they just knew that was where the party was at in a small town like that. The transition from football, the lack of that career going anywhere kind of started me playing these hole in the wall bars every weekend.

Riley Green on pursuing music after finishing college

So I get out of college, and I had business cards with my phone number on it. I was passing out to people that own bars and didn’t have anybody working for me. It was just word of mouth. I started getting calls to go play bars, and it started to gradually get bigger, Northeast Alabama slipping into Georgia every once in a while. I met up one of my old ball coaches from Jacksonville. The head coach got fired and he moved into an apartment I was living in and he was a big Jamey [Johnson] fan and just a big fan of the same country music that I liked. Jamey being from Alabama and him seeing that, how it happened, man, you should try to get his gig in Nashville. We went and played in Tootsies one time and I’ll never forget. This was early on. This was 2014 or ’15. I rode up first time ever being in Nashville, and there was a line of people to the door waiting to play. It was an open mic and everybody that played after me was 10 times better than me and it was the most miserable thing. I was like, “Man, I’m never coming back up here.” I know people don’t like me back home so it really made me concentrate on just kind of hammering out those honky-tonk bars everywhere somebody wanted to see me and controlling what I could control. And that was getting better, trying to write a little bit and just put on a good show. Just go to a coffee shop and make people stop and sit down to drink and look up. That was my goal, trying to figure out how to do that.

Riley Green on “There Was This Girl”

I had some success with songs like “Georgia Time” and some of that stuff that even still is big songs for me, but I started coming to Nashville and writing. That was where me and Erik Dylan sat down and wrote “There Was This Girl.” It was the two of us. I think it was the second song we’d ever written together. I think I went and cut it to put on another EP. I was going to release it myself. Next thing you know, a record label started calling.

Riley Green on “I Wish Grandpas Never Died”

That one will never get old. I mean, people always say when you have a hit, “Well get used to playing that one. You’re going to be playing it forever.” But it doesn’t. And probably, more than anything, because I saw firsthand how that song affects people. And that’s what’s awesome about writing songs in general. But I was just thinking about… My granddaddy Buford, like I said, was just such a big influence on me. I spent time with both of them growing up, as much as my parents. He passed away early, before any type of success in music for me. So I just pictured, after traveling and seeing the things that I’d seen over a couple years of having a record deal, what it’d be like, him asking about it. Basically pictured what that conversation would be like. I start thinking about some of the things that he taught me growing up and the values that my granddaddies taught me. And there are places that some of that stuff’s lacking. What’s been really cool about that to me too, is I’ve heard people come up… Like a guy came to me after a show or meet and greet and said, it’s an old man, he said, “I never knew my grandparents, but I’m a grandfather.” And he loved the song for that reason. And I mean, that’s something. There’s something about it people relate to in a million different ways.

Thomas Rhett and Riley Green on “Half Of Me”

THOMAS: I want to say it was one or two o’clock in the morning, we were sitting on the couch, and we had started this song that actually ended up on your current record. But I also remember playing you a song that I was like, “Man, would you want a feature on this?” I remember at the time you were to like, “Yeah, I like the song. It’s cool.” Then I don’t think anything ever happened about it. Fast forward six months later, I texted you the song again and I said, “Hey, I would love for you to feature on this thing.” You said, “You know what, man? I love this song. You tell me when to come sing on it.” You came in, took a good song, and made it great.

RILEY: You’re probably like me, getting a lot of songs and stuff sent to you, and you hear a lot of songs. Finding out if it’s you, and if it fits, and everything. I just remember hearing this one. First off, it sounds like a hit. It’s a fun song. To be honest with you, after singing on it, it was great, man. Like I said, it’s been something I’ve been really excited about, everybody hearing it, to play it for everybody.

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INTERVIEW: Jesse Frasure and Dan Huff Join Thomas Rhett

Imogen Marshall — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 06:00:04 +0000

Jesse Frasure and Dan Huff join Thomas Rhett for an interview on the fifth episode of Where We Started Radio. Dann and Jesse discuss where they got their start, how they made it in Nashville, and how they all got together to collaborate on Thomas’ past and most current projects. Tune in and listen to the episode on-demand with an Apple Music subscription here.

Dann Huff on playing on artists’ records, learning how to be a record producer

I was extremely fortunate. Luck had something to do with it. I was extremely well prepared. And my story, the trajectory was rather quick. I moved out and there was an opening, there was a great guitar player named Steve Lukather who had just abdicated a major seat. And it was open. And immediately I was playing on A to Z and it was a blur. I got play in a lot of Motown Records, Smokey Robinson, Temptations, Chaka Khan, and then a lot of the pop artists of the day, the big ones during that time were Madonna, Michael Jackson. And again, if you were in the hot seat, you got to sit with all those artists. And then in the rock idiom, White Snake was a big name, and I started to get to play on their record. And then Barry Manilow, Barbra Streisand. It was from A to Z. What I found out later in life, the greatest university for learning how to be a record producer.

Dann Huff on playing on “Man In The Mirror,” working with Quincy Jones

Probably the biggest hit that I played on was “Man in the Mirror.” So I mean, it was all an experience to be honest working for Quincy Jones. I was obviously blown away to be in a room with Michael Jackson, he was such a star at that point, but Quincy Jones was a quintessential record producer. Just being invited to that party was great. I do remember those sessions. It was an elevated sense of music. The expectations were high and it was ultimately very professional.

Jesse Frasure on getting settled into Nashville, TobyMac

JESSE FRASURE: There was like this little community of misfit toys forming in Nashville. Guys like Shay Mooney who was signed to T-Pain, a girl named Meghan Trainor, moved down from Nantucket. She was 17 years old and super shy. My wife introduced me to Chris Stapleton, who at the time had some stuff as a writer, but his artist career kind of hadn’t taken off. We’d get together at night and we’d write some songs. And all of us were kind of just doing this creative work, but not purposefully working on country music or anything. And a guy named TobyMac is a huge Christian artist. He was in a group called DC Talk, and then obviously a huge solo career. He was kind of the shepherd of the misfit toys. He took guys like David Garcia, who now produces Carrie Underwood, gave David his first shot. A guy named Cary Barlow who just recently wrote “Famous Friends.” Jamie Moore who writes over at Big Loud. And he gave me my first cut too. So he-

THOMAS RHETT: And the name of that song was what?

JESSE FRASURE: It’s called “Hold On.”

THOMAS RHETT: “Hold On,” yeah.

JESSE FRASURE: And he kind of saw all this pop writing people in town. It was like, “Man, these are some creative people. I don’t need to go to LA. Come work on my records.” And for a lot of us, it was our first opportunity to have any placement in the music industry.

Dann Huff on Faith Hill, when he started to produce other artists

THOMAS RHETT: Who would’ve been your first, “Okay, this is kind of like, this is a big deal. I can’t mess this up artist.”

DANN HUFF: It was Faith Hill, who I recently played on two or three of her records. She was changing producers, and it was Mutt and Shania, who were together then, who recommended me. She hadn’t thought about that, because she just thought of me as a player. So I got that gig. I was actually in the studio at the same time producing a band called Megadeth, which, so it was an interesting time going from Megadeth sessions to Faith Hill sessions.

THOMAS RHETT: Was it the ‘Breathe’ record? What record was it?

DANN HUFF: No, it was the one that had ‘Faith,’ and my first hit was a song called, “Let Me Let Go.”

THOMAS RHETT: Oh yeah. That was your first number one as a producer.

DANN HUFF: I think so, yeah, yeah. And then, and that led to kind of that year I had three albums offered to me at the same time, probably because of that Faith Hill. One was Lonestar and the other was SHeDAISY, and Shane Minor. And I didn’t think that much about Lonestar. It was the most country. I knew the least about it.

THOMAS RHETT: Man, I love that record.

DANN HUFF: And they had a little song called “Amazed” on that record. And so all of a sudden I was a genius. At least that’s what everybody thought. And that’s what led me to the meeting of Keith.

THOMAS RHETT: You’re just like all of a sudden, you’re just the guy.

DANN HUFF: It just happens when it happens. And again, luck, preparation, all that kind of stuff.

Jesse Frasure on how he, Dann Huff and Thomas Rhett started working together

I was writing with Chris Stapleton under the cover of darkness. We’d get into the studio at night, and at the time, we were like, “Oh man, we should try to pitch some songs with this Bruno Mars guy.” And we were doing all these kind of Motown-feeling songs. But we had this one that kind of came together, and Gary Allan put it on hold. And I was a huge Gary Allan fan, and Mom was the biggest Gary Allan fan. So I thought if I got a Gary Allan cut, finally, I’d be worth something in her eyes. No, just kidding. So I remember somehow this little EP of Chris Stapleton tunes was circulating and made it onto your [Thomas Rhett’s] bus, I think, or your business manager at the time passed it on to you. And you called and said, “Hey, I don’t know if I can pull this song off. It’s very different than this first album I just did, but I’m really passionate about it. And I really want to try, and I would like you to produce it with Dann Huff.” So I remember hanging up the phone. We pulled the song from Gary Allan, and we got in the studio. And one of the first things that really impressed me about Dann was how much he liked of the original that he didn’t want to just replace. Even some of my stupid guitar parts or whatever else it was, Dann was like, “Let’s leave that.” I always say that to young producers that work with him now. That’s the most impressive part about Dann. He doesn’t bring his ego into it.

Jesse Frasure on “Hole in the Bottle”

JESSE FRASURE: I was down in 30A, it’s a little beach strip that we all go down to, and I was with Hillary Lindsey and a friend of ours, Steph Jones, and Ashley Gorley, and Kelsea Ballerini was down with us. And we had been overserved at one of the local watering holes.

THOMAS RHETT: Yeah. Watering holes.

JESSE FRASURE: And came back around 2:00 AM. And it’s definitely not a track I would’ve played for Kelsea sober. It just was way countrier than most of her material. But I started playing it, and we had definitely put a few holes in bottles that weekend, and were drinking way too much. And it just sort of came out, this kind of retro feel. But I’m a huge fan, as a producer, of taking styles and blending them together. So it reminded me of a Johnny Cash, Chet Atkins kind of guitar meets J-Kwon, everybody in the club getting tipsy. And these kind of two worlds colliding together, and we wrote this kind of traditional drinking song on it. Brad Paisley ended up hearing the final version and was kind of doing these guitar challenges over the solo, and it kind of just became its own little thing, raising its hand, to where Kelsea decided to make it a single. And then we were fortunate enough to be able to put Shania Twain, who’s come up a couple times in this episode. She’s like the Kevin Bacon. Shania jumped on as a feature. So that’s a cool moment. Basically sharing the creation all the way to… Fortunate enough to see it go to number one.

Jesse Frasure on “Where We Started”

It’s weird, a couple of our favorite songs that the three of us had a hand in, started off as disasters. I remember “Die Happy Man” was a very stressful day. And “Where We Started,” it just was trying to find how does this song live while introducing some organic elements to it. And also giving it life so it wasn’t just this linear kind sitting there song. Kind of going back to some of the original elements of the track, but then the string section and watching that evolve your voice on it. And just the melody. To me, it’s a perfect album title because it summarizes to me where your career is right now. It circles back pre-country again, and gives you a little bit of the old school TR but it’s got all these organic elements and it’s kind of your origin story in a way.

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INTERVIEW: Lauren Akins Joins Thomas Rhett on Apple Music

Imogen Marshall — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 06:00:55 +0000

Thomas Rhett’s wife, Lauren Akins joins him for an interview on the fourth episode of Where We Started Radio. Lauren discusses the music she connects with the most, how she feels about being in the spotlight, and her perspective on the song “Die a Happy Man.” Tune in and listen to the episode in-full on-demand here.

Lauren Akins on what she envisioned for herself early on compared to what her life is like now

When I imagined my life as a little girl, there were two things that I saw. Three. One was being a mom, eventually. I look up to my mother in so many ways and wanted so much of the life that she had raising us three, but then I also saw, or my heart really longed to travel and see the world, specifically Africa, and that was a dream of mine. Another thing that I saw and dreamed of growing up was being in the medical field. And I really wanted to try to marry the two, of traveling and working in the medical field. It’s not shocking that you ended up in the life that you are in. I mean, we all knew that you were talented growing up. Obviously, it’s your passion, music is your passion. I did not necessarily think that you wouldn’t end up here, but the chances of somebody making it like you have is such a gift, but also so rare, it just doesn’t happen. But I also didn’t see myself ending up with you. So even on the off chance that you did make it, I did not see myself married to someone who is in the spotlight all the time. And once I realized that I loved you and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you it was such a sweet realization and something that I was so excited about.

Lauren Akins on being in the spotlight

The next realization that you were continuing down this path and I was not going to be able to avoid the spotlight was not so easy to take. And if I’m being honest, it’s still is not easy to take. But I also see how we live this life that you were following your dream. But within your dream, you have tried to create and have created so well space for me to be able to have my dreams. Yes, at the end of the day, I would probably prefer not to have millions of people watching what I’m doing. I love to be center of attention when it is like my people and people that I know and people that I’ve grown up with and our family and our close friends. But when it is somebody that I’ve never met before getting on stage and speaking in front of people, it took me a very long time to get comfortable with it. But I’m also realizing that it is not fully my choice how my life goes and that God always has a plan, and this one was way different from mine. But now at 32, almost 10 years into marriage, looking back over our life together, He did marry those two dreams of mine, but then brought all three of them together because now I’m a mom of a daughter from Uganda that I was over there and met her because I was on a medical trip. I could not have dreamed up this life myself.

Lauren Akins on the adoption process for their daughter, Willa Gray

I remember feeling something that was very different and what it felt like to me, in my spirit, was just I have to take care of this little girl. I called you that night on FaceTime and I told you that I met a little girl and I think it’s our job to find her forever home because Willa Gray was one of the truly orphaned children that our organization was supporting at the time. A lot of the kids over there have family members and were not true orphans, but Willa Gray’s story is, at the time, she was. And so when I told Thomas Rhett that, there was kind of a long pause and he said, “We’ll do it. We’ll bring her home.” I don’t even know that you really fully remember saying that because I remember the first time I told this story, you were like, “I did?” And it scared me to death because I wasn’t really sure what this looks like or are we ready for this? Are we going to be good parents? What if we totally screw this up? But there is a reason why every child is a child of their parents and I know that Willa Gray was meant to be in our family, just like every kid is meant to be in their own family.

Lauren Akins and Thomas Rhett on “Die A Happy Man”

THOMAS RHETT: In 2015, I’d written a song called “Die A Happy Man.” And I played it for you, and you loved it. The demo, at the time, was me, Sean Douglas, and Joe London. And I was riding on a bus at 2:30 in the morning, leaving Arkansas. And you can hear the hum of the bus in the background. You can hear out of tune guitar in my 2:30 in the morning voice, which was absolutely destroyed from a weekend of shows. But that is the demo that you fell in love with. And so we went in to record the song, and Dan had added all these extra things like drums and base and background vocals and all this stuff. And I remember playing you the first cut, and you were like, “This can’t be. You’re going to take this to radio?”

LAUREN AKINS: One as much. I was like, what about the other one? You were like, we actually cannot physically use the other one. And I was like, why not? And then you introduced me, the term… What did you call it? Demo-itis.

THOMAS RHETT: Demo-itis.

LAUREN AKINS: That’s what you call it every time. You’re like… Well, you’ve learned now because you wait until you…

THOMAS RHETT: Until I finish the song.

LAUREN AKINS: Until you finish the song, and then you let me hear it.

THOMAS RHETT: Right.

LAUREN AKINS: I’ve come a long way from “Die A Happy Man.”

Lauren Akins on her favorite song from Thomas Rhett’s new album

THOMAS RHETT: What’s interesting is that I feel like “Sixteen” was a very lyric story based song. And getting into this next segment, you told me before your favorite song on my most recent record was one that sort of feels like “Sixteen,” just in different word play. So for someone that is not like lyric heavy like yourself, why’d you choose those two?

LAUREN AKINS: Why’d I do that again? Because of the place that it takes me.

THOMAS RHETT: Yeah, okay.

LAUREN AKINS: I feel like it’s the same story.

THOMAS RHETT: And you’re very nostalgic?

LAUREN AKINS: I’m very nostalgic. And I wouldn’t even say it’s my favorite song on your record. I can’t pick a favorite song and that is not for me to get brownie points with you. I really just-

THOMAS RHETT: It did. It does though. Thank you.

LAUREN AKINS: There are so many that I love and I can’t say one is above the rest. Again, going back to me and you and thinking through my most memorable moments with me and you. And you singing about that in your songs, I feel like “Mama’s Front Door” just is all of it. You know, you talk about our girls in it, which makes my mama heart happy. So I feel like you include everybody in that song and it’s good. It’s so good. But it’s sweet, and of course, it’s got the nostalgia piece for me.

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INTERVIEW: Michael Feinstein Talks ‘Gershwin Country’

Imogen Marshall — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 13:00:18 +0000

Michael Feinstein joins Hunter Kelly for an interview to talk about inviting Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, and Liza Minnelli as collaborators on his latest album, ‘Gershwin Country.’ Listen to the episode in-full anytime on-demand here.

Michael Feinstein on inviting Dolly Parton to sing on Gershwin Country

When I got the idea to do a recording of Gershwin songs re-imaged in the country idiom, of course Dolly came to mind. I’m lucky enough to have met Dolly many years ago at the home of a mutual friend, named Roddy McDowall, who had a ‘9 to 5’ reunion many years ago, where he had a dinner party inviting Dolly, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. That’s when I met Dolly. So that would’ve been 1995. I had kept in touch with her through mutual friends and occasionally had direct contact with her. I just reached out and asked her and she almost immediately said yes. I suggested the song, “Love is Here to Stay,” because I could imagine her singing it. And again, she said yes. We went on from there. It was that simple.

Michael Feinstein on changing pronouns in standards

The other night, I sang “Someone to Watch Over Me” as he, and it felt so liberating and it got such a wonderful response from the audience. When I recorded the song, “All the Way,” I got permission from the widow of the lyricist of Sammy Cahn to change it from, “When somebody loves you, it’s no good unless she loves you.” I changed it to, “When somebody loves you, it’s no good unless they love you all the way.” And she said, “With Sammy’s love, please change it,” so I did.

Michael Feinstein chats about his respect for Alison Krauss

Hunter Kelly: There’s a process to getting Alison to do something. Is that correct?

Michael Feinstein: Yes, because she is first and foremost an artist who thinks in terms of her music. She doesn’t, and I don’t mean this in the wrong way, she’s not concerned about a deadline or the process is just like, it takes whatever time it takes until it’s right. That’s the bottom line with her. And she was one of the first people I approached and she took the longest time in making a decision about it, choosing a song. It was a process. And man, do I respect that because that’s why she is who she is.

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INTERVIEW: Natalia M. King on Europe, Her Sexuality and Genres

Imogen Marshall — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 06:00:00 +0000

Natalia M. King joins Hunter Kelly for an interview on Proud Radio to discuss living in Europe, her experience with sexuality and fluidity, and experimenting with genres throughout her career. Listen to the interview with Natalia M. King in-full anytime on-demand here.

Natalia on “Woman Mind of My Own”

Hunter Kelly: I love this song because it just seems like a description of yourself of like, “Yes, I’m going to do what I want.”

Natalia: Completely. Exactly, and exactly, a woman mind, that’s my own way, it’s my own spirit, it’s the way I want to see the world, whether you like it or not. Those who love me, follow, and those who don’t, well, move on.

Natalia on playing with the idea of fluidity in “Aka Chosen”

Hunter Kelly: I would guess that is your story of being younger, dating men, and then evolving into your queerness.

Natalia: It’s exact, it’s a true story. Let’s do it that way. As the words say, “Started with a he, then it was a she.” But that we understand that life is too short to just put yourself in just any one category. I love the term. I don’t know if it’s used in the States, but here in Europe, they use the term fluid. I like thinking that sexuality is fluid until we define it for ourselves. And that song plays with that idea, which is my story.

Natalia on mixing genres in her album

I think what I love about this album is that I kind of took all the sounds and all the genres of my past and tried to combine it with a Blues foundation and going into Americana and going into Soul, taking everything that I was before this musically and just trying to put it in. It’s nice that you hear it. It’s even nice that you give reference to ‘Soulblazz,’ because a lot of that ‘Soulblazz’ feel is also in “Woman Mind of My Own.”

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INTERVIEW: Kacey Musgraves on Trailblazers Radio

Imogen Marshall — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 17:00:03 +0000

On the new episode of Trailblazers Radio, Fancy welcomes his close friend and ultimate country trailblazer, Kacey Musgraves, as she makes her Apple Music Country debut. The two discuss Kacey’s journey to Nashville and challenging the norm in her music. Kacey also defines country music in her own words and shares what’s up next for her, along with her choice for the most important song she’s ever released. Tune in and listen to the conversation with Kacey Musgraves in-full on-demand here.

Kacey Musgraves on her journey to Nashville:

“I think if you have music on your mind or you’re into songwriting at all, I feel like Nashville’s kind of the Mecca for you, especially if are into country music at all. I moved to Nashville when I was 18, no, I was 19 about to turn 20 and I kind of always knew that I would probably go that route, but I moved to Austin first, right outside of high school. It’s closer to my hometown and I think it was a little bit easier for my parents to just swallow that like, “All right, try Austin, try being on your own, and get to the music scene down there.” Yeah, I worked really random-a** job that I was terrible at, played some acoustic gigs, and then I was like, “All right. I think I want to move to Nashville,” and just jumped into the songwriting scene. Rodney Foster was the first songwriter I met in Nashville and he was so awesome. He took me under his wing and introduced me to a bunch of people. We wrote songs together and that was kind of the beginning of getting my toe dipped into the water here.”

Kacey Musgraves on songwriting and performing:

“I think when I was younger, I was just like, “Oh, I want to be a singer.” It was just the basic idea that I like to sing, I like to perform, and then as I got deeper into the songwriting and the craft of the song and turning phrases and learning how to play guitar better, I fell in love with the songwriting process. When I moved to Nashville and then I guess it was about a year after I had moved to town, I got the chance to be a staff writer for Warner Chapel. I was like, “Oh my God, wait. I can just sit on my a** and take little nuggets of ideas out of my brain and make money that way?” I was astounded that that could be my job. Then, yeah, the performer thing didn’t seem so appealing. I was like, “I don’t know. I think I just want to do this for the rest of my life.” Eventually, the opportunity to do my own album and everything came to play, but I didn’t want to do it unless I had the right songs. I think once the songs emerged I was like, “All right, I’d be down to try the artist thing,” but it was the songwriting that was like, “Wow. This feels like it feeds my soul more than the performing.”

Kacey Musgraves on challenging the norm in her music:

Kacey: “I think it just accidentally happened. I didn’t go into it thinking, “Ooh, I want to be a gay icon. I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to break all the rules.” I was just writing songs that were being inspired by my real life. When I moved to Nashville and I made a lot of friends in the gay community and my eyes were opened up in a lot of ways to how wonderful that community is, something I genuinely just naturally wasn’t around in Texas, not by choice, just that’s just the way that it was in Smalltown, Texas, USA, as you know.”

Fancy: “Yeah. The culture’s not the same.”

Kacey: “Yeah. I think when my eyes widened culturally, after traveling a lot and moving out of state and then meeting a lot of people in that community, it just naturally some songs came out that were inspired by that. I was like, “They have to be included.” If we’re talking about a genre that is supposedly built on real life and real stories about real people, why would this one thing be excluded? That’s just a narrative that just doesn’t make sense to not be there. It doesn’t matter what walk of life you’re from, you experience love and emotions just like everyone else. But I did have to fight for it to be included, weirdly. It was definitely told to me that it would go down in flames, it would tank on the radio, it would this, that, and the other, and I really didn’t care because I knew it would mean more than those things if people got to hear it. I guess in some senses it did kind of tank on the radio, in fact, it did get banned from some stations.

Fancy: “Actually banned?”

Kacey: “Yeah. Actually banned.”

Fancy: “Well, I’ll tell you why, because you were promoting the homosexual agenda.”

Kacey: “I know, imagine. Oh my God, so evil. Yeah. But it did more for me even what a chart topping hit could do.”

Fancy: “For sure. Well, you changed the narrative. For me, as a young gay writer coming up in Nashville, it was one of the more empowering albums I heard just because I had never heard someone including me. Does that make sense?”

Kacey: “Yeah. A lot of people have said, which it didn’t occur to me this way really until they said it and it really made an impact on me, “Your music makes me feel I’m finally invited to a party that I’ve always wanted to be invited to… It was like, “Oh my God, that kills me.” Yeah. I don’t know. It sounds cliche at this point, but love is love. Again, one of the reasons I love country music is because it is about real life, it is about real stories and real people, and that shouldn’t just include one set of people. One skin color, one political stance, one whatever, it should be everyone.”

Kacey Musgraves on what she thinks country music is:

“That’s an extremely, terribly hard question because I think that there’s a lot of different ideas as to what country music is. Traditionally country music is a conglomeration of many different styles of things that have come together, bluegrass, folk, gospel, African roots music. Literally so many things like traditional Irish music, Celtic stuff. It’s so many things. I don’t know. I think we live in an age where genre lines are extremely blurred and that, in fact, is encouraged. I love it when things become a patchwork quilt of a lot of different styles and sometimes you can’t really put your finger on what they are. That makes it really hard when you’re trying to narrow down things to put into a category, to win an award. Does winning Grammys feel amazing? Yes. If I never won another one in my entire life I feel like I’d be fine. Although I’m very proud of the ones that I have. Here’s one thing I think about. When I think about some of my favorite artists or some of the biggest artists out there of all time, like the Beatles, what are they? You can’t really describe what genre they are. They’re just the Beatles. They’re some of the most iconic artists of all the time. Joni Mitchell, what is she? I don’t know. What are the Eagles? They’re sort of country but they’re not really. I think the best artists create their own genre… Because when you listen to country radio, I can point out a bunch of things to me that don’t sound quote unquote “country,” but I don’t know. It’s just this weird pissing match and it’s just ambiguous and seems to sway towards things when it’s convenient and that’s all I’m saying.”

Kacey Musgraves on what’s next:

“It’s always, definitely my real life that inspires me and usually comes from a first person perspective. As I move along in life, I write down ideas and get inspired by my relationships, arguments, seeing new places, really those little things that are floating around in life. They’re available to everyone to be inspired by but you just have to keep your eyes open and tuned to be able to see them. I got so excited over there a second ago because Cole, who’s my boyfriend, he gave me a little bonsai cherry blossom tree for Christmas and I’ve been worried about it because I’m like, “Okay, that’s a pressure of a gift.” “Here, take this twig and make it look like a Zen Buddhist little beautiful bonsai tree.” I’m like, “I don’t know shit about this.” But anyway, been in my sink while I’ve been gone and I just went over there and there’s little sprigs of new life on it and I’m like, “Oh my God.” I’m so excited. Anyways, it’s always those little things that just make a little idea, pop into my head. I think moving forward, being open to new energy, new possibilities, going to places for fun, keeping in touch with all my friends and trying to stay open and attuned to it’s the little things in life that inspire me.”

Kacey Musgraves on what she thinks is the most important song she ever put out:

“The most important would probably be, I would say maybe “Merry Go Round” just because that was also one where I was very discouraged from putting it out, being first and I just thought, “Okay, fine. If this tanks in the way that they’re implying that it will, I don’t really care because I’ve at least gone full throttle, face first into my opportunities with the song that represents me the most. Then that way you either belong or you don’t because you’ve come with your best. I would also say “Arrow” is probably really important too. But I think that maybe my favorite one, “Slow burn.” I don’t know. I feel like I’m just floating when I sing that song. I don’t have to think about it, it feels so good to sing and play, and I don’t know. I always get excited to play that song.”

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INTERVIEW: Thomas Rhett on Where We Started

Imogen Marshall — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 06:00:00 +0000

Thomas Rhett joins Kelleigh Bannen for an interview on Today’s Country Radio for a look at his new album ‘Where We Started,’ out today. Thomas Rhett talks about his mission to raise the bar with every album, collaborating with Katy Perry on “Where We Started” and finding “new ways to say, ‘I love you.’” Tune in and listen to the interview with Thomas Rhett in-full today at 11am PT / 1pm CT / 2pm ET or anytime on-demand at apple.co/_TodaysCountry.

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Thomas Rhett on Continuing to Evolve His Music

It’d be easy to make a record that did really well and be like, “Well that works, so let’s just do that again.” I feel like as artists, we’re always soaking in information from all over the place and listening to all these new things that come out. And you go, “God, that’s really cool. That’s really cool. How could we take a lot of this stuff and kind of morph it into what I do?” And so every record is a challenging process between me and my producers… But I think at the end of the day, if I can just continue to lead with a fresh story and a new way to say I love you, and always trust my producers to take that production to the next level, that’s all we can do. And I’m pretty dang proud of it.

Thomas Rhett on Finding New Ways to Write Love Songs

As you know, every single year of marriage brings a different layer to the love. When I wrote “Die A Happy Man,” me and Lauren had been married maybe four or five years, so still kind of on the riding the honeymoon phase or whatever. But when you start to add kids into it, life just changes. Like on this record, I think like “The Hill” and songs like “Angels” are new ways to say I love you while saying, “How in the world have you put up with my crap for the last 10 years?” You know what I’m saying?

Thomas Rhett on Keeping His Marriage Strong

I think for a long time, people looked at my love songs as, “God, their relationship is just rainbows and butterflies.” And I think that’s a way to say I love you, for sure. But as we’ve been married for 10 years, there’s not one marriage in the world that’s not rocky at certain points. There’s not one marriage in the world that you don’t start arguing about dumb stuff or have really big fights. And so, I think when you have been married this long, you have to continue to find ways to like reignite that fire. There’s always that spark, but how do you make it blow up again?

Thomas Rhett on How He Got Katy Perry to Sing on “Where We Started”

[Allison Jones from Big Machine] called me and said, “Hey, how would you feel about making this song a feature?” And I was like, “Well, who do you have in mind?” And she was like, “Well, I was thinking about sending this song to Katie Perry.” And I kind of laughed because I was like, “First of all, she doesn’t know who I am. And second of all, she probably gets sent millions of songs a day and she’s never done a country collaboration before.” And the next day she literally hit us back and said, “I resonate with this song so much. Please send me the files. I want to put my vocal on it.” And a week later, I’m in the kitchen and my wife’s standing there and I get a FaceTime from a LA number. And it’s just Katie Perry shows up on my screen. And my wife’s like, “What are you doing?” I was like, “I don’t know.”

Thomas Rhett on the Experience That Inspired “Death Row”

Next thing you know, me and Tyler [Hubbard} and Russell [Dickerson] are literally in full on normal conversation with men serving a sentence on death row. And then we started playing some songs. There was a guy up top who they had unchained to bring down to the bottom to sing, in my opinion, the most beautiful version of Amazing Grace I’d ever heard. And then you leave and you’re like, “What just happened?”… At the end of the day, it was kind of like, I don’t know, it just reminded me of Christ on the cross and that dude that was hanging next to him. And he was just like, “Can I come to heaven with you?” And he was like, “I promise you’ll be there with me in paradise.” And so I just kept being reminded of that. And I think it’s just kind of proof that no matter what you’ve done in your life, I mean I also can’t imagine what it would be like to be the parent of someone who had been killed by one of these men. And I understand that the song was controversial. I understand that there are people that completely disagree with my point of view. But at the same time, I was there and I experienced it. And it is something that reminded me that we all kind of suck, just in different ways and realizing that you can’t just write everybody off for a mistake.

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INTERVIEW: Maren Morris on Humble Quest

Imogen Marshall — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 06:00:07 +0000

On this special episode of The Kelleigh Bannen Show, Maren Morris joins Kelleigh for an interview to have an in-depth discussion about some of the tracks from her new album ‘Humble Quest.’ Throughout the hour, Maren shares stories behind the music, from writing a song on the day she found out she was pregnant with her son to writing a song about her producer’s terminal diagnosis before he passed away. Tune in and listen to the episode in-full on-demand here.

*Maren recently announced ‘Humble Quest Radio’, a new weekly radio series airing on Apple Music 1 and Apple Music Country where she’ll bounce between disc jockey, therapist, confidante, warm shoulder, and best friend as she responds to questions, queries, and comments from fans submitted via her Humble Quest HQ Hotline paired with themed playlists tailored to each episode. Humble Quest Radio premieres on Apple Music 1 on tomorrow, March 29th at 2:00p PST and encores on Wednesday, March 30th at 3:00p PST on Apple Music Country. Tune in live for free at apple.co/_HumbleQuestRadio or listen anytime on-demand with an Apple Music subscription.

Maren Morris on Finding Out She Was Pregnant the Day She Wrote “Hummingbird”

MAREN: I was so excited because I had already told Ryan [Hurd] [that I was pregnant], the most important person of this equation… I told him, I was like, “I’m on my way to this, write. I mean, I’m not canceling, it’s the Love Junkies.” So I showed up.

KELLEIGH: Were you surprised?

MAREN: We had been trying. So it wasn’t a shock, but it was like very, yeah, just the day of, I’d taken a thousand tests. And so this one was the one and I happened to be writing that day. So it felt like it was in the stars, but I got to Liz [Rose’s] house and we were standing around her island and we kind of chit chat, catch up and I was like, “I have something to share. I am pregnant. I just found out 30 minutes ago.” And they all flipped out. Like Hillary [Lindsey], they’re all like, “Oh, I wish we could have some wine, but you’re pregnant.” But yeah, it was such an amazing group of people to be with because they’re all mothers. I mean, Lori [McKenna] has five kids, but they’re all just the best poets I think in town.

Maren Morris on Coming Up With The Idea for Writing “Hummingbird”

I think we just got to chatting about … Hillary [Lindsey] was like, “Oh, I said the word hummingbird. You’ve got all these hummingbirds, Liz [Rose], at your place.’ And I was like, “I love hummingbirds.” My first tattoo was a hummingbird, my first guitar that was mine was a Gibson Hummingbird, which was a gift from my parents on my 18th birthday. And I think it was Hillary or Lori [McKenna], one of them that was like, “We have to write that. That’s such a crazy thing.” And like, “You’ve got a little hummingbird.” Like heartbeats.

Maren Morris on Writing “What Would This World Do?” After Finding Out busbee’s Terminal Diagnosis

I honestly felt like a child doing that vocal. I felt like my inner child was giving that performance because I was so raw with it, and I knew that we weren’t going to layer a ton of stuff on it. It was also probably the most vulnerable song I’d ever written with Ryan [Hurd] and our friend, Jon Green, who was also very close. Yeah. Amazing. But he was super, super close with busbee. And I mean, I cried all through the writing of that song because it was like you have this hope that these people, when you get bad news, terminal news, they’re like Superman, and he was so young. I was like, “He’s going to pull through,” and then at the back of your mind, you just kind of know the reality check, and so you’re like, “What can I do except for write a song, and maybe this energy will come out, and he’ll hear it.” Or I don’t know. Maybe it will get to him. You don’t know. And this was maybe a month or two before he passed.

Maren Morris on Honoring busbee By Ending Her Album with “What Would This World Do?”

When you talk about losing a… What’s the saying? When you take a picture, you lose a little bit of your soul. I feel like when you write, when I wrote that song, I truly lost a piece of myself and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to perform it live. I’ve done it once and could barely get through it, and I just think ending this record with that song the way it was, was the most respectful, I hope, way to honor his life and what he did for, not just me, but Ryan [Hurd], Jon Green, Nashville. Nashville as a sound. He really changed the last decade of the way we sound.

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