Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsteads Podcast.

My guest today is Margot Price, who has a new album, Hard Hitted Woman.

Margot, you went back to using Matt ross Bang as a producer like you did on your first two big time albums.

Tell me about that.

Matt has been just so instrumental and in the shape of my sound, and I knew that I wanted to work with him again.

It had been a minute, and I think we've both just grown a lot since those first couple records.

Matt's worked on some huge things, and he's just the type of person that's married to his work.

He's so in love with being in the studio and making the song be the best it can be.

So when I, yeah, when I talked to him about getting back in there together, we were both just thrilled.

It was.

It was a great experience, It really was.

Okay, tell the story about how you met Matt going to Sun Studios.

Yeah, Matt worked there at Sun for years and years, and he was an engineer there.

He also gave tours.

That's kind of how I first stumbled upon Son.

I was on a musical tour stopped in Memphis, on my way to Texas and literally saw a little you know sign in the gift shop that said make your own recording, and so I reached out called the number.

And Matt was the engineer there at the time, and he soaked up so much of the you know, recording knowledge from Sam Phillips and and you know, the old school way of doing things.

I like a lot of music from the eras that he is familiar with, you know, those tape machines and all the kind of organic ways of doing stuff.

And I think that's where we where we really vibe.

Okay, you say that since you first worked with him, you've both grown.

Tell me about that.

I think when I got in there to make that first record, I mean I had been in the studio prior, but you know, there's there's just so much to learn about recording, about how to get the most out of out of your voice and what you're capable of.

I think when I was younger making those records, you know, I just I had this urgency that was like, I've got to get this out, this has got to I've got to get it out.

And I didn't have the luxury of having a huge budget, you know, my husband sold a car.

We we sold a lot of our musical gear to make that first record.

I mean I pawned my wedding ring.

We just kind of went all in and so I really had like a three day budget to get that album done.

And as I've grown and you know, sat with those records forever, now it's like I want to get everything perfect.

I want it to be, you know, completely completely finished.

And and that is something that I've learned.

You know, It's like these records are around forever, and if it takes going back and doing another vocal pass or like also just even sitting in there during the mixing process, you know, like it's grueling.

But like that's something that in my in my middle age, I've really loved being you know, being there from the conception all the way to the finish line mixed and mastering all the details.

And what's different about working with the producer.

Yeah, I think being able to take that feedback and to put your ego aside and you know, have somebody else's ear in there too to make sure that, yeah, that you've got the everything you need to make the song memorable.

And and like I said, just you know, not not drowning things in too much reverb or too much you know, God forbid auto tune.

But that's like the exact opposite of what Matt likes to do.

He wants things to be human and not too polished.

And so it's a real give and take because I think I could get stuck just you know, in the editing process or in the in the overdub process.

And so it's also when to know where you know when it's done, so you don't quote unquote burn the beans.

Okay, you made a lot of records, but not with big distribution to your first album with Third Man that blew up really pretty quickly.

You are on SNL now it's you know, basically ten years later.

The landscape has changed, your relevant of you.

Even SNL doesn't mean what it used to mean.

So when you sit down, I used to be when you were growing up.

Hey, let's get on MTV.

Everybody's going to know my record.

Today nobody knows every record.

So when you go in to make a record, what are the targets and what are your feelings relative to what they used to be.

Well, the landscape has changed so much, and you know, the music business is almost even unrecognizable from ten years years ago, because the charts are are dictated by you know, TikTok and social media, and there's good things about the change, and there's not so good things about the change.

For me, I try not to get too caught up in you know, I don't know what I think other people want to hear from me, or what I think is going to you know, be a one of those kind of flash in the pan, you know, like a song that people are putting on their reels, or you know, people are just using fifteen seconds these days, and it's like, that's what that's what's going on now.

Who knows, if, you know, we'll ever get the attention span back of the public in the way that it used to be.

But I'm still making records that are a holess experience to the record.

I'm not.

I never got in this wanting to just write pop songs or wanting to just write something that is going to top the charts.

I'm here for a part of the music listening population that wants to go a little deeper than wants to go a little bit further than whatever the earworm of the week is.

Okay, this is a commercial enterprise.

You're on Loma Vista, which is part of a major organization.

There's issues of budgets, issues of commercial success now really streams.

Do you feel that pressure.

I'm sure people would like me to feel that pressure.

I I don't know.

I have managed to build a career off of having in integrity and off of like the live show and touring, and I you know, of course, would like my albums to do great and to sell as many records as I can.

The streaming stuff, it's it's hard for me.

It's hard for me to want to have massive streaming numbers because of what those corporations do to artists.

So I don't know.

I think at the end of the day, I'm still gonna be fine.

I'm still gonna be able to you know, feed my family.

And I can't get caught up in that because I've never been caught up.

I've never been worried about being like on country radio, and you know, the charts have have changed in the way that you know, maybe country radio isn't as important as it used to be.

But now it's kind of like, I don't know, it's it's still there's still problems in the music business.

They've just changed.

So you're making a record in today's market.

What's the budget and how long did it take to make it?

Well, the budget, you know, they give you like a ballpark estimate, and I went to RCA Studio A So I blew through that budget because I went to the best studio and I want to pay my musicians fairly, and I, like I said, I wasn't going to stop until it was done.

And so the budget for this record was substantial.

It was.

It was healthy.

But I have no regrets.

That studio sounds incredible and you can hear it.

I mean, like we didn't go back in and put a bunch of like reverb and delay on everything, because we were just using the room and we were just using the echo chamber and just the room and RCA and like just knowing like, okay, this is where Dolly made nine to five, you know, like this is where some of my favorite records were made.

And it was when people cared about the audio sound.

Now everybody just listens through whatever, you know, through the speaker of their phone.

But I just got the test pressing and the vinyl sounds incredible, and there's just there's no comparing it, and so until they take the keys away from me, I'm going to do my best to have records sound warm and not everything all compressed and sounds like shit, like you know when you do turn on country radio, like that's what you hear.

You hear a bunch of compressed garbage.

And uh, we've got a task Cam three eighty eight reel to reel in my house in this in this room here.

My husband's been really getting acquainted with how to work it, and he's been recording a bunch of stuff on there.

So even if I do make a record that has you know, isn't going into to RCAA Studio A and have a huge budget, it still is going to sound warm, because that's just what I gravitate towards anything done in the sixties and the seventies and analog warmth in those in those ways.

Okay, you made a video that's a take off on the video from Subterranean Homesick Blues, and you write in your book which is quite interesting about being a big Dylan fan.

I mean, you talk about playing a gig and playing winter Lude from New Morning.

Most people don't even know that track.

So what's your favorite Bob Dylan album.

Ah, that such a tough question.

I think it all depends on the mood.

But I love Desire.

I go back to that record all the time.

The songs on it, of course, like Emmylu's harmony singing, which I as soon as I met Emmy that was one of the things I had to ask her about, you know, because she notoriously hated her vocals on there.

But yeah, I love I have such a soft spot for Desire.

That's kind of been the the mood I've been in.

But Dylan is like number one artist for me.

He's the best songwriter that's ever been.

And I'll dance on Steve Earl's coffee table and argue that.

And I love Towns Okay.

So you know, Desire follows up Blood on the Tracks, which is sort of a comeback for Dylan after his tour with the band and Planet Ways, which sold and really was not embraced critically at the time.

So if I asked you, like, other than that album, give me some other Dylan tracks that you're a fan of.

Oh, other other than that album?

I mean, gosh, I know all the deep cuts, I mean even the you know, please missus Henry and all the stuff that he was writing half Baked with the band.

You know, that record changed things for me.

Million Dollar Bash, Like, there's just there's so many different and I loved I mean, Planet Waves has some gems too, and I even love like Bob's coming to Jesus Records, you know, like you got to serve somebody.

I've it's taken me a long time to get into all his records, but I mean John Wesley Harding, even the ones that people don't like, I'm like, no, there's great.

There's great songs in there.

And I think anybody that's that doesn't like Bob Dylan really has no business playing music.

Okay, you know there are different periods with Dylan.

You know, the earlier records all you know, there's a run of words like my favorite song is It's all Right Ma from Bringing It All back Home.

Once you get John Wesley Harding and National Skyline, it slows down a little bit.

These are different periods.

What have you learned from listening to Bob Dylan that has affected your own life or songwriting?

Well, I think he never got stuck doing the same thing too long, and he was always, you know, burning through different things for inspiration.

And obviously there's that quote that is supposed to be Bob's that's like amateur's borrow and professional steel.

And I think Bob was just he just he was a conduit.

But he also was a great thief and interpreter of other people's work and being able to take it and bring it into your own.

I mean, I'm I'm a big believer in tradition and like rooted music.

You know, everything comes from the blues, everything comes from the Irish, you know, folk songs back in the day, that's really what country music is, or Americana.

But think you know Bob, he everything he did was always rooted, but he found different, you know, different ways to bring all these different genres into into what he did, whether it was gospel, and I mean here he's just you know, he's a Jewish kid, and he somehows I'm gonna make a gospel record.

I've loved people that could be chameleons in that way.

And I think that's how he never got I mean, like you said, he did have periods where he you know, would disappear and his work got slower, but like he just he kept moving, he kept creating, he kept coming back to things, and I think, you know, maybe my career would be further along had I stayed in the country world the whole time, or it stayed in the Americano world the whole time.

But like I had to just for my own sanity, like visit these other genres that I love so much.

I mean, I I don't regret making a psychedelic rock album.

I don't regret kind of crossing over into these other things because that's just what I felt pulled to do.

And when you make your passion into your career, it can make the whole thing like not as sexy as it was because you've got people depending on you financially, and you know, you've got you've got employees, and you've got to think about paying your bills and oh what, you know, what am I going to do that's going to be successful?

But at the end of the day, I just I think that's that's what I've learned from Bob, is to just keep moving, keep being inspired, and you know, nothing is really off limits when it comes to genres.

So what have you stolen?

Haven't I stolen?

Yeah?

I think you know, even in my first record, I was borrowing so much from like Loretta Lynn, I was borrowing.

I mean, even the title of Midwest Farmer's Daughter, like that came from a Beach Boys song.

You know, okay, wait to stop for a second.

That's a great song off the second Beach Boys album.

How do you know that song?

I was born in the wrong time.

I literally everything in my home it looks like I'm you know, was graduated the year my parents graduated, which was like nineteen seventy three.

But I had one of those dads that would, you know, put me in the back of the car and do the quizzing.

Okay, who's this?

You know, who's this?

Uh, it's the doors.

It's Jim Morris and dad, you know, like he educated me when it came to classic rock and blues.

And then my grand my grandmother loved country music.

And my uncle was a songwriter here in Nashville's name is Bob Fisher, and he wrote songs for George Jones, Tanya Charlie Pride.

So that was where I got the like country kind of influence from.

And I mean, of course I listened to contemporary music in the nineties, like I was listening to Doctor dre and and Snoop Dogg and Eminem.

But I was also like very into loosen To Williams and Gilly Walch and like the songwriting that was going on then, and Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac and Heartbreakers.

So I don't know, I feel like in the nineties is when everything really started to get shit and you know, get worse, especially the two thousands, like the boy bands and like the pop music that was going on then.

I just find it really insufferable.

But yeah, I've just lived in another decade for a very long time.

Okay, you grew up in Nowheeresville, Illinois, western part of Illinois, and you're listening to Gin and Juice and Doggy Style.

I mean, I live in Los Angeles, I know where Englewood is.

I know we're all on Beachwitter.

What's it like listening to those records where there may not even be a black person with an X number of miles.

Very good point there was.

Yeah, there was like one black family in my town and they were adopted by a white family, so that tells you that.

Yeah, I don't know.

It just was like my parents didn't want me to listen to it.

So that's was really the motivation behind it, I don't know.

I I think, yeah, it was just what everybody else in my in my school was listening to.

And really at that time, I wasn't as big into the nineties country as you know.

It was like I could kind of take it or leave it.

Like when I really fell in love with country, that was getting into stuff that was older.

So I think at the time it was just like compared to, like I said, the Christina Aguileras and the you know, in Sync and stuff like that, it was like I resonated more with with Wrap, which is is hilarious to say.

But Okay, so you're in high school, these records are coming out.

You know, there's a whole lifestyle attitude vocabulary in these records.

So were you and your friends imitating that living.

That Yeah, we were definitely.

I was drinking way too young, I was.

I had my first drink at the age of I think twelve, and the pot smoking that came around sixteen.

And yeah, there wasn't a lot to do in my town, and so substances became became a part of my life very quickly.

Unfortunately.

Okay, let's go back to the beginning.

Your parents and grandparents are turning you on to music.

At what point do you first start to play an instrument?

So piano lessons started around yeah, early elementary seven eight years old, I think was when the piano came around.

And then at twelve, well, before you.

Go out there usually you know, I'm a little older than you.

It was like an unwritten rule in a Jewish family, it start taking piano lessons.

How did you end up taking piano lessons?

Was there already pen in the home and parents said you're going to do this?

And was it like a chore or did you see a piano say hey, I'd like to play the Well I was.

I was singing from a very early age and I would just sing a cappella all the time.

And so my parents saw the need that you know, I was asking them to take piano lessons, and so they bought a little spin at piano and then I did.

I don't know my teacher, she kind of taught me boring songs, but I would sit there and make things up.

But it was it was a privilege.

It was a luxury because neither of my parents ever had a musical lesson, and so you know, they kind of spun it that way.

So it was for me, it was it was fun, it was fun to learn.

I didn't like I said, I didn't love my teacher, and so I very quickly used all the money from my eighth grade graduation cards and got a guitar and started teaching myself on that started.

I would always bring my guitar everywhere to all the parties and to you know, we would go cruise around on these back roads and I would bring the guitar in the back of the car and try to learn whatever song me and my friends were into, and you know, kind of karaoke.

It.

Okay, you didn't grow up in a big town, but you know, when I went to high school, there was the kid or the multiple kids who played the guitar, and when you went to a party, they would play were you that kid or were you the wannabe kid?

I was.

I was a bit shy, but I would try to break myself out of the shell.

Like I said, a couple a couple of beers here and there there would be I would I would sit around and play some songs.

But it was like I was learning kind of more quiet folky stuff like Pieces of You by jewel or you know, like I was saying, like Gillian Welch was just massive for me.

I was very into like the kind of like sad, more quiet.

You know.

There were other people that were like in the school that were playing like led Zeppelin, and I would learn a couple of chords from them and try to hang out with them.

But I don't know, I was more of a little bit more of a folky Okay.

It wasn't like Gillian Welch was on the radio.

She certainly didn't have a hit record.

So how did you find all this sad music?

You know?

I think word of mouth.

Like I remember a friend like giving me the Lucinda CD, and that kind of opened like a door into music that was not on the radio, like I said, the like nineties country that a lot of people were listening to.

But yeah, it was, I mean it was it was massive to I hear people writing songs that just felt not like what was coming out of you know, the local stations.

And I didn't really have cable either, but I would go to my grandmother's house.

I would watch MTV at her house.

I would also I mean, there were just like music magazines, like reading like actually picking up like a copy of Rolling Stone and like and waiting for like a CD to come out like that was it was huge.

And then sometimes you know, I would also like make bootleg cassettes off of like radio stations and record things so I could listen back to it later.

But yeah, it just seems like a whole different time.

Now, Okay, what kind of kid were you in high school?

You obviously had some friends, you run around drinking and drugging, But were you like, oh, Margo, yeah, use that odd girl in the corner, or you the cheerleader type?

What kind of kid were you?

I was.

I was a bit preppy because I think that was just like the only way to really be accepted in my town.

It was all about football, American football.

And I was a cheerleader, and I sang the national anthem at like all the football games, all the basketball games.

I was in choir.

And my chorus teacher did not give me very many solos.

She didn't give me many ensembles, she didn't give me many parts at all.

Why she said, my voice didn't blend and my voice was not a good blending voice.

And I mean it is like it can be a bit waspy, it can really cut through, but like, yeah, never until my senior year she me the solo at the baccalaureate concert I got to and then she gave me the McKinley Award for music like my senior year.

But like it was, I just felt like she did not like me, and so I wanted to have more of like a role in the arts world.

But I just I didn't thrive in there as much as I could have.

I think, I don't know.

I did jazz choir, I did show choir.

I was always doing you know, choir events.

But like I said, I wasn't getting I wasn't getting the solos, that's for sure.

Oka Is that because she's a prick or you know?

Are you the type of person that gets along with everybody?

Are you the type of person has an agy personality?

They either like you they don't.

I don't know.

I think I'm honestly pretty agreeable, and unfortunately I've been a people pleaser just because of sitch situations around me growing up and you know, childhood traumas and bullshit like that.

I I don't know.

I mean, I did rebel here and there in school, and I did run with the rowdy crowd, but I don't know.

She was also just very tough.

She was a really tough instructor and I had her all the way from sixth grade through to high school.

I had another voice teacher.

Her name was Sue Clark.

She taught me mezzo soprano Italian, you know, opera style singing.

And I was working so hard, you know, but the but the vocal coach in my high school, she she just did not like me.

And now she'll say that, you know, she taught me everything that I know, and she's always like acts like she was always supportive.

But do you have any contact with her?

How do you know that.

I've heard through the grape vine, on the on the Facebook or whatever.

But I she was like judge Judy.

She was really tough.

She ruled with an iron fist.

And yeah, but you know, there's this syndrome.

Maybe I'm beating the dead horse here where the most talented person.

It's almost like the teacher has to teach that personal lesson and put them in their place, kind of getting that vibe from you.

It could have been a bit that it could it could have been a little bit of that.

I mean I definitely can be headstrong and I definitely not shied away from opinions that I'm sure lots of people would rather me keep my mouth shut.

But that's that's the good part about me and the bad part.

Okay, that scene.

What kind of academic student were you?

I?

I always had people saying, you're not working up to your full potential.

You know.

It was always daydreams.

Applying your Yeah, absolutely, I I did.

Okay, I I could, I could have applied myself more, but I was always just like daydreaming and I don't know, chasing boys, hanging out with friends.

And your parents will they give you any guidance telling you what to do.

I was the first born of three girls, and they were really tough on me.

They were very, very controlling and wanted me to be safe all the time.

But I definitely gave them a run for their money.

I you know, like I said, I got okay grades, I passed, but I was I've always had a rebellious streak.

And my parents they were always catching me, yeah, drinking, smoking weed, whatever it was.

They wanted me to just be a good, normal kid, and I was like sign number one, like she's gonna to be a musician.

Was it in your DNA?

How about boys?

Oh yeah, that was That's always been a trouble for me.

That's always been an issue.

What does that mean?

Everybody thinks I'm like a man hater because I'm a feminist, but I really I love men way too much.

I've had well, yeah, my last band, you know, kind of broke up because there was there was a lot of interpersonal relationships going on.

My keyboard player was married to my bass player.

I had an affair with my guitarist.

My husband and I stayed, have worked things out.

He's been my closest collaborator for twenty one years.

We've grown up together and he's by far my greatest support.

And I mean we went through a lot of trauma together.

We lost a child.

We were struggling in the music business for years.

So now it's like we get to live out our dreams and write these songs and be in Nashville.

I'm really lucky he's stuck with me through all my all my wild years.

Okay, you're in a band, you're struggling, and there you know, there's a married couple in your band.

Do you ever think, well, maybe this isn't a good thing to do to have an affair or was it something beneath it other than you know, we say, I'm going to teach somebody a lesson.

I'm so frustrated.

What was going through your mind?

Well, you know, I, like I said, we had been through a major trauma, we lost a child, and things were it was just it was a dark time.

There was too much drinking going on, There was too much drugging.

There was, like I said, just decades of failure that had accrued.

And really it was it was just a lot of bad decisions leading up to you know what completely turned around.

I mean, I've I've never been in a better place emotionally, artistically, creatively, but I think we had to go through that dark time to even you know, have the material, the songs, everything that we had.

I know it sounds like cliche, but I before we had those major traumas in our life like this, the songs just really weren't as deep because I had not been through the struggles that you know are oftentimes fodder for for good songs and life lessons and poetry.

And yeah, it's it's a time that I look back on and I you know, I used to be embarrassed of what I went through or you know, not want to talk about it, but it's it gave give me the outlook that I have now.

It gave me all the strength to get through that time, to just have the character.

Now, Okay, you had an affair.

You ultimately told your husband.

It sounds like he acted out a little bit.

Not to mention that.

I talk about the death of the child, although not that long after the child is born, but frequently that breaks up a relationship after people step out, how do you rekindle it and how do you rekindle the trust?

It's been it's been a journey for both of us.

We have done therapy individually together we have I mean, we've written songs about it, which is just sounds insane, but it's it's all in there if anyone's listening to the lyrics, and I think, you know, having very deep talks, have having each other's back.

And.

It's you know, any marriage is a lot of work, but what we have is just it's so much deeper than just just a regular marriage because we are creative partners.

It's like John and Paul, It's like Robert Hunter and the grateful dead.

It's like it is like Dave and Gillian, where it's like I just I think it took us so long to get to this like healthy place that we're at now, and it feels like a miracle honestly that we got through it, because I think eighty percent of people that lose a child are separated, and then fifty percent of all marriages in general just end in divorce.

So I feel like we have like beat the odds in just this huge way.

And yeah, it's not been easy.

Okay, you're married to this guy, jereed me.

You work with them.

I mean a lot of people wake up in the morning, have breakfast, go to work for six or eight hours, come home, they're separate.

You're together all the time.

Doesn't that cause extra friction?

Well, we do.

We do try to take time, whether it's like sometimes he's staying home with the children and I'm going out on the road by myself and sometimes he will take a writing retreat or you know, we really do make as Khalil Jabron says, let there be spaces in your togetherness, because it's it can be really challenging when you're dating one of your band members and he's so good.

He's like Brian Wilson in the way that it's like he just loves to be home.

He loves to be in the studio, he loves to be writing, and and he loves to travel as well.

But like, you know, there's we've kind of reached this point where it's like, okay, like this is what you do, well, this is what I do.

Well, we're gonna we don't always have to be on the road together, like twenty four to seven, because it can be really challenging.

Okay, this is something that comes up.

No one really made a deep dive in it.

Prior to cell phone cameras.

One of the reasons men got into music was to go on the road, drink drug and have sex.

I mean, the cliche is sex, drugs rock and roll.

So what's it like being a woman on the road, especially when your husband is not there.

Well, I think, you know, in my twenties and in my thirties, it was a much different thing than it is now.

I think I'm I don't know, I'm a little more focused on like using my free time to write songs or work on a book, write haikus, and go to vintage stores.

And you know, I mean I definitely was in the phase where it would be like after the show, you went out and you went to another bar and you know, hang out, talk to fans, talk to friends, talk to other bands.

I mean it's still it's still is, you know, traveling and being out.

But I think I think that there's such a misconception sometimes with touring that it's like the backstage is much more sexy than it is.

It's like, oh, it's really just a bunch of crew guys pushing around heavy shit and everybody's like back there, you know, waiting to use a shower or I don't know, it's it's not as sexy as maybe it used to be.

I mean, it doesn't mean that I'm totally sober and there's not any fun times, because they're definitely is fun times.

And sometimes I do still party, but I just have to really like plan my partying.

Okay, you've been at this for a couple of decades.

What's it like being an attractive, successful woman on the road.

I mean, men have groupies.

Do you have guys that you have to keep at arm's length?

We read about, you know, the stalkers of Taylor Swift, and other people.

What's the experience for you.

I definitely have to be careful about opening up my dms.

Sometimes you don't know what people are going to send you, but I just try not to do that anyway.

I think, you know, I do like to protect my privacy.

I I like to have someone out there with me that can give a little muscle and keep me safe for sure.

But I think for the most part, I have I have some really great fans, and I have a lot of people that I think that come out to my shows and the thing that they want.

I do a lot of Like when I do my headlining tour, I'll do meet and greets and do like a VIP package, and really it's supposed to be me just singing a couple of songs and take a group photo, but I always end up meeting.

If there's time, I'll try to meet everyone individually, take a photo with everyone individually, talk to folks, and I think, you know, really they I have a lot of people that want to trauma bond with me, and they want to share their story.

You know, I lost this person, Oh I lost my husband, and you know, we used to come to your shows or I mean there's just people love to share their stories of what they went through and how my songs helped them through it.

So a lot of times I feel like it's a more innocent every now and then, Yeah, you get the swinger couple that comes up, Oh my husband's get out of jail free card, or you know, like you've got people want me to sign their boobs or yeah, sign other areas of their body.

But like I said, I always have I always have someone there with me to kind of make sure that I'm that I'm safe.

Okay, let's go back to the narrative.

So you're singing in high school, you get this McKinley award, I think you said, and what's the dream?

Then at what point do you say, hmmm, this music thing, this is what I want to do.

I was really young when I first started saying I wanted to be an actress or I wanted to be a singer and career day I remember that came about and I had like the guidance counselor at school say like, oh no, you you can't be a singer.

That's not a career.

And I feel like, from the age of like twelve thirteen on, I always wanted to prove it to people.

It was like, oh, okay, because my mom was there saying, no, you can, you can do that.

If that's what you want to do, you can absolutely do that.

But really it was when I took this massive mushroom trip on psilocybin.

I was eighteen years old.

I was in college, and I took an eighth of mushrooms and just completely went to outer space.

And as I came back down, I realized that I didn't want to be living in the Midwest anymore.

I did not want to study communications or Spanish or whatever.

And I visited Nashville during spring break of my sophomore year and then dropped out of school, moved to Nashville, and just started signing up for every like open mic right night.

Yeah, that was the real turning point.

Was like eighteen nineteen.

Okay, you were in college at first, you were a cheerleader.

What was your college experience like before you did drop out.

I was excelling in Spanish.

I had changed my major from communications to art and dance in theater, so I was taking a lot of ballet classes, a lot of modern dance like Martha Graham, Bob Fosse type dance and theater and all of that.

It was good, but I was still it was really just kind of purposeless.

I was partying a lot.

I was just drinking way too much.

I ended up getting alcohol poisoning sophomore year and they hauled me off to the hospital.

It was I was driftless and just experimenting with a lot of substances.

But I met a lot of really cool people that were into great music and we would get together and hang out and jam and so that side of everything was growing, just musically, and you know, I'd go over and like sit behind a drum kit and play with people and try to learn songs.

I met some friends that were also writing songs and we would we would, you know, swap lyrics and music and everything.

But it was, yeah, the schooling part was just really boring to me.

It was really just more about the socializing and and.

That's where college is.

But whatever, what did your parents say when you said you were going to drop out?

They thought it was crazy, and they they wanted me to finish college because you know, like I said, that a luxury that my mom graduated college, but my dad never did.

Nobody on his side of the family did, and so he was really frustrated with me.

I thought it was just a crazy idea to move to Nashville.

And I didn't even want to be a country singer.

I just wanted to be a songwriter.

Nashville Star was like all the rage at that time, and it was just I didn't like anything that I heard.

I don't like any of the poppy country stuff and I still don't.

And I but there was this other scene that was going on at the time in Nashville, and it was like down by like exit in and Elliston Place, and it was like called the Rock Block at the time.

And so between that and then just going to the open mic like Writers' Nights and hearing people that were just really good songwriters, you know.

I mean some of them probably had cuts and had hits, but I don't know.

I really wanted to move to New York or California, and my parents were like, no way, you don't know how to drive in in that kind of traffic, Like you just need to go here because it's closer.

And so's it's really funny that I ended up making country music after all, but not the kind of country music that you know, like was thriving in the nineties in the two thousands, I just I didn't.

I didn't like Nashville Star, I didn't like I didn't like American idol.

I didn't I know what I don't like.

Okay, you come to Nashville, put it mildly.

You don't have any success, Okay, and in the back of your mind you say, shit, maybe I should go back to college.

I mean, there's the Bruce Springsteen live album where his mother says, you know, you can still go back to college.

Yeah.

I thought about all sorts of different ways I could pivot my career to be a photographer for pivot my career to you know, still do something artistic.

And and I was teaching a lot of children at the time.

I was the director of like the dance program, and and I could incorporate music in those ways, like I would choreograph like ballets to like Sid Barrett and like the Beatles and really weird songs like you know, Brian Wilson's like Smile, Like that's that's good music for like children's tap dances.

But so I had I had that like as a creative outlet.

But I definitely didn't feel fulfilled, and people asked, especially when I got pregnant, it was like, okay, now you're going to give it up right, like it's been a decade, like nothing's happening for you.

And I just we just kept going.

I just kept barreling ahead.

Okay, let's go back at chatter.

We have two sisters.

Did they go to finish college?

What are they up to?

So my the middle sister is a very successful business woman, and she had a BMW and a nice house and a hot tub, and and here I'm living in Squalor, you know, three years older than her.

I've got like rats in my house and you know, just everything in the house is from a thrift store.

And so yeah, my middle sister has always been just like business savvy, good with money, computer science, brain.

My youngest sister, she's kind of an artist like me.

She's a dancer and she's traveled the world and performed and done stuff with video and television and all sorts of different things.

But uh yeah, I'm the oldest, the oldest of three.

Okay, you go back to your hometown, your family, your relatives, the people you grew up with.

Are they respect and into your success or there's someone putting you down because you've got out.

It's a combination of both.

Yeah, I hate it when people think I'm like too good for them, because I really have tried to remain true to who I am.

But I think, yeah, you know, it's when you've got a large group of people who never got away, who've never seen anything else, there is going to be a little bit of a level of that.

But also, I mean when I go back to my hometown, it's like I am such a celebrity there.

There's like a sign when you come into town.

It's like home of Margot Price and right by the football sign, you know, Big ten you know, state champs these years.

And then also home of Susie Bogas also is from my hometown.

She's a nineties country star.

So I go there, I go to you know, go to the grocery store, and people people are proud of me.

People are proud of me there too.

Wait, wait, how many people live in this town?

Like less than four thousand for sure.

And there's a sign, a permanent sign this is home of Margot Brice.

Yeah, I mean it's kind of like a star on Hollywood Boulevard.

How does that even happen it is.

I don't know, I have no idea.

I I feel really lucky that, you know, I've I've got people there that do support me.

And my mom too.

She was a teacher in the town and she's like a celebrity too because she taught third grade for years.

She taught, so it's like I always we would be, you know, at the grocery store, and people would be coming up to my mom and saying, oh, she was my favorite teacher.

She changed my life, you know.

And and my grandma still lives there, and there's a local radio station and they for me, And yeah, I do love to go to go back home.

I didn't get to go to my high school graduation.

I wanted to go there because I know there were a lot of people that shit talked me, and it would be it would be good to see some people.

But I had a show.

I couldn't go back.

You mean the reunion, just to be.

Clear, reunion.

Oh yeah, what did I say?

Okay, you move to Nashville, you live with the relative, then you live with an old college buddy.

And these are not placid situations.

I mean, you know, they both turned bad.

Tell us about that.

Yeah, my cousin.

I'm a bit estranged from her, but she used to be pretty well connected in the music business.

She well, she was dating one of the Whalers at least from Bob Marley and the Whalers, and so she got me into some cool concerts when I moved here.

But she's a very strong personality and has some substance substance issues as well.

So yeah, lived with her didn't work out.

Lived with another roommate who ended up kind of leaving with some of my possessions, and have not spoken to her in twenty years, I you know, I think.

Then after that, I moved in with Jeremy and we've been living together since then pretty much on and off.

But we were terrible roommates with each other too, because we would be really bad about paying our bills and always getting the electricity shut off, always getting the water shut off.

So yeah, he's been my roommate for the for the last twenty But it's those early years were crazy.

I was just working any odd job that I could.

I was.

There was a couple of times where we just didn't even have anywhere to be, and I made friends with an old Vietnam Vet out at Percy Priest Park out here in Tennessee, and I would go park my car out there in camp and live with this guy.

I would bring him weed and we were buds.

So there were a lot of people who got me through those early years, just like crashing on friends' couches, staying on there and their cabins, and then we would return the favor too.

And like Brittany Howard Alabama, sheiks they crashed with us, My friends the Deslons, they're a New Orleans band.

Also my friend a Linda from Hoay for the riff Raft.

There was just like a a community of all of us crashing and lifting each other up.

Okay, so it's basically about the decade before there's any real success.

How often did you say you referenced it earlier, but going a little deeper, I'm going to give up.

And what kept you going, man?

I I think just pure insanity.

I mean, it's what do they say, like when you do the same thing over and over and like you don't get another outcome.

That's that's what was happening.

But you know, I had never really made a country record, and I think it was just again like jumping genres and just reinventing and thinking like, okay, well I've been in these bands, but I haven't put out a solo record.

I well, let's.

Be let's be clear.

You're making records that get no distribution in a pre streaming era.

Okay, So I want to give the people impression you're making records and to get and review whatever.

You are living way off the music radar.

Okay, so what is going through your mind?

It is a long way from you know, the Liverpool Dock to the Hollywood Bowl.

I mean, you really think you're gonna make it?

I know, I know.

I think it was just I don't know really.

When we made Midwest Farmer's Daughter, it was like this is our one last ditch effort, because it was like, all right, we're pouring a lot of money into making these records, like how many times can we sell everything we own?

How many times can we like move in with my parents and you know, save money and then make another record, and also just going out on tours and having and hemorrhaging money.

And I think it was just, you know, Jeremy was like, no, we got we're writing the best songs right now.

We kind of looked at it like the whole time we were just learning the craft, you know, all those records leading up to Midwest.

Farmer's daughter was like, no, we were just learning how to write.

Like this is where it's just getting good.

And so it was him being like, I'm going to sell the car.

You are going to make this record, and someone's gonna put it out.

I think.

You know, my friend Sturgel Simpson, he was he was taking off right around that time, and he had also been in the trenches of just like you know, having an unsuccessful career and seeing how hungry the masses were for something that wasn't like of the Nashville machine, was like, okay, Like if he can do it, I think I can do it, you know.

So it was just those little moments of like, there were so many times where I almost gave up.

I remember one time I played a show at the Five Spot and guitarist Kenny Vaughan was there.

And you know, Kenny has played with Marty Stewart for years and he's legendary guitar picker in Nashville, and he came up to me after the set and he was like, that was an incredible show.

He's like, you've got it.

He's like, whatever it is, you've got it, Like, don't give up, and like he right when he said that.

It was like I really needed it that month.

I really did.

I remember just feeling like that was one of those times where I was just I was out of mustering the strength myself.

There was another time I played a show with Jasonisboll and he had just you know, got off the ground with like Southeastern and everything, and he also came up to me and like gave me some words of encouragement that I just really needed at the time.

And so it was all just blind faith and uh yeah, like I said, a little bit of stupidity, a little bit of like naivity, and just a lot of stubbornness.

Okay, you know, I've been in Nashville a few times.

I'm not Nashville fluent, but people think, I mean, Nashville's really bustling as a metropolis right now.

But people think in the music business, oh, you go, there's a coterie of people, there's pickers, you work on records, and you have these writing sessions.

You were like off the grid in another fucking world.

I mean, did you feel like, oh, fuck that.

Or I mean the way you know you talk about it, you might as well be living in you know, Oklahoma.

You know, there were a few more clubs, But did you feel like, you know, well, we're in Nashville, somehow this works, or you had disdain for the Nashville system.

I mean, it's not like everybody you were hanging with broke through.

No, absolutely not.

I've seen a lot of really talented people give it up.

I think it's I think it's so funny that the people in Nashville that ended up breaking me were a couple guys from Detroit.

You know.

It's like Jack White and Ben Swank and Ben Blackwell, like they were the people that finally like saw something in me, and I had been trying to kind of get through to them for a while.

There was like years prior, I had dropped off these series of gifts that had riddles written on cards that were for Jack, and it was like bizarre objects and things that I thought, okay, like if I could get third man into what I'm doing, because I knew that they were not, you know, they weren't releasing the homogenized vanilla catfish dinner that they saw all done on Music Row, they were you know, doing things that were more rooted.

And I especially that Jack White album with Loretta Lynn, Like that album was so cool to me.

It was like, I don't know, I there, Like there is is this other side of Nashville that's always going on.

It's like little clubs, cool places.

There's great songwriters and they're not always breaking through, but it but it exists.

And like we had this really strong click of like it was a few bands and we would just play shows together and do our thing and share what we were writing with each other.

And it was like and we don't need to go, you know, down to Music Row and co write with all these people that like are just writing the same song over and over.

Like there was a younger, hipper thing going on in East Nashville.

And I'm I'm so lucky that it was there when it was, because it kept me going again for a few years, just because it was like, all right, we might all be underdogs and we might all be losers, but we're here together and we knew we were better than half the shit they were pumping out on the radio.

Anyway.

Okay, you cut Midwest farmer's daughter, you know your husband says, we got to give it one more shot.

You said earlier.

This is, you know, really the last shot.

It's not like it's embraced immediately.

It was rejected by every label in town, big and small.

I sent it to people in England.

I sent it to people in New York.

I mean I was just scouring the web for like any indie label, you know, like how do we get this out?

And rejection after rejection came, and it was about a year of just sitting on that record and being in complete purgatory.

It was like, man, maybe we really did blow this, Like we shouldn't have sold the car.

We shouldn't have like pawned all of our recording equipment and guitars and jewelry, and I mean it was it was brutal.

And you know, some of those record labels and that the replies that they would give me were just insane.

One of them was like, oh, we we would love to sign Margo, but we already have two girls on our label, so we can't.

And now I won't say that label's name, but they've got many girls and they're all doing well.

I remember another one, Oh, we're aware of who Margo is.

And we're just not interested.

It was like they didn't even listen to it.

That was a distribution company.

I mean I woke up sometimes I would read those emails before I got out of bed in the morning, and it would just send me like down a drinking spiral.

It was like, well, I've got to go out and get smashed because people still hate me.

So glad I don't have to live like that anymore.

Like now, when I get a rejection, I just like just go through the feeling and it's done.

But that it was a really dark period.

Really was okay, how do you end up getting a nibble from Marca?

And the ultimately saying no.

From RCA?

Was it RCA?

There's one label said they wanted to change.

It was Sony, Right.

Yeah.

I had a friend who her name was Jenny, and she knew some people in it Sony, and she sent it in and we typed a really great letter with it, and yeah, they said come in and we want to hear you play a couple of these songs with us.

And so I go into Sony's office and sitting up there and they had been going through like a their CEO had just left and it was like who's steering the ship kind of thing.

But yeah, they said, we love the album, but we wondered if you had some stuff that sounded just a little bit like poppier.

We wanted to take off the fiddle and change the walking bassline on this and this and this and what about.

I'm like, oh, no, you want like more of a rock leaning thing.

I was just doing that with Buffalo cli Over, But like, this is what I'm doing now, this is the thing that you guys need.

And they yeah, they didn't.

They didn't understand what they had.

They didn't understand what it was.

I think they liked the song four Years of Chances, which was like the kind of more like Memphis leaning soul funk like vibe, but yeah, the rest of it, they wanted to change all of it, and I just I just walked away and I said, I'm sorry, I'm not changing it.

I'm just gonna hold out to see if anybody else wants it.

Well, just to be clear, was it discussions and they were way off base or were they saying we want to sign you, but you have to be different.

Yeah, I think it was.

They were definitely interested, and they definitely liked some of what they heard on the album, but they were like, we would want to take these back into the studio and do this, this, this with them, And I just was like, I don't.

I don't think that's the direction you guys need to go.

But I mean, I don't know.

Okay, you're in a mirror meeting with these guys, the suits, so to speak.

You know, not only you're saying, hey, man, I don't want to change a fucking note on this record, you're also telling them, hey, you guys don't know what's going on.

Okay.

Was this a friendly conversation or was it like a standoffish conversation?

Well, I mean they were technically being friendly to me.

I guess I'm talking about you to them.

Yeah, I don't think I was being very friendly.

Probably, I think I walked out of there and you're probably like, who the hell was she?

What's her?

What's her deal?

I think I remember walking in that day and the person at the front desk said, are you the next Taylor Swift?

And Taylor who?

And there was like, you know, there was like Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert were lake up on the walls, and I was like, I just didn't feel like I was in the right place from the get go.

Okay, so yeah, how.

Do you end up?

And how much time does it take for third Man to say yes?

So I had friends that knew people that worked at Third Man.

But I think that I got on the radar by a Rolling Stone article that was written about me that said it sounded like Loretta Lynn or Jack White produced Loretta Lynn.

It's they made that comparison.

But I went in.

I was the wait time out, time out here, nobody from nowhere.

How does Rolling Stone write an article about you?

Well, they came out.

They saw this show that I played at the Basement East was opening for a guy named J.

P.

Harris and I played since You Put Me Down?

I played her on the Bottle.

I played pretty much, you know, half the songs that are on Midwest Farmer's Daughter, and had a really great show.

And this guy walked up to me.

He said, I'm Joe Hudek.

I just I had just moved here.

I'm a writer at Rolling Stone.

When's your album coming out?

And I was like, I can't even get anyone to put it out?

And he was like, okay, I got to write a story about you.

You're like Nashville's best kept secret.

And so he wrote that article for me and like that it really did.

It changed things for me.

And I don't know if careers are like that anymore.

I don't know that anybody even reads.

But you know, back in the day, that was like it was a huge thing.

It was just like it was a rolling stone headline.

It made it made waves, and I went in there and yes, just started kind of talking to the guys at Third Man.

The article is printed.

It's one of the few times you have hope with something and it pays off.

Are an other people look for you after that article comes out?

Yeah there, I mean at that point then it was like, okay, now the booking agencies are coming around management and stuff as well, because before it was like nobody wanted to touch me with a ten foot pull.

So yeah, that article from Joe Hudak, it just it gave me some clout, you know, it gave me.

It gave me Yeah, just like the all right, they've got my back.

They're saying this is worthwhile.

And yeah, that was that was the start of things turning around.

That was the start.

Okay, so tell the third Man story.

Yeah, So third man, like I said I had.

I had run into Jack White in the past.

I ran into him once in a parking lot, probably ten years just signing signing with them.

But I knew a friend who knew Ben Swank who worked there, and he's like, we got to get Ben out to a show.

He's got to see you live.

He's got to Once they see you live, they're going to be into it.

So he came out, we met, we talked.

Then it was like, yeah, you got it.

You should come in and they've got to direct to Acetate recording set up there, you know, where they can immediately press anything to a record.

And so.

Yeah, it was a long time though of really making the all the dots connect because they were so busy and I would like show up there and I would be like can I come in for a meeting today, and they'd be like, oh, we're kind of busy.

I mean really, it was a long process, and I felt like they also wanted to like almost just like do a screening process with other people to like make sure I wasn't a diva or like it was just like I can't explain it, but there were so many little things that happened prior to getting some and like going in and singing on their direct to acetate thing and later finding out Jack was like watching from behind a two way mirror and like listening to me singing live to also prove like, okay, she made this record, it's not all auto tuned, like she can actually sing.

Well.

How long from when that article Hudec wrote till the ink was dry at third Man?

That's a good question.

I would have to go sit down and do the math.

But I would think maybe like six to eight months.

Okay, So okay, with six to eight months, they knew who you were, they'd heard the record, you came in and saying live.

If you didn't bug them and show up and say I'm here for a meeting, would it have happened?

I don't know.

I would like to think that it would, but I mean, like I said, I was just kind of relentless.

I would just go in there and let's let's talk, you know, let's sit down and have a meeting and and and finally it you know, it did happen.

But it's they're they're busy people.

They've got you know, they're putting out Jack stuff.

They're doing his his thing, and I, yeah, I really I wanted it.

I was hungry.

I was in there.

I was like, this is the album cover I have, this is you know, here's the songs they're done.

This is like really the only thing they helped me with was sequencing and getting it all in the in the right order.

And they're obviously the people that that do their album artwork.

They made like the most beautiful package they had, Like you could plant pieces of the lyrics and it would grow wild flowers, and like they really put a lot of care into making that album like come to life in the way that it did.

Okay, let's be very clear.

Six months, we're calling it relentless.

How many times a week would you show up or call or email or what?

Yeah, a couple of times a week I would I would email, I would try to call, and then sometimes like I would just show up there and go into the record store and there's a back area that I was trying to get into, and yeah, it would be like, oh, well, we can't do it today, but you know, come back, come back next week and we'll try to get a meeting set up.

And I mean, I was definitely getting a little frustrated, but they were really nice.

And you know, my husband would be like, Okay, just go back and again, We'll just go every day.

He would drive me up there and I would get all dressed up and I go in and try to talk about how we were going to take over the world, and then eventually it worked.

I mean, is this your personality?

If you want something, You're going to show up a million times?

Hell yeah, I am.

I'm not going to take no FURNI sir, I am a little relentless in retrospect.

Were they always going to sign you or Dier?

It feel like they finally relented.

I think they were very into the record, but they had never put out somebody who wasn't already established.

Like my lawyer kept telling me that.

My lawyer, Kent Marcus, he was the only person I had on my team at that time, and he would say, Third Man doesn't do album deals.

They just don't.

They just do these singles.

They do legacy artists, they do Neil Young, they do Loretta Lynn.

They'll put out something with Willie Nelson, But they're not going to put your record out.

And I was like, no, no, no, like they are.

I think they're into it.

I really think they are.

And I mean so it was like we made history.

They they had never broken an artist the way that they broke me, and I feel so grateful.

I mean it was like even just getting that album on the charts.

I'd never had a single that hit the charts, and then the album like made it into the top ten.

That was like broke a Billboard record.

Okay, but you ultimately switched to Loma Vista, then you feel some sort of allegiance what happened there.

I did switch labels, and I did have I mean, I've remained friends with everyone at Third Man, and you know, I tried to put all these clauses in, like Okay, well I want them to press my albums, you know, like I want them to do the vinyl part of it.

I still wanted them to be involved, but ultimately it was just I needed a contract.

I needed to get back to work.

Loma Vista was there.

They came in and so yeah, that's that's been where I where I've been at.

But I I still, I mean, third Man is like like family there.

You know, Okay, did third Man say wait a second, don't.

Go You know, no one's ever asked me these questions point blank.

You're making me hard to dance around it.

I think, you know, they they maybe they wanted me to stay.

I think they maybe they did, but I just needed more bandwidth.

They just needed to be able to, you know, to continue to grow.

And I actually I was just in third Man just Friday.

My guitar played my new guitar player.

He played a show there, and I went in and and hung out with Ben Swank, and I just played a festival, and I just watched Jack shred side stage.

And you know, every time I see them, we always have a great conversation, and I wouldn't put it out of you know that we would work together again in the future.

I love them like family and I owe them so much.

Okay, they ultimately signed the record, which hasn't changed from when you cut it in Memphis.

Hudeck has written the article what did they do, if anything, to break you other than put the record out?

Well, like I said, everybody that worked there was just so wildly creative, and they always had great ideas of how we could get good exposure, make a splash.

There was like a time during Americana Fest week that I was up for a couple awards and didn't end up walking home with anything.

Not many women did that year.

It was a very male dominated year.

And then we just decided we were like, you know what, let's do a concert on the Third Man rooftop, and we can't.

We pulled a Beatles and we went up there and did a concert from the roof.

And they always had incredible ideas for like gear marketing and going in and you know, like even papering a town with it was just yeah, it was always attention to detail.

Okay, those were all very innovative.

In some case grassroots.

That doesn't drive your record to top ten, So what accounted for we'll call it commercial, But just being on the national radar, having people listen, having radio play it.

How did that happen?

Your guess is as good as mine.

I think just having like third Man in my corner, it just gave me cool points.

And people just wanted us to come play their TV shows.

I mean we really we the band and I had been working so hard at refining our sounds, making that live show fun to watch and road tight, and we've played this south By Southwest, that south By Southwest season.

I guess It would have been March of twenty fifteen or twenty maybe it was twenty sixteen.

We had Saturday Night live.

Bookers came out watched my set at Stubbs, just watched me in the band play and they were like, your band is incredible, we want to book you.

And so, you know, a lot of it was just having the cool points of Third Man having Jack in my corner, but then a lot of it was just us going out and playing shows and and promoters and bookers seeing it and digging it and wanting to share their stage with us.

Okay, so you make a deal with third Man, you have the lawyer of a long standing how do you get a manager and an agent?

Ultimately, Yeah, I had been begging people to manage me, and then suddenly it was like they all came running at the same time.

I went out to a lot of different meetings with a lot of different folks and ended up signing with Jack's management, who they put me up at Chateau Vermont.

I had never been in a place so fancy.

I also just loved everyone who worked there, and so we Yeah, they just started digging in and it was the first time I'd ever had that kind of like manpower behind me.

And Jonathan Vine has been my booking agent.

I just love him.

I adore him.

Okay, but who is your manager today?

My manager today is Kevin Morris, Corncapshaw and Perry Greenfield.

And how did that end up happening?

So had I had been with my management for more than a decade and I just really felt that I needed people here in Nashville.

You know that, you know, might seem crazy after a decade, but it was like I everyone that I had was out in La or New York, and I had when I met everyone there, it was like I was still a kid and I was working with this woman for a very long time.

She was like my day to day I grew up with I grew up with her, and I wanted to come into this season of hard headed woman.

I had a lot of things that, like I said, I had just grown personally and I wanted to be able to come in with this like fresh energy.

And it's very hard to do that when you've established a working relationship for ten years and then you know, say I want to change and do things a different way.

Well, I've been you know, operating completely different.

So I just started fresh and it's been great.

I have a new band as well, and it's been so much change for me.

I've been working with all the same people.

Okay, so what is different with the new managers?

Just you know, the excitement of this record and the excitement of all the things I have yet to do.

They share in that excitement, and like I said, having people on ground and like on foot here in Nashville like today to get ready for this podcast, I had someone here come help me set up all the stuff that I needed.

And before I was like paying a tour manager to come do that, and you know, it just it didn't It just didn't make sense logistically anymore.

Okay, what are all these things you want to do?

All the things I want to do.

I want to continue to write more books.

I want to I would like to act.

I would like to break into film.

I would like to write scores for movies and soundtracks and even write more for other people.

You know, I've got a lot of songs that I don't cut.

I've got a lot of songs that I've written that could be great for other people.

So there's just I've done so much in my career that I'm so proud of.

But there's still is There's still a lot left.

Okay, the game is changed.

It was an article the Any Times just yesterday.

Is there a movie business when everybody's got a movie studio in their pocket?

So that leads to the question, to what degree are you on social media?

To what degree are you creating yourself because you have the tools.

Historically I have done most of my social media myself because I'm a control freak and I don't want anything to read as ungenuine or you know, I just I like things.

I'm very particular.

But I've relented in the past few months to other people helping me and doing it.

And I need that bandwidth because I want to spend my time writing songs.

I want to spend my time, you know, working on on my next book.

I don't want to sit and have to do all the editing and think about, Okay, this needs to go up this day because you know, tickets are on sale this day, and it just it's It's been really helpful to have a whole team of people working behind me, and I think I've always been a great leader.

Delegating is what I do best.

But I can't do everything myself, and for a long time I really was okay.

In your book, you talk about being on Saturday Night Live and being depressed.

It also social media blowback.

Talk about that and what's ensued thereafter.

Well, absolutely, I think social media is something that people really have to protect their mental health when you're using it, especially young women.

And I had a really hard time reading all of the negative comments, especially when so much of it was not about the music, so much of it was based on my life looks, and you know, I'm not a model.

I'm a musician I am.

I am here to tell stories and sing about my feelings and about the world.

And that's what really frustrated me so much about it.

I've struggled with my self image, I've struggled with my weight, body positivity, my looks.

I recently, just about a year ago, ended up having rhinoplasty, which for years I just said I would not do because again I didn't want anyone to say I was fake or not genuine or you know, but I was having I was struggling with a deviated septum with some breathing issues.

Every time I would fly, I would get really bad pain in my ears, and so I went to this ear nose and throat specialist and the surgery was accommodation of cause medic and like you know, physical and it's really it's improved my self confidence.

But I wanted to be completely transparent about it because I think that it's just impossible for little girls today or just any any human growing up and feeling like we have to fit into this mold.

And it's like people just need to know that a lot of what they're looking at is not real.

People have help, they have makeup artists, they have hairstylists, they have surgeries, they do all these things, and then they're not transparent about it.

And I just feel like I wanted to be completely transparent about it.

I didn't want to I didn't want to just brush it under the rug and not talk about it because it's been something that has impacted me my whole life, and I feel like it's impacted my career, like, oh maybe if I would have, you know, looked a certain way at a certain time, then I would have got farther.

And you know, that's unfortunately just the kind of world that we live in, and it is a very like people are just so vapid and worried about looks.

And it's really unfortunate, but that's what we focus on many times instead of the art.

Many people who have one plastic surgery then go on to have other surgeries.

Is are there other things you want to fix or you think you're one and done.

Well.

I think you can definitely get down a rabbit hole of trying to fix everything.

And I definitely struggle with, you know, perfectionism, but I hope that I don't get carried away with that because I mean, I'm a human.

I'm going to age's you know.

I think women right now are really faced with some difficult decisions because it's like you age naturally.

People are going to crucify you for that.

You decide to get help and you know, keep propping things up, You're going to get judged for that.

And so I don't know.

Right now, I feel very content.

I don't feel the need to do anything else, But I don't know.

I guess we'll just see.

We'll just see where my later years take me.

I love like looking at people like Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith.

I often turn to like Patti Smith when I'm feeling really weak and getting lost and you know, the the Nashville way of just like all the fake eyelashes and the hair teased up to high heavens, and it's like no, you can also you can also choose to to just completely go a different way and just be radically aged.

Okay, going back to the social media blowback, I mean, before social media, you had artists say I don't read my reviews.

Then there are other people who say I eat them.

But you know, you're really not as good as the good ones, not as bad as the bad ones.

How do you approach this?

And how do you as a woman?

Never mind, you don't have to be a woman if you have a public stance at all, I can tell you myself, people are attacking your looks.

How do you deal with it?

It's true, it's very unfortunate that we can all sit behind our little screens and say things we would never say to someone's face.

I do read reviews, and I do think that there is a place in this world for criticism of art, and I do it myself all the time.

I'm very judgy, Like when I don't like something, I know that I don't like it, whether it's a painting or whether it's a song or an album, and I don't get too upset when I get a negative review.

I'm like, oh, okay, maybe Like and something gets a strong reaction from somebody, like I can't I chalk that up as good.

It's like, all right, they didn't dig it, but that's okay.

They don't have to.

The other thing, though, is just with social media in general, and just putting up anything and then reading the comments that can be underneath it.

That can be very scary.

And I don't always get in there, and I don't always read every single comment because I'll remember the bad one and I won't remember the twenty good ones that people left.

But I just, yeah, I just let it roll off my back.

I think I've gotten really thick skin since the Saturday Night Live thing.

I've gotten a lot tougher.

If somebody makes fun of my looks, it's like, okay, well, if that's all you can think of, you don't have very much creativity, and your put downs is like much more insulting to put down, Like I don't know, like John Rich, you know, I can't stand that guy.

I'm like, we'll just say, like his his hair plugs or his like fake dyed hair, then actually saying like, no, your music sucks.

That's that's what really hurts me.

If somebody wants to hurt me, they can say my say my art's not good, or say my poetry is bad.

But I'm not gonna be hurt if someone says like, oh, she has no ass or you know, whatever comment they're gonna spew it me okay.

John Rich is a very Republican facing guy, very out Nashville is a blue city in a red state.

Where are you and what do you feel about the everyday politics of Tennessee and the nation.

I think it's heartbreaking to see how divided everybody is, and I think we have At the same time, I think I'm proud to stand up for things that are wrong or injust because we've got to use our voice while we still have it.

I mean, we really I do feel that there is a threat to democracy and seeing what's happened to like Stephen Colbert, it's really disheartening.

It's unprecedented times we're living in and I know, without a shadow of a doubt that my career could be further whatever that means.

If I would have probably kept a lot of my opinions to myself and maybe not shared so many things that are more like role or more like socialist ideals.

But yeah, like I said, I think we need that because we've got women's rights are just disappearing right before us Tennessee lawmakers.

I don't trust them.

They don't have our best interests in mind.

They are their pockets are being filled by the NRA.

So of course when there's a shooting right where my children, right near where my children go to school, I'm going to show up and I'm going to protest because we need more gun laws.

You know, I just couldn't sleep at night if I didn't use my platform in a way that I think is meaningful.

And I mean my songs too.

I hope that they reflect love and positivity and just make people think and open their minds, because we're really getting to a dangerous place in our country where no one can sit down and have a conversation.

So it's like, I'm not angry at anybody who's on the right.

Honestly, I think that I've gotten rid of a lot of my anger and how frustrated I used to be.

I'm more interested in talking with people and wanting to see how they came to those conclusions, so maybe we can move beyond that, get somewhere else.

Did you grow up in a liberal family?

Were they conservative?

And you've made these leash you're own.

I grew up in a completely divided household, half liberal, half conservative, and yeah, and one side of my family was more red and one side of my family it was more so.

What was Thanksgiving?

Like?

It was interesting?

It was and it's and it still is and you know, but it's like I'm seeing a Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, like they're coming together.

So like maybe if they can come together, maybe Republicans and Democrats are all gonna come to Maybe there's hope for us still if they're burying the hatchet.

I don't know.

I think I I have no regrets for anything I've I've said or done.

I just hope that, yeah, that America can can move ahead.

It feels it feels like we're at some kind of like breaking point and it's it's hard time to even put out music because God, the world's fallen apart.

Okay, you talk about books.

You had a book come out in twenty twenty two.

I've been quoting a lot of stuff from it.

Maybe we'll make it.

How did that come to be?

I am an avid reader.

It's been a huge part of my songwriting, and I've I've always loved reading like memoirs, and anytime I get into an artist, I go see if you know, either they've written something or somebody's written something about them.

And really I kind of began writing the book when I found myself pregnant in twenty eighteen, and it's like my career had just taken off.

I'd just gotten nominated for you know, Best New Artists at the Grammys, and then hear I'm like, oh, I'm pregnant.

It really couldn't be worse timing, but it was.

Writing that book was just something to keep myself busy, and also just a way to remember where I came from, to remember all those little nuanced things about those early years.

And you know, it was definitely inspired by reading just Kids like one too many times and thinking like, Okay, that's the kind of book I want to write.

I want to write about that ten years that we were struggling.

And even now I've started writing down the next ten years because it's just so easy to forget things if you don't write it down.

What came first, the book or the book deal?

The book?

Yeah, I was writing the book every single day.

I would go sit down, write this book.

And then I got on Twitter and I wrote, I'm writing a book.

And my friend Jessica Hopper, she worked at University of Texas Press or she knew somebody who worked there, and they said, hey, can we read the manuscript?

And I was like, yeah, sure, so they read it.

They immediately gave me a book deal, and I've loved getting the book out there.

I should have, in hindsight, I should have sent the manuscript around to a few different people and got some other options.

But they're a you know, they're a nonprofit.

They're an indie book dealer.

And we were so close to making it on the New York Times bestseller list that first week.

I don't know what.

I don't know how he didn't.

That's a very mysterious list to get on.

But very happy with just getting that book out.

It felt freeing for me in a lot of ways.

Okay, book business, I'll just put it this way, is the amateur hour compared to the music business in terms of publicity all kinds of things.

So what was your experience of putting out a book.

It was great.

We did a tour.

We went around to small bookstores all across the country.

I like I said, I had really high hopes of being on that New York Times bestseller list.

That was like one of my bucket list things I wanted.

It was.

I got a little depressed posts not making the New York Times bestseller list, but look, that still gives me something to strive for.

At the time, everybody said, like, why are you writing a book?

You're way too young, Like I don't understand why you're writing a book in your forties, But I don't know.

It was just it encapsulates that time period, and I processed so much, Like at the beginning of starting writing the book, I was still drinking and it was COVID, and then I went through COVID and I was like trying to finish this book while having a young child at home and drinking too much.

And like, through the writing of the book, I kind of realized, like, damn this, my drinking is a problem, and it's insane that I would have to read it back to myself to know that, because shit, I mean I hit my car into a telephone pole tried to outrun two cops.

I like I said, my husband and I were having all sorts of troubles.

There was nothing good that drinking was bringing into my life.

But until I kind of read it back and I had a published I had an editor, and I remember she read it and she said, Wow, it's like whiskey is like a character in your book.

And there was just really no ending to it either.

And so once I kind of decided that I was going to quit drinking, then it was like, okay, well there's the ending of the book.

It's like, I'm not going to live like this anymore.

Okay, a couple of things.

What did you leave out of the book?

Oh?

Well, I can't tell you.

Dolly says, you always got to save something for yourself.

Well, let me put the question a different way.

Did you leave things out of the book either because they were too raw and you didn't want to reveal them, or you didn't potentially want to hurt third parties.

It was a combination of both.

I have people in my life that are still alive and that mean very much to me, but I couldn't go into a lot of my family dynamics.

There was a lot there that just needed to stay protected, to protect my family, not my children, but my you know, my extended family.

And and then yeah, there was other things that I've kind of found out about myself, about my personality with things that I've that I've struggled with over the years, and and you know, things with with the drinking, with the eating disorder, with just so many different things that all kind of came to light through my therapy.

But a lot of it I haven't really went into because I'm still like processing it personally myself.

Okay, so you're sober now.

So alcohol free.

I still partake in psychedelics and cannabis.

Okay, how did you stop drinking?

I have to credit literature and psilocybin, and really I started reading about how Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, began.

He actually had a psychedelic experience from the plant belladonna.

That's how he gave up his drinking.

It wasn't religion.

Some people came in later that that became part of it was the religion.

But he was in those early days of AA when he was curing people.

He was giving everybody acid and I thought, well, that's interesting.

I've had some really transformative, you know, mushroom trips prior.

So I took a mushroom journey on my own and I really thought about my drinking, and I thought about all of the things that have been holding me back with it.

There's been so many years I wanted to quit, and that mushroom experience, coupled with about three or four different books, removed my want.

It was I'm not using any willpower, I just simply don't want to do it anymore.

And it was this book by Holly Whittaker that was called Quit Like a Woman, the rebellious decision to give up alcohol and a culture obsessed with drinking.

The other one was Alan Carr The Easy Way, and then Anni Grace This Naked Mind.

And I read those books and I have I just lost my desire to drink.

It's okay, but in addition to the drinking, drinking is a lifestyle, going to the bar, hanging out, backstage, a million places where people are drinking.

So how do you cope with that?

Or you know you're over the hump maybe now if you ever get over the hump, But how do you deal with that?

Yeah, I mean it is, it's so wrapped up, especially when you're a musician.

It's just it's there all the time.

People think that you run off it, like it's our gasoline or something.

And I still go out to bars.

I still I love to go out and socialize.

I love to get behind the bar and bartend.

Still, I, like I said, it's just this weird.

It's almost like you know, Steve Jobs like whatever, like wearing the same thing every day, where it's like I just get up and I'm like, I'm not I don't have to moderate because I never moderated good.

It would always be like, oh, I'm just going to have two, and then two would be two thousand and I once I just decided, oh I'm not going to have it.

It's of course, it was like awkward for a while, and I didn't tell anyone.

I always had an Na beer or like a Rocks glass that looked like a tequila drink.

But yeah, once I once I just decided like, oh, I'm not going to drink like just I don't even think about it.

And my husband still drinks, and people on tours still drink, and my fam my family members all still drink.

I mean, my best friend is like a wine connoisseur, and like I just have something different in my cup.

But I'm still there, like having the conversation.

And I think in the past it would be like I would hide myself away and I would not go out, but now it's like the opposite.

I'm like, okay, I still need to socialize, like that's very important for me.

What about cigarettes, which are another feature of the book.

I've given up the SIGs too, and I didn't think I was going to be able to do that, but I held on to him for a while because it felt good to just smoke while everybody else was getting drunk.

But yeah, now it's like they ah, they just they make me sick when I smell them.

And and again, my husband still smoke cigarettes, and I'm like trying to get him on the same train as me, but we're on our different paths.

He's doing his thing, I'm doing mine.

And the smoking and the drinking, it was like it was just hell on my voice, you know.

And even this the weeds smoking, like I have to be careful.

I like use a vaporizer or every now and then I'll do a joint with a group of people.

But like if I'm on tour, like I am never getting high before I sing, I never get stone and get on stage ever ever, ever, I just and I used to do like you do a show a tequila to get up, you know, get on stage.

And now it's like we get together and we we pray together in a circle.

It's insane.

Wait wait wait wait wait wait you pray together?

Are you a believer?

I am not religious, like you know, I don't.

I don't follow the Bible.

I don't follow that kind of strict, rigid thing.

But I definitely believe in in uh in afterlife.

I think, I think, I definitely believe in reincarnation.

I don't know if I'm more of a Buddhist than a Christian, but I yeah, I believe.

I believe in something for sure.

I've had too many like close encounters with ghosts and weird spooky things in my life to not I have a lot of a sleep paralysis and sleep apnea and stuff too, and weird.

I've been visited by weird things in my dream.

I definitely believe in in ghosts and spirits, and but I think it's you know, you get on stage and it's good to just take a moment, get everybody, get all close and be together and calm your nerves.

And you never know when it's going to be the last time you step on stage together.

And I think, you know, with my with my last band, like I didn't know that was going to be the last time that we were all playing together.

Either.

We had a really long break after that and then everything deteriorated and and so yeah, I think it's good to put your heads together.

You never know what can happen while you're up there.

So you mentioned sleep app need to use the seatpat machine.

No, I don't, but I My breathing's gotten a lot better post seeing doctor Nasiri, who is this vocal specialist.

But yeah, the sleep paralysis has been something that I've been that's happened my whole life, where I will be sleeping and get completely frozen.

And I've read a lot about Also, I have this rare blood type it's called a RH negative and most of it like originates from the Basque country, and there's people that have the blood all have these similarities.

And actually the red Lynn had this same blood type as well.

But there's like a through line and you can look up conspiracy theories on the internet about alien abductions and this blood type and sleep apnea.

It's all tied in there, which is very strange.

But I'm trying to write about it in a book that is my second book I've been working on.

It's called Close Encounters in Country Music and Beyond, and it's about just people that I've been lucky enough to meet and hang with, Joan Bias, you know, Willie Nelson, Red Olinn, but also ties in other worldly experiences.

Okay, you talk a lot about mush rooms.

Have you done ayahuasca?

I have not.

I have not.

I have done pretty much every other psychedel I've done DMT, I've done acids, I've done, of course, like I said, mushrooms, but I have never done ayahuasca.

Now I don't know if I want to throw up like that.

Okay, you have a big decision to make.

Will you do mushrooms?

Try to come to an idea of what you should do.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I hadn't taken a big dose in a very long time, and just a few weeks ago I was feeling really stuck with a lot of things personally professionally, and my kids went to the grandparents for the evening, and my husband went out to the bar and I sat outside and I ate a whole bunch of mushrooms and just put on some records.

And I like to listen to the Timothy Leary Guided Trip on YouTube as well.

And I always feel like I come out of it with yeah, just with insight.

And I think it's so easy for our brains just to get stuck in the same way of thinking.

And it's so interesting to me that mushrooms create new neural pathways.

You know, alcohol shuts it all off, It just blunts it.

But I'm trying to open things up here after years of trying to shut it all off.

Okay.

Also, in your book, how about you encounter your husband?

You just see him and you go, he's the one.

What was it about him?

It's not like you were in experienced you you know, it's not like you were wet behind the years you've been around, and you just see him in a party, go he's the one.

I have no idea what drew me to him, but I think it was he was playing bass, and I feel like bass players have always been the most statable.

He was he looked like the saddest guy at the party that was there, and I don't know, I just immediately felt drawn to him.

I I don't know what it is.

And later he started playing me some songs and I loved the songs that he had written.

But it's just it was the strangest thing.

I never said stuff like that.

I never I never dreamed that I would meet the person I was going to stay with at twenty and here and here I am forty two.

We've been together for that long.

But it was just something just drew me towards him.

And why are bass players the most datable?

You know, Guitar players are so full of themselves, singers lead singers, like, we're not datable, Definitely not drummers.

I don't know.

Bass players, they're just like they're they're so quietly important.

And that's like, it's kind of the role that Jeremy has like played in my career.

He even still he's one of the most prolific writers.

He's had a career in his own right too.

He put out three albums on Anti Records and went and opened a bunch of shows for Mike Campbell kind of before the pandemic.

But he's been there to put the work into my thing and to support me.

I mean, I think so many times people say, like behind every good man is an even better woman, but in this case, like it's kind of the opposite, because he's he's just if I was a garden like, I wouldn't be growing if it wasn't for him.

Also a really left field thing which you reference, but it's also in the book What's up with playing drums?

I'm a drummer.

I'm a drummer.

I have never really had any professional drum lessons.

I just I got this drum kit.

I actually bought it for Jeremy.

I had been in a car accident and I got a settlement, and instead of taking the money to do therapy, I went and bought a Tama drum kit that was like the Dave Girl like drum kit with the huge bass drum.

And I got at home and Jeremy really couldn't play the drums very well, but I sat behind it.

He had some of his dude friends over for a band practice and I started.

I ended up being their drummer for a while.

I don't know if it's just my experience.

Like tap dancing, I was a tap dancer for a long time and you have to move your feet in your arms at different times.

And I love playing drums.

I just sat in a keep on Rocking in the Free World with Lucas Neilson and Steve Steven Wilson Junior at Newport and it was a lot of fun.

Okay, you mentioned dudes, and you also mentioned in the books Good to Have a Girlfriend.

Are you more of a girly girl?

Are you more like a guy girl?

I hate to admit it, but yeah, I feel like I am usually one of the guys.

I I definitely have a close group of girlfriends that I love to get together with and you know, take girls trips.

But the majority of my life is spent hanging out with more more dudes, and I love to hike and fish and do outdoorsy type things.

I'm probably more of a tomboy than like my husband is.

Like I like to camp, I like to mow the lawn, and like I take out the garbage and he goes to the grocery store and cooks the meals.

Like our house is very reverse roles.

Okay, your husband thinks he can't have children, you get pregnant, You're not even on the way up, you're kind of nowhere.

What goes through your head?

Oh, I mean it was the worst timing.

It was.

I had just kind of thought like, Okay, maybe we should just have dogs and travel Europe and not have any children because we were so financially unstable.

I mean, we were just barely eking by.

Like I said, the water was always being shut off, the electricity.

We just we were completely irresponsible.

But we somehow have raised two incredible kids.

And they came along right at a time.

I really think that we needed them because as hard as we've partied, Like my son Judah, he's fifteen now, he really he kept us in line.

Even when we weren't in line.

It would be like one of us would always make sure that we were going to be clear headed and be attentive for him, because it's I mean, having kids, it just changes everything.

It's wild.

So probably it saved us in a lot of ways.

Okay, whats your parenting style?

Parenting style, Well, we don't like screens in our house.

We're very strict on the screens.

We are, but we're like, do what you want.

Other than that, like I love to let my kids climb trees and be outside and get messy, and I think sometimes I struggle with the being like instead of being like the mom.

Sometimes I come back from tour and I'm like the cool aunt to my own children, which is really tough.

You know.

I like bring them a toy and I spoil them for a few days, and then I have to go back out again.

And so I think my husband has to be the bad cop more.

And my mother, she's helping us raise these kids, and I really couldn't do it without her.

She's you know, Grandma's here all the time.

Okay, your kid wants to drop out of college to do god knows what, drinking and drugging.

You say, man, that's what I did.

Go for it.

Well, you say, no, no, no, that's not the way to do it.

No.

I have been very transparent about substances with my kid and even with following a career in music, because it is such a tough way of life, and I don't know that I would wish this upon anybody unless they just were so sick in the head to do it.

And my son, actually, he came home first day at high school the other day, and he's been very into soccer lately.

That's been kind of his passion.

But he he's played drums, he's played piano, he's played guitar and had lessons in the past.

But he came home first day at high school.

He joined a band.

He joined a rock band.

He's playing keys and he sits down.

He starts playing knocking on Heaven's Door, and I'm like, man, Okay, maybe we should have put you in public school a long time ago.

He's been at these private schools and it's crazy, and you know, me and my husband are like, wow, like maybe there's hope for him yet.

But I also am like part of me just wants them to be like an you know, have just like a straight normal job, because it is.

It's just such a hard way of life.

It really it is.

So you're saying, it's like family ties.

You're the hippie and your kid is the nerd.

Yeah, absolutely, I think you know he's he's got these weird hippie parents.

He's always like, what's up with the furniture in this house?

Everything's old, and you know he's he definitely it's like he doesn't think we're not cool, but you've got to try to rebel against your parents.

Who are like the most rebellious.

He's it's your only option is to be like straight laced.

And how did you decide to put him in public school?

He made that decision.

He just visited the school he wanted to go, and, like I said, one of the extracurriculars, you can join a rock band.

And so it's it's been kind of crazy.

We've all been sitting around jamming on knocking on Heaven's door all week.

Okay, how did you and your family cope during COVID in lockdown?

We could have coped better.

We Yeah, we were very isolated at the beginning of it.

My husband actually had COVID.

He got it in York and he was just in such a bad place.

He it took a month to feel better, and we had a new baby at home, and I got almost like over the top, kind of like germophobe, where it took me a really long time to go back out in public and want to eat at restaurants and want to see people.

And it was funny because my husband was the one who got COVID and he was so sick with it, and I never felt sick anytime I tested positive for it.

I was still super healthy, but I just it affected me, it affected the kids.

We just we stayed shut in, we really did.

But we listened to a lot of music and we bonded with each other and we had lots of hangs over at the house with lots of people just coming to see us and sit outside and swim in the pool.

And yeah, it was it was a good time.

I think I fell back in love with with listening to music during that time.

I really I listened again.

And how did you cope financially?

I had a really great savings that that was there, and you know, there were little things that we did, like I did a podcast with sons, and you know, there were things that that came that I mean I have.

I had a weed deal with Willie Nelson's weed company, and you know, I'm trying to diversify because we know that the money that there once was for people who wrote their own songs is just not what it used to be.

Okay, trying to think of a way to ask this, I can get an honesty answer.

You have the male musicians, they have a bunch of kids in their never home.

Okay, many get divorced, re married, have more kids, whatever.

That's not exactly what I'm asking, but I have to put that in the mix.

I'm gonna ask you point Blake, you won't give me an honesty answer, and then I'll spay.

Is music number one?

Is it more important to do your music in your career than your relationship and then your kids.

We're not taking the kids out of the picture, we're not taking the husband out of the picture.

But if something happened where they say no, Margo, you know this is done because you have to be here for the kids in the and the husband.

I can't think of a situation, but let's say there's no doubt you're gonna say what.

I think.

I would obviously pick my family and my children any day of the week, but I don't think that the mother that they would be left with would be much of a mother.

I think music is what makes me tick.

And during COVID, I was so depressed.

Was I was purposeless, I was driftless.

I was drinking so much because I had nothing to look forward to.

I used to do the show and then get drunk, but there was no show, so it was like I might as well just be drunk all the time.

So I think, yeah, the answer would be that I would be with my children.

But I don't know what kind of human I would be at all.

And I try to remind myself of that because sometimes I just get so overwhelmed and I feel like like I'm half assing my way through everything, you know, like, oh, there's not enough time for my marriage, there's not enough time for my kids, there's not enough time for my music.

But yeah, I know that my kids wouldn't even want that for me.

They know, they know that I'm most happy when I'm able to do what I love.

Okay, you know you talk about the new management company with corn Capsule red Light, and you're saying, I want to do movies.

I want to do music for movies.

I want to write books.

But in reality, first and foremost, you're a singer songwriter.

Let's just use that appellation.

Let's not get caught up in names.

Okay.

We established at the beginning that the landscape is changing.

What do you want?

What do you want to happen?

You have any fear that it'll slip away?

Just my career in general, Yeah, I think if you don't keep working hard at absolutely will And I did take off a lot of time this past year, I took off more time than I've taken off in a decade, and I needed it.

I needed to rebuild my bands, to rebuild my business.

But I think that I don't think I would ever let my career slip away because I just I'm too driven, I'm too hungry.

I am.

I know that I can continue to find inspiration and reinvent myself and get out there and play live shows.

I mean, I've been so lucky to get to meet so many of my heroes and get to really like, I don't know, you know, pick their brain for advice.

And I know that everybody goes through these like dips in their career as well, you know, like if you have if you're a legacy artist and you have a career that spans like decades, and I think, I don't know, I'm just I'm really trying to remain true to my art and not get caught up like doing things that feel like, oh, you're doing this to like stay young or stay hip, whether it's the TikTok dances or like, you know, all the trends and things that people try.

I just, yeah, it's just not me.

But yeah, I don't know, I don't know if that answers a question you did.

Okay.

Back in the eighties and the heyday of MTV, the rock bands would talk about world domination and literally the police started that their father was in the CIA.

They toured all these crazy places where no one had ever toured before.

Conversely, no one gets more pressed than Taylor's Swift.

And I would say, other than her fans, the average person can't even sing two songs of hers name them.

I only use her.

She wrote a song about me.

I don't want to get into Taylor Swift.

I only use her because you like at the top of the pyramid, right.

I'm going to tell one other story that is kind of the same thing.

This is twenty years ago.

Brian Adams was on tour with def Leppard in baseball stadiums, minor league ballparks, and they would flip headliners and as you know, an experienced rude person, you'd rather go on when it's dark.

And on this particular day, Brian Adams was playing and it was still light out.

I'm standing on the side of the stage.

He literally takes up the set list and looks at the rest of the band, rips it in half and you literally see him work hard to win over the audience, which he does.

So those are it's a two part question, to what degree deep inside do you still want world domination?

And do you believe if they put someone in front of you you can close them.

I have definitely had to win over fans that I'm walking out there and I'm knowing they don't like me.

Not only do they not know who I am, Oh, they do know me, and they probably don't like me.

I I still I think I put on a better show when I feel like the audience is unaware of who I am or you know, I I will, I will work the stage and I will and I will win them over.

I really will.

I've I've opened a lot of shows.

I have been the person playing when the sun's still up, and uh, yeah, that's just it's just in my it's just in my dna.

I I feel like I don't really I don't really care if I get to the point of being like, oh, I'm selling stadiums or you know, that's that's like kind of never been my m O.

And I think when you when you look at artists like even like Bob Dylan or something like look at the effect that he's had.

Does it matter what size like rooms he's playing, No, he's He's a fucking legend and he he followed his muse to the very end.

I think anything that is successful enough to be in a giant stadium is like, there's probably a reason because it's probably a little bit more generic and there's and there's nothing wrong with that.

There's a place for that.

That's just not my place.

My place is like, you know, I don't know, hopefully somebody somewhere more like in the the Joan Biez or like the Bonnie Right kind of you know.

It's like, I'm dedicated to the craft, to the music.

I never want anything to to sell out in a way.

That's just I'm doing this because it will get me x amount of fans.

Okay, talk about Sturgiel Simpson, you talk about Alabama shikestaying at your house, opening for Jason in Bell.

You're a student of the game you talk about and a student of the music, Bob Dylan, etcetera.

What do you think about today's music.

I think there's there's some good stuff out there if you know where to look.

But I also think there's a lot of shit.

I think there's, like I said, there's a lot of things being a kind of hoisted up as being like real or or down to earth or like, oh, this is the authentic thing, and like I don't always see it.

And I don't want to name names or pick any fights, but I just there's a lot of midship that is, you know, because it's popular, people think that it's the best thing ever.

But popularity doesn't equal quality, And I think you can just go to like case in point, McDonald sells the most burgers, but it's not the best burger.

Who is the best burger?

Who is the best burger?

Like today's Yeah, all right, eat man?

I just well, do you maybe I don't need burgers.

Yeah, I eat impossible burgers.

I eat meat still every now and then.

I think Tyler Childers is uh phenomenal.

I think he's an artist who is really reaching, stretching, growing, but remaining true to himself.

I think, you know, as far as new stuff goes, there's there's a band called Rattlesnake Milk that I'm really stoked on.

I'm really hyped on.

They're going to open for me at my show at the Ryman they're phenomenal.

There's definitely a lot of like incredible young virtuoso talents like I think Billy Strings, you know is and Molly Tuttle, They're they're phenomenal players.

Sierra Ferrell is like a really wonderful singer.

There's a lot of people out there that are that are making great records.

And but like I said, there's also a lot of really midship that just gets Tod did as being as being more real than it is.

Okay, Finally, in your book, you go on about you and your husband Jeremy getting into a kinksphase.

What are your favorite Kink songs?

M Strangers?

That's one of my favorites This Time Tomorrow, I mean, of course, like Sunny Afternoon was one of the first songs that I learned how to play.

I love I Need to write Ray and Dave Davies both like a letter and just thank them for the music.

All of Muswell Hillbillies, Lola Versus power Man.

Yeah, Strangers though, that's like the song Strangers in This Time Tomorrow.

Those two songs like they just they got punched me in a really great way.

My favorite do you know Preservation Act too?

Yeah?

Do you know, money talks, funny talks.

I need to look that one.

Oh yeah, show me a man who can live without bread, and I'll show you a man who's a liar in debt.

There's no man alive you can't live without who won't sell for a price.

Money talks, and we're the living proof.

Ooh, that's beautiful.

I'll leave you with that.

Margo, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me and my audience.

Absolutely, we've been reading your newsletter for a very long time.

It's a pleasure to speak with you.

Cool.

Here I am till next time.

This is Bob left Sis