Lainey Wilson: “I Felt Like A Complete Outsider Moving To Nashville To Chase My Dreams” | Guy Raz

Key Takeaway

Build momentum before you feel ready: choose one small way to share your work today, then repeat it consistently. Lainey Wilson spent years writing daily, testing songs in small venues, and treating every “no” as evidence to improve rather than quit. Create a simple practice loop: make, share, collect feedback, refine, and repeat. Progress compounds when you keep showing up long enough for your skills, relationships, and audience to catch up to your ambition.

Episode Overview

Lainey Wilson recounts her path from a 200-person Louisiana town to Nashville, including three years living in a camper outside her mentor’s recording studio and writing roughly 4,000 songs before breaking through. She and Guy Raz explore persistence, creative practice, authentic self-expression, and building a career one fan and one relationship at a time.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Lainey Wilson: “I Felt Like A Complete Outsider Moving To Nashville To Chase My Dreams” | Guy Raz from How I Built This. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

I had a lot of really lonely moments while I was living in my camper I felt like a complete Outsider I moved to Nashville and I thought man everybody there is going to sound like me everybody's from the country everybody's here to sing country music and the truth is she's nominated for the first time this year in six different categories more than any other artist today's guest is Laney Wilson I would consider myself a hillbilly hippie I'm all about peace love until you push my buttons and then this game on once you signed with a label did that change everything all of a sudden I mean did it feel like that just it just supercharged things very quickly after all all of those deals were signed absolutely not it was six or eight months before things a man ought to know went number one I believe it was $26 in my bank account you know everybody thinks when you sign a record deal that you're doing fine and everybody thinks when you sign a publishing deal that oh she ain't hurt but that's not the truth at all we're just out here trying to pay our bills just like everybody else so um yeah I was I was definitely thinking Laney let me start start let's let's sort of kind of start at the beginning you grew up in a I guess a pretty small place in Louisiana Basin um is is a very small place right 250 people yeah tell me tell me about bask in Louisiana probably 190 um now but yeah it's it's actually called The Village of basin if you've ever heard of Monroe Duck Dynasty um that show I don't know if you ever watch that one but that should explain a little bit as to why I sound the way that I do but um very blue collar Town um not even a stop light we have a caution light and that's about it you see a lot of corn fields all 200 people are are pretty much family and that's a a blessing and a curse they're there when you need them and they're there when you don't need them so um but I I love where I'm from and I I truly think you know being from from such a small town like that there's not a whole lot to do um except for sit around and and tell stories and hear the same old stories that you've been hearing for years but the the kind that gets better every time you hear them or every time you tell them and I think that's really you know being from Baskin is is what made me want to be a Storyteller so you knew everybody growing up and they all knew you oh my gosh we knew too much about each other it was um we were we were thick as thieves I mean and they still treat me the exact same way when I come home for Christmas or or Thanksgiving or whatever it is when I stop by they treat me like little Laney they're like you're not that cool just remember where you come from so I got a lot of people keeping me humble um your dad was maybe still is uh a farmer your mom was a teacher tell me about about his work when you were a kid what what what did he do my daddy is still the hardest worker I know um he I remember being a little girl and he was up before the sun and he would come in the house when the sun went like the sun had to be down before he even came in and ate supper we were eating supper at 9 10:00 at night because he was just a very very busy man um when I tell you he is he's one of those kind of guys that if he don't know how to do it he's going to figure it out and I think I just get it honest I really do and my mama is the same way my mom's a teacher and she's just got a heart of gold and she uh is a very passionate person she has a big old heart and um I am who I am because of the people who raised me there is no doubt about that I am who I am because of the folks who raised me but also the town that raised me Lenny when you were a a girl um tell me about the music you listened to at home what what were your parents playing my goodness well where I'm from I did not even realize as a little girl that country music was a genre I thought it was a way of life I mean we eat sleep and breathe these songs um you know I grew up in the 90s I was born in ' 92 and of course voices like lean wac um Tim mcra Tim mcra actually grew up right down the road from me and my step-grandmother used to babysit him and um as a little girl I kind of looked at him and was like man Tim mcra is is from my neck of the woods and he did it maybe I can do it too um it it was one of those situations where I just thought man I didn't know anybody around here could do anything like that you know so it kind of that is the beginning of I think the stars were kind of put in my eyes and I knew that it was actually possible so as a little girl at home you were the kind of kid who would just sing all the time I would not shut up yes I'm I mean I was in the middle before the Walmart kid was a Walmart kid I was in there singing in front of every my mom was like hey Lany sing that new song that you just wrote at 9 10 years old and um I'd have a crowd of folks at Walmart putting on a show um but yes I I remember 9 years old just had written my first few songs and there was a grand opening for a convenience store that was opening in Baskin um owned by a guy named Jerry cupit who actually um ended up helping me later on in life and was kind of my mentor growing up um he was opening this convenience store and he said Laney would you like to come down and and sing a few songs a capella and I'll pay you 20 bucks and I said Count Me In I didn't know that I could sing and also make money too I guess you were 9 years old um when the first time you went to visit the Grand Old opery in Nashville um did you guys drive out there as a family can you tell me what you remember about that trip yep um 9 years old we took a family vacation um it was a miracle getting daddy out of the field and into a vehicle to drive to Gatlinberg Tennessee that was a long way from Northeast Louisiana so I remember just being so excited and on our way back home to Louisiana I remember asking him I was like what do y'all think about driving through Nashville because I knew you know we were in Tennessee we might could just make a little pit stop and um I remember a guy being on I40 9-year-old Laney in the back seat on the interstate I was looking at the Batman building and I had this overwhelming feeling um and it's crazy to think that a nine-year-old could could really have that feeling but I I had it it was it was like a knot in my stomach um um it was like the Holy Spirit and it just came over me and I I remember telling my parents I said this is home I just knew it I said this is this is home this is where I'm going to be um and that's crazy coming from you know I'm I'm from I'm from Baskin nobody ever leaves maybe one person has has ever left and I remember my mama kind of turning around to the backseat and she's like Laney you're my baby like what are you talking about but I think in that moment too that my parents knew that I was not playing and when they took me to the Grand opery that night we saw Bill Anderson um Crystal gaale uh Little Jimmy Dickens Phil Vasser and I remember exactly where I was sitting I remember looking at that Circle on that stage and my sister could care less she was asleep in the Pew right next to me while we were watching the show and I remember also having that crazy feeling I am going to do this I'm going to be on that stage I still have the little the little ticket stub from the grand opery that night is something that my parents held on to because I think they knew deep down too that one day it was really going to mean something so what did that mean were you did you just were you playing and practicing night after night day after day from that moment on you know so I wrote my first song at 9 years old um that was the year that I got my first pair of bell bottoms that's the year I went to Nashville um it seemed like 9 years old was just it was my year um but whenever daddy showed me a few cords on the guitar a couple years later it really just it opened up a whole another world for me because I was writing these songs a capella I was just kind of dreaming up Melodies and um and just kind of kind of going with it but when he showed me literally just two cords I was like oh my gosh um it was it was a it was an endless it just felt like I can do this forever I'm gonna I'm going to figure out how to create more Melodies and and have more ideas and um I think learning to play the guitar really did help me with that but it was um one of those things where I would go to school and all my friends would be wantan me to sing whatever song I'd written the night before and of course I did all the all the things that all the other kids did like I I cheered I played basketball I played softball I ran track but at the end of the day when I would come home I would pick up my guitar and I would go to the bathroom where the Acoustics were the best and I would sit in there for hours and hours and hours and write songs it was it was one of those things that tracked me down and chose me I had no other option but to do it so Lany even in high school when you were in high school you knew that I mean like some kids might might be preparing to go to college or some people some of the kids like probably thought all right I'll graduate and get a job somewhere you knew that you weren't preparing for anything else except to leave Basin and to and to pursue a career as a as a singer as a performer I knew it um there has never been a doubt in my mind I knew though that it was not going to be easy um you know in High School when all of my friends were going to LSU football games and and doing all their you know fun things on the weekends a lot of the times um I was working I was I impersonated Hannah Montana that was my middle school through high school job I had the wig I had the portable sound system um I would do birthday parties fairs festivals I would open up for myself like as Laney Wilson and then I would go go backstage and throw the wig and the outfit on and come out as Hannah Montana and um for me that was not just a paycheck you know um I could have been out there doing what all the rest of the kids were doing but for me it was a way for me to get my name out there as Hannah Montana you know I'm like well they're not going to leave here without knowing my name too that's why I opened the show see you finished high school um and you didn't hesitate you like in August of of of that year you finished high school in June in August you're in Nashville you moved to Nashville you were like 18 years old and you just went there by yourself yeah so long story short remember when I was telling you about the convenience store that was opening in Basin when I was 9 years old and he hired me to come sing a few songs Acappella um the guy's name was Jerry cupit and Jerry cupit was also from Basin and had a big dream to move to Nashville in the late 70s early 80s and be a producer be a songwriter and my grandfather on my daddy's side um he always just supported music whether that meant he would go to blueg Grass festivals or whatever he just loved he loved music and he wanted to lift anybody up who had anything to do with it and my grandfather back in the late '70s gave Jerry cupit a few hundred to help him move to Nashville and get started and as a favor in return years later every time Jerry would come to bask and he would stop by my house and he would listen to the new songs that I had been writing and tell me what to do to fix them how to make them better um he's really the one that taught me how to write a song and I mean constructive criticism from from the get-go and so years later um because of what my grandfather did for him he literally let me live in his Studio parking lot here in Nashville for free for the first three years I was living here in my camper and he let me buom water Wi-Fi electricity camper I lived in a 20 foot Flagstaff bumper poool camper trailer in the parking lot of his recording studio so um every morning I would walk out of the camper and I'd go into the studio and we'd write music together and um I I did that for years I was not even old enough to go anywhere in Nashville it was not one of those situations where I could you know go to the bar down the road and meet all the local songwriters um Jerry cupet was the only one I knew he was the only like he was he was my resource he was uh my mentor and like I said after three years of of living in my camper in his Studio parking lot he ended up getting sick and um and he passed away at a at a very young age and at this point I'm living in my camper trailer in in this guy's Studio parking lot I'm like where do I go what do I do he's the only person I I knew um he's the one that has has taught me everything I know when it comes to knowing a little bit about this business and I sold my camper trailer and I I had to start completely over and for me it's never been pack it up and go home there are definitely times when I should have thrown everything I had back in that camper and took my butt to the house but I could not do it there it was still this deep down calling it was it was in my heart it was in my soul I um I had to do it whatever that meant whatever it looked like I knew if if that meant it was going to take me 30 years to to find my way here in Nashville damn it I was gonna do it when you got to Nashville as as a you know an 18-year-old kid and those first sort of few years just kind of grinding away just recording music um what how did you feel in the city did you feel like ah I'm in I'm I'm I'm like here I'm home I'm like with my people um or did you kind of feel like an outsider even though you were making country music that's a great question um I felt like a complete Outsider you know I moved to Nashville and I thought man everybody there is going to sound like me everybody's from the country everybody's here to sing country music and the truth is Guy um no I at that point I was way too country for Country um if that makes any sense at all but it was very scary I mean you know I'm I'm from a town of 200 people where everybody knows everybody um and I I wanted to make friends I wanted to create relationships I wanted to to do all those things the truth is I just didn't know where to start and you know looking back on it now um a lot of it seems like common sense of like what would you do to you know how do I meet more published writers or how do I go about you know getting more meetings on Music Row um but I was so clueless I would walk up and down Music Row with CDs that I had burnt and I would pass them out to people a lot of times they would slam the door in my face and um on to the next one I mean it was it was it felt like a little bit of a movie I'm like this can't be real but but it was and it was scary it was hard um looking back on it I'm like dang um I was I was pretty brave I was I was putting myself out there and it's something it's something that looking back on now I'm really proud of of younger ly for doing that tell me what you did day after after day you know from 2011 you know in those first few years when you were there you were you were recording music every day I was writing music every day um during that time during 2011 through 2017 I believe I had written about 4,000 songs um wow some of them will absolutely never see the light of day but I felt like that was the thing that was keeping my head above water I had a lot of really lonely moments while I was living in my camper especially when um you know Jerry was passing away and um I didn't know where to go what to do who to turn to who to talk to um but yes it songwriting songwriting and this business in general is the thing that uh will kill you but also keep you alive if that makes any sense at all um it's it's a it's an obsession but I'm so thankful for it because it is the thing that that gets me through the hard times and over and over and over again I get to go back to it and I get to do it I'll be 90 years old still having hard times but I can still pick up my guitar and a pen and a piece of paper and and write down how I'm feeling and I'm so thankful that if the Lord was going to give me a gift at all I'm glad it was that one tell me what you were writing about I mean what was in your head that you were putting on paper cuz it I would imagine these were not happy songs or or maybe they were I don't know it's very interesting because uh my mama and daddy tell me that even when I was 10 years old writing music that I was writing songs about tequila and cigarettes and all the things that I knew absolutely nothing about um I think it's because I listen to country radio a little too much and I also would ease drop on on adult conversations um I feel like a lot of my ideas would come from just hearing people talk and I didn't at that time I didn't specifically have to live it to write it and I feel like as as time has gone and and I've had the opportunity to write with such incredible writers here in Nashville they've kind of taught me how to put myself into the shoes of of whatever it is that we're writing about um if I want to write about this coffee mug right here they've taught me how to um get out of my body get out of my mind and step into the shoes of of this coffee mug and and feel it for everything that it's worth how is this coffee mug feeling you know um what's it thinking and that's a really therapeutic thing especially when you are having those those hard times every now and then it feels good just just to escape and um and that's what songwriting has been for me so during those camper trailer days during those days of of not knowing where to go or what to do or um I would just write to write I would dream up things to write about and that was really um it was my Saving Grace so really it's like an exercise and empathy like you have to think about somebody's experience even if it's not your own and try and and bring that to life in words that's it right there and I I truly do think that songwriting has definitely made me more of an empathetic person and for instance you know like say a co-writer comes to me and and they're like um this is my idea this is what I'm going through um when you write a song with somebody you you really get to know that person and you really create this Bond and friendship that you will have for forever because you dive in head first I'm talking about you start talking about feelings that um you've never even told some of your closest your your closest people because you want to get the the best song that you possibly can but say you know a friend comes to me and they have this this idea of is something that they are specifically going through for those three or four hours or however long it is that that we are writing this song I'm getting to take some of their burden and put it on me and it makes them feel like they're not going through it alone and there's been times when they do that for me and it really is this this magical um man like you know life is hard but I got people who are going to help me figure it out along the way and I have I have found those people and when you do find those people you better hold on to them um leny I mean writing 4,000 songs I mean what an incredible discipline right because over time you're going to get better and better and I wonder during that that period of time I mean were you also you know auditioning for for labels were you trying to get your foot in the door in front of managers were you did you have any success getting in front of anybody at all when I was 19 years old uh when Jerry cupit was still alive uh we had we had recorded I believe like 10 songs and he got me several meetings with some big labels in town I think I met with Sony I think I met with Warner um maybe big machine and I thought this is it I mean I'm ready you know like I'm I'm about to get me a record deal uh even the first time that I went to CMA Fest in at 14 years old in Nashville I was watching all of these shows and I'm and I'm like I'm ready um the truth truth is I was nowhere near ready I had not lived enough life at the time to tell the kind of stories that I was supposed to tell and I'm a I'm a very firm believer in that that I was supposed to go through through some stuff before um it was believable and it was you know we go into these meetings you hope for the best you come out you don't hear anything and I knew at that point I was like okay well that means that I've got to dig deeper I've got more work to do it took me years it took me about seven or so years of being in Nashville before I found my manager mandolin mic um and she's one of my very best friends she has helped me bring all of these things to life she has believed in me at times more than I've believed in myself and it takes surrounding yourself with those kind of people to lift you up and and help you over that wall and one by one I have found my team whether it's my my Publishing Company um and then signing a record deal in 2018 it took time to to find the people who loved me for me and wouldn't want to change anything about me instead they want to take what I do and um and help Elevate that and the truth is guy I have a really hard time being anything other than myself and I think that's why time is a big part of my story I'm I'm wondering how you persevered over that 7-year period I mean you did release two records they were um and one of them you're the second one tougher actually charted on the on the Billboard Chart um billboard country charts but still they were you were not signed to a major label you didn't have a manager and so I wonder during that seven-year period right when you're really trying this is what you're trying to do you're trying to get a label to sign you you're trying to get a manager you're trying to become a star and it's seven years in and what prevent prevented you from giving up I mean was there ever a moment where you thought I better just find a different career because this might not work out there were times where I should have thought man it's time for me to hang it up it's time for me to think about maybe just you know going home and playing music at at some of the you know the Pickle Barrel and in Monroe and um I could still have fun with it you know maybe I could go be a teacher and I could still do that but I still had a very supportive family um my mama she has encouraged me from the beginning I think her and my daddy both knew too um that people were going to think we were crazy I mean for for sticking this through like I have um I mean any totally any parents um you know like they're sending their kids off to college and whatever they're probably like you know well when are they going to tell Laney to bring her butt to the house when are they going to tell her okay enough is enough stop Living in a Dream World um but nothing about this has been a dream world if anything it has been the complete opposite um but the things that kept me going was that weird sense of peace that weird feeling that I got at 9 years old when I came to Nashville for the first time U when I went to the Grand Opry that is the moment that I always go back to I'm like no no no no no like no I'm I was given this gift and this gift might not be for everybody but it is for somebody and at that point in time when I when I couldn't get a manager when I couldn't find a label when I couldn't find a publishing deal um for me I was like okay well I'm going to go out I'm going to play as many shows as I possibly can I had the mentality of okay one fan at a time if I can find one person who is interested in what I'm saying and what I'm singing about then they're going to go tell their sisters they're going to go tell their brothers they're going to tell their mama and daddy and um that is how those are the things that kept me going I was like okay one person one person is interested in what I have to say um next thing you know 10 people next thing you know 20 people and yeah it's it's just kind of like you you take what you get if you know what I mean yeah so you would you would play like small venues all over just all over the South mainly and you would sell your your record after the show you'd sell your albums I would go play three or 4 Hour shows um out of high school into college as well I was playing with a band called the Cadillac Kings we were playing 4our shows um every now and then they'd let me get up there and do an original song and that was kind of my way of like testing the waters to see if if anybody was interested in what I had to say and um then the next show I'd play a different one just to kind of test the see if they were interested in what I had to say and I just kept doing it and um yeah it's uh it honestly kind of makes you sound a little bit like a psychopath when I really sit back and think about it no but I mean it's it's amazing seven years after your arrival you know seven years of living in a three years of living in a trailer in a parking lot and se but really seven years of just trying trying to get a deal because but at the same time during that period of time you just didn't stop you didn't stop writing you didn't stop performing and and I I wonder how you kept your your spirits up how did you stay positive and focused because that requires so much discipline to keep going I mean I mean the there is there are tens of thousands of people that we don't even know about who've tried to do this in Hollywood or in Nashville who just gave up because it didn't work and some of them might have been Superstars but but how did you stay positive during that time and not anxious or depressed or sad or lonely or all those things you know I I definitely had had seasons of anxiety and depression um but I would always say I went into this this record label and I had a meeting um and they passed on me they said no you know not right now go go work a little harder and then come back several years blah blah blah whatever I always had the mentality of okay I would never have gotten this meeting if it was going to always be a no I would have never met this person if it was always going to be a no at some point in time somebody is going to say yes um I did not know when and it took me a lot longer than a lot of folks I mean I I would see people move to town and they'd be here for a month and get a dang record deal but I also know yeah from watching my daddy um from watching him get up every day do the same thing farming plant it water it take care of it day in and day out a tornado could roll through and wipe it all away at the end of the day is his livelihood is what he loves and I relate it back to what I do I would consider myself a song farmer um it's what I do and that was it I knew that I had to take care of it I knew that there was going to be bad times there was going to be good times um but if you want something it's up to you to go get it and so I would take these nose and I would turn them into yeses somehow and um and I think it was was just finding finding the right people I think it was finding the people like I said earlier who who loved me and believed in in me and my story did at once you signed with a label and you had a publishing deal and a management deal did that change everything all of a sudden I mean reading about you and sort of and you know reading interviews that you've given and your it seems like it happened quickly but I wonder if it felt differently because you know the single was released and then you go on tour with Morgan wall and in 2019 did it did it feel like that just it just supercharged things very quickly after all all of those deals were signed absolutely not I knew that when I signed my name on that dotted line that that's truly when the hard work began um and I knew that going into it I was like okay I have been preparing for the race I now have entered the race and now I'm about to run it um so I was like okay now now is when it counts I've been over here just kind of doing what I love for years you know trying to make ends meet or whatever but now the pressure is on game is on and um I wouldn't even say that I'm a competitive person with other people but I am very competitive with myself I'm hard on myself I mean when I walk off the stage and I feel like I didn't do as good as I wanted to um I'll beat myself up for a minute and I'll figure out what I can do to make it better the next time but that's just that's just the kind of person I am so we signed these record deals we signed these publishing deals I have never worked harder in my life at that point that's when I was like okay well now I have an opportunity to work with a producer that I've been dreaming about working with um Jay Joyce and somebody that you know I heard was unreachable when I signed my record deal they were like I I don't know if that's going to be possible um you know getting to work with him I I think that you know he only works with a select few people um well I did my magic on the other end I had a friend who knew Jay Joyce and every time he would go over um to Jay's house his name is Frank Romano he would he would bring up my name to Jay and kind of plant those seeds and eventually Jay is like well who is this girl and why do you keep talking about her maybe I need to meet her so Jay ends up reaching out to me and says hey would you like to come by the studio and he has this old renovated church with stained glass windows and he has and he's turned it into a studio and he's got these two 150 lb Great Danes that just walk around they look like little miniature horses and um I go over I bring him coffee and I was I was fully expecting to pull out a guitar and play him a song and see if he was interested in maybe working together but I come in he's smoking a cigarette right there in the middle of the sanctuary and I thought man this my kind of people right here he just he just doing doing what he wants to do how he wants to do it and um we got to know each other we we sat there we we talked about the way that I grew up the way that I was raised what I grew up listening to we talked about his story what brought him here he really took the time to get to know me and he took the time to get to know my personality and a few weeks later he asked hey do you want to come back over to the studio and I stopped by bring him coffee again I never play any music at all I go home a few weeks later I come back by again and this time he throws me a guitar and he's like let me hear what you got and at that point I was thinking well I thought we were just hanging out you know and um I play him like a song and a half and you know I we I sto we talk a little bit more about life and I leave and later that day I called and I said you know I don't I don't know what you had in mind but I know what I have in mind you know I'm getting ready I just signed this record deal and I'm getting ready to make a record and um I look up to you a whole lot and I there's a whole lot that I want to learn from you and he said you just let me know when and so that was it so I got to go back to the label and say you know I've actually talked to him so we got to figure this out you know we got to figure out how to come up with the funds to do it and uh we did it and I have I have found a producer that getss it that gets what I do he gets what bellbottom country is um he knows who I am deep down because he he took the time to get to know me before he said yes this is something that that I want to do um I I always say I want to be the worst one in the room whether it's in the writing room or in the studio because I want to leave there feeling like I learned something and every time I'm in the room with Jay Joyce yeah I learn learn I love that idea that you want to be the worst one in the room because then you know you're learning from great people around you and it's how you get better so Jay Jay agrees to work with you and I mean this really you know I mean I think the the song that people who know your music the song that they really many people first heard heard was things a man ought to know yes I think was number one country AirPlay track it was a number three chart charts on the country music was a huge hit I mean all of a sudden you start to get lots of attention you're getting attention and all over Spotify and apple music and um I mean that became a really big breakout single and um tell me about about that song and about writing that song and and the process of of bringing it to life did you know that was going to be the Breakout song I had no clue the truth is guy we had when we were getting ready to do this record with Jay the saying what I'm thinking record we went through 500 songs we had dwindled it down to 500 and then we had dwindled it down to 200 and then we dwindled it down to 50 and then I ended up with 12 songs and I felt like okay these are the songs right here that are saying what I'm thinking and we had covered all those bases about two weeks before I go into the studio um um I was headed home from a coite and another one of those crazy feelings that crazy feeling I told you about at 9 years old I had another one and it hit me like a ton of bricks I remember exactly where I was on Dickerson Pike in Nashville and it hit me in the stomach and it said you have got to record things a man ought to know it was not even on the list I don't even think it was on the like top 20 list that we had but I called I called mandoline my manager and we ended up you know calling the label too cuz it was sign seal delivered we knew exactly what we were cutting and we called and said you know we've got to make room for things a man ought to know I don't know why um but we just have to and when we got into the studio I knew it was a a a special song but I didn't know that this was going to be the one that really did kind of lay that lay that Foundation for what I wanted to to build off of and I'm so glad that it was this one because this song is who I am um this song is how I was raised my parents made dang sure that that I knew how to treat somebody but also how I wanted to be treated and this is not a song about whether you can change a flat tire or start a fire I mean this is a song about um having good character and that right there is not something that that just a man ought to know it's something that we all need need to know so I'm glad that that this was the song that introduced me to a lot of folks because you know I I want to be a light in this world I want to to show little boys and little girls that you're supposed to work hard you're supposed to keep your head down and you're supposed to treat people right when I read um reviews of your music which is remarkable I mean you've been you've received such overwhelming praise for your music from critics um one of the descriptions is like there's a little bit of sort of Southern kind of rock and like some classic classic rock and even a little bit of pop but you you you said this earlier in our conversation and I want to kind of go down this Rabbit Hole a little bit you call your music bellbottom country um what does that mean to you bell bottom country is something that we came up with um before I even did that first record it was it was to describe my look my sound um kind of all of it but also Bill bottom country being a being a place um bell bottom country is country with a flare if that you know wink wink um 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 um for me that's that's my story that's my accent that's where I'm from that's even talking about how long it's taken me to get to where I want to be and where I'm still going um it's about encouraging people to step into that and lean into that as much as you possibly can I I thought of that that I mean your latest album of course is called bbon country and I thought about that idea in the song Hillbilly hippie because it it captures those two ideas right and I I wonder if that is I mean is that a is that you is that sort of a version of you or um is is is that sort of a description of of who you are in a sense absolutely I would I would consider myself a a hillbilly hippie um there's a line in there that says all peace and love up until I ain't and that's true um I'm all about peace and love until you push my buttons and then it's game on um no I I feel like I am I am a I'm a hillbilly hippie and I'm proud of that actually I was headed down to Alabama to go pick up my my French Bulldog her name is hippie and I was writing hillbilly hippie so that's how she ended up getting the name that's awesome I have a dog who for some weird reason loves French bulldogs and every time we see them uh you know in the park that she just loves them which just wants to go and sniff their butt so there you go it's hard French Bulldog I think 10 years to the day that you left Basin to move to that camper Trail you hit um that single things M I know hit Platinum was certified platinum which is unbelievable I read somewhere that like before that happened like just before you signed those deals you had like 50 bucks left or $100 left in your bank account is that is that apocryphal or is that actually true it was I believe about six or eight months before things a man ought to know went number one that I had I believe it was $26 in my bank account you know everybody thinks when you sign a record deal that you're doing fine and everybody thinks when you sign a publishing deal that oh she ain't hurting um but that's not the truth yeah at all we're just out here trying to pay our bills just like everybody else so um yeah I was I was definitely thinking during that time of my life it was we were coming out of the pandemic still in it some and um it was hard times I was not able to go play shows and make any money I mean it was I was just living off of what I had and u a little bit of that publishing draw and times were rough but I knew it was just right around the corner I knew that uh you know my sister had to Vin mow me 200 bucks so I could go to Taco Bell that that night but but times are different now had to do it you had to make it you had no choice I still have no choice I feel like I'm going to be 90 years old still still writing still doing something um still being creative that's what I've learned as uh whether it's in the acting world with Yellowstone or whatever it is I just I really like I enjoy stepping outside of my comfort zone I do I enjoy feeling like I'm learning and growing and creating something from scratch that is going to live longer than me that's that's the cool part about all this is like what we're creating right now even even me and you talking right now this is going to live longer than we are yeah I hope so that's how I I think of of interviews um because they there stories that are Timeless um Lany you really I mean it you know you this is amazing in I think it was in 2022 um you got six nominations at the Country Music Association awards um I mean there are only a few artists who who've received six or more nominations as a first-time nominee it's like Legends Glenn Campbell Casey Musgraves Brad Paisley Lany Wilson now you're in that group of people whove who who first time nominees with six or more nominations when you when when you heard of that when you heard that cuz you know this now when you first heard that what what do you remember how do you remember responding to that idea I mean did you even have a chance to kind of just reflect on that at all I remember well I remember hearing the name Glenn Campbell and about falling out of my seat because my granny tells me the story about my daddy that he used to roll a picnic table out to the side of the highway in Baskin and stand on top of with his guitar and pretend that he was Glenn Campbell when he was a little boy and so it was a full circle just like oh my gosh um you know my daddy he had a little bit of this dream when he was a little boy and now he's kind of getting to live vicariously through me and now now my name is in the same sentence as Glenn Campbell talking about the CMAs that's that's huge I will tell you though you know I I I didn't start doing this and I didn't move to Nashville and I I haven't been here for 12 years just to win the awards you know I like that wasn't even on my radar when I was writing a song at 9 years old I was doing it cuz I had to I was doing it because I felt it in my soul but it is really cool to be acknowledged it's one of those things where it's like oh my gosh my peers um you know people who I have I've worked really hard at creating these friendships and relationship ship with other artists and people within the industry because I knew that in the beginning they might not remember my song or they might not remember anything like that or my songw writing um but they're going to remember how I made them feel and when you have the support of of the country music industry you have their support they're not one leg in one leg out they love you and they have lifted me up um they have they've they believe in me and because I have the support of all of my country music peers you know um that gives you that extra confidence of like yes I can do this people who I look up to are cheering me on like yes I can there's no doubt that I can do this I wonder how you I mean you now have had some success and a lot of attention so how do you make sure that you stay you know you stay hungry you stay engaged and you know like like this could all you know like like it could all go away how do you keep yourself motivated to keep pushing and to keep writing and to keep getting better and to keep growing you know I I go back to being from a farm and community I truly do just because my Daddy has a good crop one year does not mean that he's going to work less hard the next um that's just not how it goes I'm always going to be that little girl who has stars in my eyes I'm telling you it that's just the way that it's going to be um um and there's times where I'm like you know I don't I don't want anybody thinking that I'm not like content or satisfed with where I'm at or anything like that but um there's a lot of things that I want to do there's a lot of things that I want to accomplish and for me the things that keep me going are knowing that I have a lot of little girls and a lot of little boys watching my every move right now and that is a big responsibility but I want them to know that you can't just sit on your hands and wait for things to happen you have got to dig in you have like don't take no f answer if if they tell you no that ought to make you want it that much more and so those are the things that are inspiring me now to keep on going Lany thank you so much thank you this was incredible hey it's guy and I hope you enjoyed this conversation for more like it don't forget to subscribe to the channel and for the audio version just open up your favorite podcast app search for the great creators and tap follow