Lainey Wilson has had a whirlwind few years. After a decade of hustling in Nashville to make her country music dreams come true, Wilson experienced a hard-earned career breakthrough in 2021 with her first No. 1 single, “Things a Man Oughta Know.”
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It’s been a firestorm ever since. She was named Entertainer of the Year at the 2023 CMA Awards, won Best Country Album at the 2024 Grammy Awards for Bell Bottom Country, was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in June 2024, and has shared the stage with legends ranging from Dolly Parton to the Rolling Stones.
“Every day, I realize that I have dreams I didn’t even know I had. I feel like my dreams are opening doors to other dreams, and that’s a really cool feeling,” Wilson shares with American Songwriter via Zoom interview. “I want to say yes to everything that doesn’t go against my character.”
Her character is defined by her roots in Baskin, Louisiana (her hometown), and the family and community that raised her. “Where I’m from, music is a lifestyle,” she notes. She remembers country music being played in the background as she sat around the table with her family, her parents telling the same stories that she would get something new from each time she heard them.
“I remember the way those stories made me feel,” she recollects. “It would make me laugh, make me cry, it would make me feel a little bit of everything sitting around that kitchen table.”
Wilson recalls her cowboy father telling “elaborate stories” about being thrown off a horse, the distance he was thrown changing every time he told a story or hearing from her mother about how her great-grandfather caught one of the last wild horses in Louisiana and used it on his farm.
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“I’m from a long line of hardworking people who take pride in working hard to provide for their families, the kind of people who don’t take no for an answer. So there was no way for me to escape that,” she states. “The songs that I end up releasing are the ones that are the most who I am to my core.”
Wilson proves this point across her growing discography. Her approach to her 2021 major label debut album, Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin,’ found her choosing songs that were “brutally, honestly saying what I’m thinking,” while the 2022 follow-up album Bell Bottom Countrytold her story by “leaning into the things that make me, me.” With her new album Whirlwind,which arrived on August 23, Wilson is capturing what the reeling success she’s accomplished over the past few years has meant to her.
“It’s about finding that peace in the chaos,” she describes. “You can’t really describe what the past two years have been like, except for when you use the word ‘whirlwind.’ I’m in such a different season of my life; I realized that quality over quantity had to happen.”
The singer noticed that the word “whirlwind” kept crossing her path, whether she saw it in a book or heard it from a stranger on the street. For Wilson, the album captures the feeling of home despite being so far away from it, as many of the songs were written on the road. “I hope people feel the same way when they hear these songs as the day that I wrote and recorded these songs, which made me feel grounded, made me feel at home when I was nowhere near home,” she explains of her approach to Whirlwind.“I wanted people to feel that warm, fuzzy feeling. I wanted people to feel like they were getting a hug wrapped around them. Everybody wants to feel at home; there’s no better feeling than that. That is what country music is.”
One of the album’s standout tracks, “Good Horses,” features Miranda Lambert. Wilson cites Lambert as a “dear friend” who makes it a point to check in on her —so much so that Lambert invited Wilson to her Tennessee farm to stay overnight in her guest house and made her breakfast the next morning. “The truth is, not a lot of people understand how females in this business feel, but she does,” Wilson relates, revealing that she took a 13-hour nap while staying at Lambert’s house. “She’s somebody that I can go to and talk to and get advice and clarity.”
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During her stay on Lambert’s property, they invited hit songwriter Luke Dick over to write “Good Horses,” an idea Wilson had been sitting on for years. As they were writing, they were greeted by three bluebirds who landed on the balcony, a good omen that also occurred when Lambert, Dick, and Natalie Hemby were writing Lambert’s chart-topping hit “Bluebird.” Wilson says the concept of “Good Horses” is based on folklore wherein Native Americans would ride off on their horses when they knew they were about to die, yet the horses were always able to find their way back home.
“That’s a really crazy thing to wrap your head around,” she observes. “It wouldn’t be the same without the spirit of Miranda on it. When I think about good horses come home, I think about somebody who likes to go out and meet people and experience the world and life, but no matter where they go or what they do, they stay true to themselves. I think she’s done a really great job at that, and that’s inspiring to me.”
Whirlwind closes with the vulnerable “Whiskey Colored Crayon,” which Wilson calls a “teacher appreciation song.” “You don’t think about all the things that kids deal with on a daily basis,” she relates, adding that she comes from a “long line of teachers,” including her mother, grandmother, and aunts.
“I know that they have served big purposes in a lot of kids’ lives and have been there for them when maybe the parents were failing, and the kids felt comfortable enough to come to them and tell them what was going on in their life. I think it’s telling a story that a lot of people forget about.”
Whirlwind captures the pinnacle of the singer’s journey thus far while still holding onto the parts of herself that make her feel human. “I have learned to really zoom out. You have to be very conscious and aware of where you’re at. Sometimes you’re going so fast that it’s hard to take a minute, but you don’t want to miss these moments,” she continues of the lessons learned amidst her full-throttle career. “Even though my life is changing, I have to do the things that make me feel like little Lainey. I think it’s okay to hold on to that spirit, but also not be afraid to learn and grow and change, but hold on to the things that you love about yourself.”
One of the career highs Wilson still revels in is her induction into the Grand Ole Opry. She still remembers being a little girl and seeing a show at the Opry where Bill Anderson, Crystal Gayle, and Little Jimmy Dickens were on the bill, and she had a premonition while sitting in the audience.
“I remember having this overwhelming feeling that I was going to play that stage. As soon as I got the opportunity to play that stage on February 14, 2020, I had another overwhelming feeling of, ‘I am going to be a family member here,’” she recites. That dream became a reality in June 2024 when she was inducted by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, a culmination of the years of hard work and dedication she put into her passion for music.
“When I walked through the doors, I felt a sense that ‘these people are my family. These people understand my craziness, my brain, why I do what I do,’ and that’s a good feeling to know that you’re not alone,” she explains. “I’ve worked my entire life since I was nine years old to be in this position, and I hadn’t let my foot off the gas yet. It just made all of that feel worth it.”
As Wilson continues to keep her foot on the gas, she knows that the songs on Whirlwind and the many that are destined to come after will resonate with her for years to come. “The truth is, I’ll still be singing a lot of these songs 30 years from now, and I’ll still feel like it’s my life,” she affirms. “Nothing ever stays the same, and I’m a firm believer in that. I think this record is truly the best thing I’ve ever done, and I know that without a shadow of a doubt. I feel very confident about it.”
While much of Wilson’s life has evolved, she still feels connected to the nine-year-old girl from Louisiana who was writing songs about tequila and cigarettes. She attributes her calling as a singer-songwriter to instilling in her a sense of empathy that she’ll continue channeling into her music.
“Even when I was writing songs at nine years old, I was trying to think outside the box and say things in a way I had never heard before. I think that with every song that I write, I grow and learn something. I learn something about myself. I learn something about the people I’m writing the song with and just learn something about life in general,” she proclaims. “I think writing music has truly made me more of an understanding person. It’s made me more empathetic.”
Main image by Eric Ryan Anderson
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