Lainey Wilson has been chasing the dream of being a country star since she was a kid. When she was old enough, she moved from her hometown in Louisiana to Nashville. That was more than a decade ago. However, her career didn’t start to catch fire until 2020. That year, she landed her first charting single when “Things a Man Oughta Know” went to No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. Since then, she has quickly climbed the ranks and is now one of the biggest names in the genre.
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Recently, Wilson sat down with Glamour about her life and career. During the conversation, she opened up about moving to Music City and the time it took her to get to where she is today. Some may be surprised to find just how long she has taken her to seemingly rocket to success.
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Lainey Wilson Reflects on Her Time in Nashville
Wilson was knee-deep in chasing the dream by the time she was in high school. In her final years of high school and beginning of her college career, she was in a band called The Cadillac Kings. They played four-hour sets multiple times a week.
“At 19 years old I figured, ‘You know what? If I’m really going to do this thing, it’s time for me to head to Nashville,’” Wilson recalled. “So, I was going to college. I decided to take all of my classes online and I bought a little Flagstaff bumper-pull camper trailer and brought it up to Nashville.”
Wilson went on to say that she knew it would work out in the end. “I’m a firm believer in speaking it and believing it, and I have put it out into the universe and I have talked to God about it a million times. Sometimes, I think you have to pretend to be something that you’re not,” she said.
“It’s been a journey, though. I’ve been in Nashville for 12 years, but nothing happened for me until year seven when I finally signed a publishing deal and year eight when I signed a record deal,” she recalled. “I saw people and new friends who had just moved to town signing deals left and right. No part of me ever wanted to take it away from them, but I wanted it myself. I had faith that my time was coming. Everybody’s timing looks different.”
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