There’s a song called “Country’s Cool Again”on Lainey Wilson’s new album, “Whirlwind.”It’s not one of the autobiographical numbers on the record, but maybe it should be, because Wilson herself is a big reason why country music is seeing renewed cachet in the culture.In a male-skewing genre that hasn’t really generated a new female superstar since Maren Morris broke out in 2016, Wilson has become the reigning current standard-bearer for women in country. And she didn’t do it by going after pop crossover, but by being so true to her roots that she’s attracted fans from across the fence who had no idea that what they really needed out of music right now was a hardcore Louisiana accent.
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Wilson’s hot streak began when her major-label debut single, “Things a Man Oughta Know,” hit No. 1 three years ago, even as she was enjoying recognition from a small recurring role in “Yellowstone” and several early song syncs on the series. Collaborations have factored into her rise (she shared top 5 hits with Jelly Roll, Hardy and Cole Swindell), but no outside assists are necessary when what audiences really buy into is just Wilson — a sweet-voiced cross between Miranda Lambert and Dolly Parton who’s as good-natured as she is gutsy, whose talk of horses and 4x4s somehow makes her more magnetic even to city slickers, and who has a hell of a good song sense.
“Whirlwind” is another superior example of Wilson’s ongoing collaboration with producer Jay Joyce, and how it generates grabbags of songs that sound completely diverse from track to track and yet all authentically country and certainly all utterly her. She’s already won everything there is to win within the realm of the genre, so could this finally be a moment when the Grammys get it right and nominate her in one of the top all-genre categories, after thoroughly blowing it in bypassing her for a best new artist nod?
Variety caught up with Wilson by phone from an Iowa tour stop to discuss the new album, its Miranda Lambert collaboration, her ACMs and CMAs accolades and a fan club that includes Mick Jagger.
You recently came to L.A. to attend the “Twisters” premiere, since you have a song on that soundtrack. It was surprising to learn that was your first movie premiere.
It was very exciting to be a part of something like that. You know, you dream about writing and singing, and it feels like my dreams are kind of bringing other dreams up that I didn’t even know I had.
And you just played a benefit sponsored by Charlize Theron here. Slowly but surely, you’re getting your Hollywood on.
Yeah, that’s right. Country done come to town.
We want to talk about your new record, and “Yellowstone,” but before that, let’s talk Rolling Stones. You opened for the group at their Chicago tour stop, and then sang a duet with Mick Jagger on “Dead Flowers” in the main set. I can’t recall any of the other opening acts on their tour being asked to do that. There is a touch of Stones in your sound every now and again, so it’s not a crazy stretch to imagine that working.
Oh my gosh. It was such a highlight. I mean, a highlight of my life, my band’s life, my crew’s. Nobody could believe what was actually happening. It was one of those days that we kind of looked around at each other and we’re like, is this real? And everybody made us feel so welcome, and Mick reached out to me and he asked if I wanted to play “Dead Flowers,” and I said, you count me in. And I got to go into his dressing room and rehearse, and then he brought me out and was so supportive. At the end of the day, I feel like if Mick Jagger is cheering you on, then I think I can do anything. I love how country that song is and I mean, they’ve just been such a big influence of mine, and also just for the genre in general. They’ve influenced every single genre, but especially country.
Looking up your upcoming show at the Greek Sept. 1, I was just naively wondering how ticket sales were going, and not only is it sold out, but people are asking crazy prices for resale tickets — practically like Eras Tour-level figures in some cases. That isn’t just in L.A. — I found the same thing in smaller markets where every ticket was reselling for hundreds of dollars.
You know, this was a big step for us, playing these size venues. I was hoping and praying that it would do well, but sometimes you just never know, and thank God it worked out. I feel like that these past couple years since “Bell Bottom Country,” it’s been a bunch of stepping up, leveling up, taking leaps of faith and just going with it. So it makes me very excited to think people were scrounging to get tickets. I wish everybody could come.
You won Entertainer of the Year in the last year from both the CMAs and ACMs. Often, they are split on that category. And when you talk to people in the country industry, they are inclined to think, if they aren’t outrightly instructed, that that particular award belongs to somebody who is representing the genre by headlining arenas and has probably sold them out for years. And they kind of gave you a jump on that, putting the cart before the horse, as far as rewarding you just before you made that leap as a touring artist.
For sure. Honestly, I kind of went into this tour thinking, well, all right, the people thought enough of me to vote me as entertainer of the year, so let me show ’em why they did it. And I hope I always have that mentality. But, you know, I think at the end of the day, when people were voting, if I had to guess what a lot of the people voting were thinking, I have just spent the last 13 years of being in Nashville making friends with people, and developing friendships and relationships with a lot of people that I will be friends with for the rest of forever. And I think they’ve seen the hard work that I’ve put in over the last decade and change. And, yeah, at the end of the day… how can I say this? I accept the awards and the accolades and stuff like that, but I definitely can’t let it be the end-all be-all, because then I can see where you start writing music and doing things for the wrong reasons. And I just can’t do that, because what we’ve done so far has gotten us here.
You got asked to join the Grand Ole Opry. In a few short years, it almost seems like there’s nothing left to strive for, as far as country accolades, except wait another 20 years for the Hall of Fame.
It is feeling really good. I feel like we’ve got a lot of knife on our belts. And I feel like I’m finding out every single day, with opportunities coming my way, that there are dreams I didn’t even know I had.
You’ve played what you described as a version of yourself on “Yellowstone,” but you’ve showed you can do other accents — you just did a Valley Girl accent on “Today” — so you may aspire to do acting that is more outside your wheelhouse.
I would love to. Let’s do something crazy.
Can you say whether it’s working out for you to be in the final half-season of “Yellowstone” or not?
I hope so. and I think I’ve told you this before too, but I realize that the movie business is even crazier than the music business. So, fingers crossed that I get the call. You know, I think Taylor Sheridan knows that I’m all in when he does. So we’ll see what happens. Update: Wilson has said, since doing this interview, that she got the call and will be filming more for the series, though she hasn’t gotten scripts.
To talk about your “Whirlwind” album: There’s a title song, and it’s about a romantic relationship, but it seems possible you picked that album title at least partially because it describes your life these last few years.
A hundred percent. I had gotten all 14 of the songs that I was gonna record for the project. And normally I have the album title first and then kind of decide what’s gonna make the album. Like, does it fit that theme for “Bell Bottom Country”? Is this song talking about leaning into the things that make me me? And for “Whirlwind,” that was not the case. I had all of these songs that described where I was in life and also kind of pulling back some layers of some things that maybe I hadn’t really talked about. And everywhere I went, everybody I talked to, every book I read, it seemed like I kept coming up on the word “whirlwind.” It was almost just like so obvious; it kept slapping me in the face. And I said, OK, I think that the name of the record’s gotta be “Whirlwind.” And then after I really sat down and thought about it, I was like, what does this mean to me? What could it mean to other people? And I think it’s about finding that peace in the chaos. It’s about focusing on the eye of the storm, where it’s the calmest. It’s about trying to keep both feet on the ground when your life is changing and spinning out of control. And sometimes chaos can be good chaos and sometimes it can be bad, but the truth is, that’s just life. And we all kind of deal with a whirlwind of some sort in our own lives.
There are a good number of love songs. Is that a particular reflection of your life recently?
Oh, for sure. I mean, I’m writing about love because I am in love, and that’s a new thing for me to write about and being comfortable with writing about. Yeah, I found a guy that is my cheerleader and I’m his. That’s ex-NFL player Devlin “Duck” Hodges, who Wilson went public with as her significant other in 2023. At the end of the day, I write what I know, and it’s really cool to be able to kind of finally share that side of me, because I didn’t even know it existed.
Do you have a favorite song or two on the album?
Ooh, that’s hard. But, I really love the storytelling of “Whiskey Colored Crayon” a song about an instructor who realizes a child is dealing with an alcoholic parent. I’m from a family of teachers — my mom is a teacher, and all of my aunts on both sides of my family, and my daddy even taught at one point; my grandma was a principal. So teaching kind of runs in the blood, and I guess you would kind of consider the song a little bit of a teacher appreciation kind of song. I know that my mama, as well as all her sisters and all the teachers in my family have served big purposes in people’s lives, in kids’ lives. And they have influenced them and they’ve been there for them at times when maybe things were going on at home behind closed doors that nobody else knew, and I just wanted to tell a story about that. I wanted it to be vivid. So I’m proud of the way that it was written, and I’m proud of the story that it tells.
The first single off the album, “Hang Tight Honey,” was a bit of a surprise, because everything on country radio tends to lean mid-tempo, so to actually put out a frantic song as a single is fun.
Oh yeah, I definitely can’t remember the last time that radio played a female song like that, so it was exciting for me that I could be able to bring something like that to the table. And especially talking about making the money and coming home to your man, and singing from a point of view that you don’t hear all the time. When I was writing it, I was trying to keep in mind that just like there’s a bunch of hard-working men, there’s a bunch of hard-working ladies out there too, whether they’re stay-at-home mamas or they’re doing whatever they can to support their families.
“4×4 by You” is more the soulful side of country, just a wonderful vibe song. Even for those of us who don’t have trucks, you make it feel aspirational. Why did you put that out so far ahead of the album, even though it’s not a radio single per se — though it feels like it should be?
I’ve actually been playing the song in my encore on the Country’s Cool Again tour, and by the time I get to the second chorus, people were singing it back to me with their hands in the air, when they’ve never heard the song. It just felt right. I felt like, all right, we started playing it early, so I think we need to drop it early. And it’s funny that you say that (it works) even for people who don’t have trucks, because I’ve heard that from quite a few people — even though they don’t know a dang thing about a truck, this song makes ’em feel like they do, you know?
Can you tell how the Miranda Lambert hookup, “Good Horses,” came about? I don’t want to quite say you’re the two leading ladies of the genre, because there are a lot of great women in country music, but it feels like the two of you teaming up might count as a history-making moment.
Miranda, she’s been one of the ladies in country music that has just kind of wrapped her arm around me. She’ll text me and be like, “How’s your heart? How’s your mind? How’s your head? How are you sleeping?” Really just checking on me, because I think she understands really how crazy this business can be. And, especially being a female in this business, sometimes it looks different for the girls than it does for the boys. So she can relate to me with a lot. But she called me one day and said, “I want you to come out to my farm and I want you to take a nap, and I’m gonna feed you.” And I think I took like a 13-hour nap.
And then I woke up and they fed me breakfast, and her and I and (songwriter) Luke Dick went out to one of her cabins on her farm and we sat on this balcony. I had had this idea for a while and nobody had latched onto it just yet, and in the end, I’m kind of glad they didn’t because I needed to write it with her. Because, I mean, both of us are of course girls, and that’s the way that we grew up: We love that that gritty, kind of grounded way of life. And we love traveling and hitting the road, but we always like coming home too, because being at home is the thing that makes us feel like us. So, as we were sitting there writing a song, three bluebirds had flown up and landed on the balcony, and she and Luke Dick kind of glared at each other. They said that as they were writing her song, “Bluebird,” three bluebirds had flown up in the same exact spot. So I took that as a good sign, and it was only natural for me and her to want to (sing) the song together.
“Ring Finger” is such a fun song — it’s like there’s an ‘80s rap influence to it or something, even though it’s a quintessential sassy country song. Was there anything that prompted that direction?
It’s so crazy because the 10 seconds of the song, it seems like so chaotic, and then it kind of slows down into this funky groove that feels kind of Michael Jackson. As we were working on the song, I knew that if we were gonna do anything crazy, this was the one to do it with, because it was stepping into the shoes of another character and singing it from that point of view. At the beginning of the song, with it being so chaotic like that, it kind of feels like that’s the way that the girl’s brain feels, and then she’s like, OK, get your shit together. And then she starts singing the verse and then it gets crazy again, and then she kind of gets her stuff together again, and it continues and the story evolves. I wanted it to be one of those songs that you listen and you’re like, what in the world is going on? But you can’t help but listen to the storyline.
As far as playing this summer, you’re doing a lot of outdoor shows, of course. And you are known for your leather bell bottoms. Does the leather still work for you when it’s 105 degrees out?
It definitely don’t work for it. And I still have not learned my lesso,n because I think I might be wearing leather again tonight, so, oh my gosh. But you do what you gotta do to look cool, right?
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