Let me set the scene for you.
Videos by American Songwriter
There’s a sure-footed, sure-sounding cowgirl singing about life and love while traversing a stage with unfeigned delight. Her songs are both familiar and new, but overall, they’re bona fide country anthems. That’s what it looks like to see country songstress Stephanie Quayle perform.
And now, Quayle has a new collection of songs to sing to her fans.
Her self-titled album dropped at the end of April 2022 and features eight new tracks. Quayle, who grew up in Bozeman, Montana, took some time off touring (thanks Covid) to record these songs. The time off put Quayle in a unique headspace and she was able to recapture some of her feelings for her music. Thus, Stephanie Quayle is largely an album of love songs.
“That album is such a labor of love,” Quayle tells American Songwriter. “That was how do we keep making music? We found a way. How do we keep putting out music? We found a way. And that’s really what that album is to me. It’s such a body of love songs and also to myself.”
One of the songs on the record, “Lone Ranger,” is one such love song, and it may be the most earnest of the bunch. “I think it’s the most love song of all love songs to say there will never be another,” Quayle says. “My husband’s kind of like, it’s kind of intense. I’m like, ‘It’s supposed to be!’ I really feel that and I love playing that song.”
“[It]’s such a little Western for me,” she adds.
Rather heartbreak be my friend and love be a stranger
Cause if I have to ride with someone else that’s not you
I’d rather be a lone ranger
Another song on the record, “I Want the World for You,” helped Quayle stamp out her “self-critic” and “imposter syndrome.” And “We Buy Gold” has a depth that leads Quayle to label it as “a thinker.”
“And when that song hit me, was when my little brother was getting married during 2020,” Quayle says about “We Buy Gold.” “And we’d had that song for years. Like we’d tried to record it once before, but it didn’t quite come together… It came together when my brother was walking down the aisle during COVID in this very, very small wedding. They figured out a way to do it. It was like okay, the world is at this weird time and people still fall in love and they still find love and they still get married. And that is ‘We Buy Gold,’ right? Like, no matter what, when all is said and done, [we find love].”
Other songs like “Hang My Hat” and “Light My Way” are fan favorites, but Quayle had another surprise up her sleeve for her Stephanie Quayle release.
In conjunction with her album release, Quayle announced her partnership with the boot brand Lucchese. The singer worked with the high-end bootmakers to release her own line of boots. “It’s overwhelmingly awesome,” the singer says about her partnership. “I think for the boot line, [it] is a dream realized. I’ve always wanted to do this. So to see it happen, and then in like correlation with album release is bonkers and really special.
“I’ve been a huge fan of Lucchese for a lot of years,” she continues. And after performing at Lucchese-sponsored events over the years, the brand proposed a collaboration. “They just kind of said, ‘What do you think about doing a line together?’ And I about came out of my boots. Like, ‘Are you serious? What an honor.’
“I’ve been collecting boots my whole entire life. From stealing my mom’s to stealing my step mom’s [to] stealing my sister’s… I tried to steal my brothers too. But I collect. And so I have a really wide array of these vintage boots that have something that caught my eye. My thought was maybe one day, I’ll get to have my own line. So it’s really special.”
From cowboy boots to love songs, Stephanie Quayle is an unstoppable force of creativity. Check out Quayle’s boot line with Lucchese HERE and her self-titled album HERE.
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