Brit Taylor Keeps Working Her Way Through The Fire

It’s a sunny afternoon in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, and Brit Taylor is sitting on her porch, drinking another cup of coffee and basking in some long sought-after contentment.

“Yesterday, my mom drove 217 miles to help me put together 243 radio packages,” Taylor beams while prepping for the November 20 release of her debut album, Real Me, a 10-track stunner which lyrically showcases Taylor’s brutally honest feelings. “This is a grassroots operation over here, that’s for sure.”

The singer-songwriter, who two years ago found herself without a record or publishing deal, laughs quietly.

“It’s the wild, wild west out there right now,” remarks the emerging Americana artist, her voice building with every word. “You don’t have to sit around and beg anymore. You don’t have to wait around to hear the word ‘yes’ anymore. If you want this music thing bad enough, you can figure it out yourself.”

That’s exactly what Taylor has been doing since she was 17 years old, when the girl from Hindman, Kentucky, grabbed her bags and her dog and her high school diploma and made the trek to Tennessee to make her music dreams come true. 

After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University with a Recording Industry degree, Taylor landed a four-year publishing contract and soon found herself in the country duo Triple Run, playing by the rules and creating the music she says she thought others wanted to hear.

“Everyone tells you to stand out, but you can’t stand out too much because you still have to fit in this box,” she remembers.

And then, when she least expected it, 2017 hit. Both personally and professionally, everything began crumbling around her. 

“I was so lost,” recalls Taylor, who married at 23 only to end up being divorced four years later, resulting in a brief bout with depression. “All I knew is that I wanted to figure out who I was and what I really wanted to do, because for the first time I got to decide what was going to happen. I didn’t have a publishing deal. I didn’t have management.” 

She pauses before continuing: “I was a mess.”

But the mess soon turned into a breakthrough for Taylor.

“I remember walking into the studio of producer Dan Auerbach in March of 2018, and after playing a few songs I had written under my old publishing deal, he asked me who my musical influences were,” she remembers. 

The 5-foot-3 powerhouse then listed the legendary names of her biggest inspirations, from Patty Loveless to Patsy Cline, from Elvis to George Jones. And yes, it left the Black Keys vocalist slightly perplexed.

“He, point blank, asked me why I wasn’t doing more of that, and I told him the truth,” she remembers. “That truth was that I wasn’t allowed to play or write that kind of music. I mean, when I was writing professionally, I would turn in a waltz and their response was literally, ‘That’s cool … too bad it’s not 1962.’”

“Brit is a country girl,” Auerbach remembers. “That’s how she described herself to me within the first five minutes of meeting her. When she came to the studio and we first sat down to write, she told me stories about growing up in Kentucky and the music that surrounded her there. We definitely tried to tap into that place while we were writing.”

Alongside Auerbach, everything changed. The melodies began opening up and the lyrics started to flood the page; suddenly, Taylor was realizing that her authenticity just might help her find her true calling as an artist.

“Dan really set the tone for the record and gave me the courage to follow my heart and my gut,” she says. 

In the first two days after their initial meeting, Taylor and Auerbach wrote a flurry of songs that would ultimately find a home on Taylor’s debut album, including the light-hearted “Back in the Fire,” the hopeful “Love Me Back” and the authentic title track, “Real Me.”

Of course, the somewhat heartache-heavy record stands firmly on the strength of Taylor’s debut single, “Waking Up Ain’t Easy,” a particularly pandemic-friendly song that touches on the fear that comes from opening your eyes to uncertainty day after day.

“For the first time, I don’t have someone dictating whether I get to dream or not,” says Taylor, who released her current single, “Back in the Fire,” in September. “I get to decide what record I want to make and what song I want to release and how I want to release it.”

She pauses, letting the tinge of leftover anger subside for just a moment.

“Oftentimes many of us wear this mask of strength that is, indeed, just a mask,” she concludes. “The real strength is being vulnerable and honest. In a way, I’m still that girl singing old songs on that Kentucky Opry stage. But in so many other ways, I have grown up. And that’s who you hear on this album.”

Photo Credit: Sarah Cahill