GRAMMY, CMA, and ACM-Award winner Carly Pearce is set to delight fans with her highly anticipated fourth studio album ‘hummingbird’ scheduled for release on June 14th with Big Machine Records. The announcement arrived last week alongside the release of the album’s enchanting title track. Carly is currently in the UK to play in London, Glasgow and Belfast at the C2C festival so it was great to catch up with her in London to talk all about it.
Carly, it’s always great to catch up with you so thank you for your time today and what a lot there is to talk about! First of all, how’s the jet lag!
Thank you for talking to me!! I’ve been here with my boyfriend since Saturday and we’ve been eating, drinking and shopping all week so the jet lag is not an issue! (laughing)
What was your approach for the flight over? Films, books, sleep, games – how did you navigate the flight?
I just slept overnight, I’m good at that and consider myself lucky to be able to do it because it seems like so many other people can’t.
How does it feel to be back in the UK and playing at the C2C festival as well?
I’m sooooo excited! (laughing) This is one of my favourite festivals to play. I got to be a part of it in 2019 and it’s fantastic to be back again. So many things have happened to everyone since then, right?
We last spoke face to face in London before your headline gig on the ’29’ tour. It was a sold out show. You’ve got such a loyal set of fans in the UK and such a great relationship with them. Is that something you ever expected?
It’s something that I never even thought would be possible. It’s been amazing to see the way that they love my music and my whole albums, not just the singles or the radio songs. That’s something that’s unique to fans over here in Europe – I’ve really been blown away at how many deep album cuts the fans over here know each time I’ve been over.
That’s not to say that there aren’t fans over in the USA who are the same, but it’s as a whole over here, which is amazing.
You announced your new album would be called ‘hummingbird’ last week. There’s so much to talk about – lets dig into the title first! What does the ‘hummingbird’ mean and represent as a title for the album?
I actually had a whole different set of ideas as to what I was going to call the album but then I had a friend tell me that a hummingbird is a sign that the healing process can begin and that good luck is on the way and I was, like, ‘Well, I’m going to change eveything I’d thought about this album!’ (laughing)
That description felt like a good way to describe what the whole album is about on this part of my journey. I’m a very situational writer and the last two years I’ve been working on what comes next after the ’29’ album and I didn’t want it to be all, ‘YAY! Now I’m nothing but happy,’ right? I didn’t feel like that would authentic at all – it’s been a tough journey with a lot of learning and realisations along the way which has helped me to almost break down to nothing to be able to build back stronger again.
Is that because ’29’ was so all-encompassing in terms of what you had to say about your personal life and what happened. Were you ever a little intimidated in writing again and starting the process of a new album?
Oh yes! Very. I just didn’t really know what would come after it. When you have that kind of success it can be very intimidating. Once I started to write again the songs came through very quick and I realised what it needed to be and what it needed to say.
The title track itself has all the elements of classic Carly Pearce and a little bit of Bluegrass and a bit of southern, almost New Orleans-like, voodoo magic. Was that an easy song to write?
Yeah, it was a pretty easy song to write. I definitely love Bluegrass music and feel like there’s a bit of Celtic music in there too. It feels very true to my roots and we went all in on it.
You’ve written every song but one on the album. That’s an amazing achievement. How are you developing, growing and evolving as a writer?
I feel like ’29’ showed me that, as a writer, you have to be willing to go ‘there.’ That might mean something different for each song that you write but you have to be willing to put yourself in a position to be able to humanise your thoughts and emotions in a way that will relate to other people and resonate with them.
That begs the question, then, that what is so special about ‘Things I Don’t Chase’ because that’s the only song on the album that you didn’t write so it must have had a big impact on you?
I always listen to outside songs when I am putting an album together but, quite frankly, often none of them feel like they could have been written by me, you know? That’s one of the main reasons I didn’t cut outside songs on ’29.’
I heard ‘Things I Don’t Chase’ and it felt like I wrote it. It felt like an important message that I think my fans need to hear and one that, at the time, I also needed to hear – that idea that if someone wants to let you go, let them and don’t go after them. It felt like an important and very familiar message and situation for me.
Alongside Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne you’re working with Nicole Galyon on a lot of songs on this album. What is it about Nicole that you’ve empathised and connected with so much?
I’ve known Nicole for a really long time and we’ve written together before but for some reason, at this phase in my life, we united in a way that means she is the most present female alongside me on the album, much like Emily Shackleton has been on some of my other albums. Nicole just kinda was there in that moment that I needed her to help me craft some of these songs.
Nicole is an incredible writer and incredible at allowing an artist to lead a room but helping them to write the best song at the same time. Nicole absolutely fights for the best song and not everybody you work with does that but she does.
‘Truck on Fire’ stood out to me from that initial announcement. You wrote that with Charles Kelly from Lady A so there’s definitely a story behind that one!
(laughing) Charles has become a really good friend of mine. He’s a great writer, obviously for Lady A, but he’s a great writer for other artists like Russell Dickerson, Brett Young and other artists too. He was, like, I have this truck idea and I was, like, (sighing) ‘Oh, ok?’ (laughing) But as soon as he shared it with me, I was amazed that it had never been written before – that whole idea to go with the rhyme and melody of ‘Liar, Liar pants on fire,’ which is what the song is, had never been done before?
We went with ‘Liar, Liar, truck on fire!’ (laughing) He used to joke me and say that if I didn’t come write it with him he would write it with Gabby Barrett! The only day I had off few a few months when I was back in Nashville I went and wrote it with him. It’s fun to have Charles as part of the album because he’s such a great guy and fantastic writer.
Every time you sing ‘You love the way that she blows your………..(pause) mind’ on ‘Heels Over Head’ I chuckle to myself and ask if you really just actually sang that. Were you at all a little reticent at putting out such a scathing and downright cheeky song?
Not really because I am a writer and a person who does like to dig into those shocking moments sometimes! In the same way that great artists like Loretta Lynn weren’t afraid to speak their mind or say outspoken things I like to do that when the situation is called for. If you knew me on a personal level you’d find that I am pretty forward in the way that I poke fun at things or say things – I’m not a reserved woman, right?
We knew what we wanted to say in that song and so why not just say it? It’s been funny to see young girls at my shows with their mother’s singing along to that part and I’m like, ‘what am I doing to these girls!!!!!!’ (laughing) There are people, both men and women on both sides, who are that person, that’s who they are – at one time this was a really heartbreaking situation for me but I’m now so far passed it we’re able to turn it into a funny joke, it wasn’t always like that, but now we can say ‘You guys deserve each other, hope you have some fun!’
You have to find ways to elevate yourself as a songwriter and I’ve not used comedy a lot in my writing so this was also an interesting avenue to go down in terms of developing and evolving as an artist too.
You are co-producer on this album, for the first time. What did you learn about the skills needed for that job?
I feel like it has always been within me but Shane and Josh really helped me recognise it on this album. I’ve learnt from people like busbee and I could feel like I had those instincts within me. So, although I’m not a great musician I do seem to have a lot of strong musical instincts that I feel like I can bring into the technical side of the recording process.
I can see me doing more of this in the future. I have big aspirations of continuing to do it in my own music but also I would love to be in a position, as a creative person, to find young songwriters and young talent and maybe give them the opportunity to work with me – maybe that’s through my own publishing situation, who knows, but I think I have a heart and an ear for that kind of stuff.
You’ve also got the Tom Petty cover ‘Breakdown’ coming out with Ryan Hurd on the upcoming tribute album. How did you come to be involved in that?
Scott Borchetta, my record label president, asked me if I could collaborate with Ryan on the song. I’m such a fan of Ryan’s voice and he’s obviously a great artist and I loved what he did on the track – it turned out to be a really fun thing. I haven’t been asked to do a lot of duets – I do a lot of the asking most of the time, so it was fun to be asked this time around!
Is there are song on ‘hummingbird’ that you are most excited for people to hear?
I’d say I think people will be the most shocked, like, you think ‘Heels Over Head’ is shocking? Wait till you hear ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors!’ And then I’d say the two songs I’d be most excited for people to hear would be ‘Oklahoma’ and ‘My Place’ – they are the emotional ones, the songs that I do best! (laughing)
Carly’s new album, ‘hummingbird’ is out June 14th and she’s out on tour, after the C2C shows, in America with Tim McGraw
