After a few turbulent years with both her personal life and her sibling band, The Band Perry, Kimberly Perry is back in Nashville as a solo artist with an appropriately titled EP in ‘Bloom’. You can read our review of the EP here. ‘Bloom’ is exactly what you might think it is from the title, a re-birthing of this talented songwriter’s career, but with a little added wisdom and experience added in to the mix. We were thrilled to grab a little bit of Kimberly’s time to talk The Band Perry, the music industry and what her new music means to her.
It’s lovely to talk to you today Kimberly, thank you for your time.
Thank you so much. I love the UK, it’s been a minute since I’ve been over there, it’s on my short ‘to-do’ list to figure out when I can come back over.
Congratulations on the new EP, congratulations on your upcoming birth, congratulations on the fresh start – it must feel very exciting right now?
All things new, right? I feel like life really unfolds for all of us in seasons and this literal spring that we’ve just had has coincided with a very special spring renewal season for me. Coming back into the Country fold has felt like a real homecoming too, sweet things all round.
Were you nervous about the decision to ‘come back’ to Country music?
The thing that I was most nervous about, along with my brothers, was the announcement that The Band Perry was going on hiatus. We didn’t want anyone to misread our intentions or want people to have a feeling a loss. We might not be a band right now but people are gaining our individual perspectives – that was the most nerve wracking bit for me.
Coming back into Country, with radio and the fan base, I wanted everyone to know that my heart was genuine in re-entering the space. I’m in an ‘ask me anything’ mood of extreme vulnerability coming back into this space because I want people to understand how authentic a decision it is.
Your interview on the Bobby Bones makes that so clear and was such an open and intelligent discussion.
Thank you. I love that show although you never know what the line of questions will be. Bobby was very gracious in giving me that time and space to talk – what I love the most about Country artists is that we really get to know who they are as people, it’s something really special about this format. We can find our own life lines through what they are going through and what they are singing about. I want my fans to feel like we are doing this life thing altogether!
You, Neil and Reid were so young when you started, particularly the boys, and I’m not sure a lot of people are aware of that. Is there such a thing as being ‘too young’ or did the experience make you stronger people?
That’s a really good question. I love that we got started so young, even before our songs were on the radio: at our first show I was 15, Neil was 10 and Reid was 8 years old. I loved getting to live a life in music and, for me, it has kinda allowed me to have an ebb and flow in my career, some highs and lows. I’m now able to make this re-entry with collected wisdom because of that. Ultimately, being so young has caused me to be a late bloomer in things like building a family and getting married but we have this experience and history, like getting to travel to the UK and play twice, that can’t be taken away from us. I’m grateful for that.
Have you kept an eye on the musical barometer in Nashville and how it’s changed over the last decade? If The Band Perry tried to do now what you tried to do in 2017 with ‘The Coordinates’ EP it might be more accepted now?
The ‘Coordinates’ era was a bit of a darker one for me. I was going through a broken marriage at that point and I felt a little, personally, creatively checked out, in all honesty. So, I’m ultimately glad we weren’t on the clock of Country music at that moment and we were trying to do something a little different because I needed a few years to re-shape my psyche and come back and be healthy.
Do I feel like we were made a scapegoat by Country music in trying to push things forward and blur the boundaries a little? Yes. But I’m also OK with that because there have since been so many exciting and different artists pushing their way that has changed Country for the better. Taylor Swift was an early pioneer, Shania was the earliest, maybe, alongside The Chicks: Country artists who get crucified for trying to do something a little different, right? I like to think we played some role in helping the genre expanded and appeal to a more diverse audience and it’s now super-fun to come around again and be planted right in the heart of it and see how it’s changed and expanded.
Talking of pioneers, whenever anyone says to me, “I’d like to check out some modern Country but don’t know where to start,’ I always point them in the direction of your ‘Pioneer’ album.
Really? That’s so lovely, (laughing) Thank you so much. I appreciate the songs that were hits from that project but the beauty of that album is really found in the deeper cuts. I love those songs so much.
To bring things round to new music, the re-imaging of ‘If I Die Young’ is genius. It’s such a thoughtful and intelligent piece of work. Tell me where the idea to start doing this came from and how it evolved.
The genesis of the idea actually came from the wise mouth of Tamara Conniff, she’s the CEO of AMR publishing. Her dad was this amazing band leader back in the 60s and 70s and she has this amazing history of music in her family. She is actually my co-curator now on the publishing side after I sold some of our songs in a catalogue sale. Last summer we were celebrating our partnership over a breakfast and she was asking me about where ‘If I Die Young’ came from and then she was, like, ‘Wait. Have you ever thought about a sequel written by you given that you, did not, in fact, die young?’ (laughing)
The idea really intrigued me although I did procrastinate for about four months after the original conversation because the prospect seemed so daunting in terms of not robbing anybody of their original experience and feelings with the song. It did feel like it would be the most truthful thing I could do in updating the song, however, so I asked Jimmy Robbins and Nicole Galyon, who I had been writing a lot with, to bring some perspective to it. We got it done in about two hours once we sat down and put pen to paper.
That surprises me in terms of the craft of it as it feels, particularly in that second verse about your mother, something that would have been weeks in the writing process. Everything feels very careful and intentional.
It really just fell out. I’d written a whole body of prose about it upfront, almost like a poem. It was how I approached writing the original. I’d pick a phrase out from the poem and see how it sounded outside of the construct of verse / chorus and eight bars. I knew I had some phrases that I wanted to use in there, like the ‘I love her to the bone,’ line about my mother and that cadence of ‘mother, love her, to the bone.’
Nicole and Jimmy, especially Nicole when it came to the lyrics, were so amazing at just bringing lines and phrases out. On the pre-chorus when she suggested we write ‘i’m changing my tune,’ I thought that was the perfect way to explain how we are not taking anything away from the original, we are just updating it.
So when you play live – will you play the original ‘If I Die Young’ and the new, updated part II?
So, that’s a great question because I have just figured that out this week! (laughing) It will depend on the length of the set. In a shorter, 30 minute set I’m just going to play part II, maybe as the last song of the set. People will hear the introduction and feel the familiarity with it and then we’ll play part II.
The Henningson family were such a big part of the writing team on The Band Perry’s two albums. Were you tempted to write with them again this time around?
We wrote some together during the pandemic which was a really cool thing as I was entering back into finding my core again as a Country singer/songwriter. It was important for me to hop back into the room with them again and walk through the journey from start to finish but for the ‘Bloom’ EP I have never had the opportunity to write with a wider array of Nashville writers before because The Band Perry didn’t really interact with the town in that way. I wanted to get the barometer of where Country is right now in terms of sound and style and the only way I could do that was to be in the room with the people who are writing everything we are listening to in the genre.
I found great collaborators and some very special friends too, it’s been my favourite part of the process.
Once the hoopla about ‘If I Die Young part II’ dies down, people are going to flip their lid about ‘Cry at Your Funeral’. That’s a number one hit right there……….
I love that! (laughing)
…..Do you have an eye on radio and the charts this time around or are you all about creativity?
Both! I wanna put creativity on the radio! (laughing) Artists are doing that right now. Lainey Wilson, Ashley McBryde, Carly Pearce and Hailey Whitters – they have so many cool songs on Country radio right now. It’s a slower climb and it’s definitely a bit of a grind to get a song from 15 to number 1 these days but in having some early conversations with some of my radio friends, I feel like we have some songs on ‘Bloom’ that could do well.
I’m heading back into the studio on June 28th to make the back half of this project! We should be rounding out the EP into a full album sometime in the fall. I’m aiming to have even more ammo to do our thing at radio! (laughing)
Is ‘Cry at Your Funeral’ about someone in particular or about being graceful in leaving in general?
(laughing) It was certainly written during a season when an intrinsic relationship in my life was shifting! It was a really hard time for me and I needed to find the strength within me to not feel bitter about the situation – I wanted to able to celebrate the person, but from a distance. I kinda used a southern phrase that my mother would always say, ‘I’ll cry at your funeral and dance at your wedding,’ which I thought was a cool and creative way to express the feeling of forgiveness and letting go.
‘Burn the House Down’ feels like a metaphor for your life and career right now. Is that how you saw the writing process on that song?
For sure. I definitely have had these significant moments when I have looked at my life and thought, ‘Why is everything in ashes right now?’ It happened in our career for a moment, it definitely happened to my first marriage. It’s a testament to the idea that you can rise from the ashes now that I look at my solo career and my husband – you just have to burn down what you don’t want, first, to be able to find what you do want going forward. That’s what the whole EP ‘Bloom’ is all about. The bloom is the beautiful outcome of the process but the process is quite a violent one!
The project wouldn’t work if you were guarded about it. Your honesty and authenticity is seeping through every pore of it.
Thank you. There was so much of our story with The Band Perry that got told for us. There were so many moments where I felt like we lost the reins of our own narrative and where my voice got a little stolen away. Coming back as a solo artist is important to me in terms of being here to tell the truth and I’m happy to write that into the songs.
When things settle after the birth of your child and touring comes back into your life do you know which songs from The Band Perry’s back catalogue you want to play?
It will depend on the set length but I will always play ‘Better Dig Two’ and ‘Done’. In a longer set we’ll do the original version of ‘If I Die Young’ as well. The next tier down from there will probably include ‘You Lie’ and once we are at four or five that will probably be it.
What’s it like singing being seven months pregnant right now? Is it hard? (laughing)
Oh! We’re figuring that out in real time, I can tell you! (laughing) If I’m singing with in-ears and I’m not standing up and I’m not playing guitar it seems to be fine! Add a guitar into that mix it gets a little harder for me so after our call I’m diving right into rehearsal for an acoustic set this week at CMAFest where we will work things out. The reason it is hard is that we are adapting to this new thing that is growing in our lives, and I feel like it’s a little precursor to how much adaption will have to take place in our lives once he gets here, right?
Have a fantastic CMAFest, congratulations on the EP and I hope everything goes fantastic with the birth too. When the time is right we’d love to see you back on stage in the UK too.
Oh, I will be making it back over there as soon as possible, I can assure you of that!
