With the deluxe version of ‘hummingbird' announced yesterday Carly Pearce is bringing an end to this season of her life and is ready to move on to newer pastures. Out on tour in Europe and having a bunch of fun, if her socials are anything to go by, this Grammy award winning singer-songwriter is winning hearts and minds all across the continent and finding a renewed sense of belonging too.
We were thrilled to catch up with her in London to talk all about it. For our review of the London show click here.
Welcome back to the UK Carly, it doesn't seem that long since you were here last, at the C2C festival last March. You've got such a strong relationship with your fans here – what do you put that down to?
I feel like when I first started I made a commitment to come over and I remember the president of my record label telling me that if I put in the time the fans would be there for me and it would really pay off. From my very first visit back in 2018 I've felt understood by my fans here in a way that I didn't feel in other places.
That relationship has continued to grow as my story has evolved – they really find themselves in my stories and my songs in a way that I just haven't seen anywhere else. I'm so happy that I get to be here – you could feel that something is different here at the C2C show last year.
When you're out on on what happens to Johnny and June? (Carly's two dogs)
They are with my mum right now for this trip. I have been facetiming them – I literally facetimed them a couple of hours ago! (laughing) It's really funny because they'll, like, get in the camera and turn their heads to it when they hear my voice!
You've been over in Europe quite a while now. It looks like, from your socials, that you are having a bunch of fun on this tour. Has it felt like a working vacation?
I mean……. No! (laughing) The fact that this is work is so funny. We've had such a good time and we've been to some places, like Copenhagen and Oslo, that we've never been to before. It's a little bit cold over here right now, I'd prefer to come back in the late summer or fall to be honest with you. (laughing) I've even had to buy a new coat whilst over here because it was so cold!
You've not been afraid to poke fun at yourself on your socials whilst out on this tour.
You just can't take life too seriously, right? In a world where, everyday, somebody blasts me, picks me apart or says something mean about me online I just figure that I might as well beat them to it and just be myself online!
When this tour is over you are going back out on the road in the USA with Carter Faith, Mae Estes and Tigirlily Gold – is that a deliberate attempt on your part to raise up fellow female talent?
Yeah. We're having such a huge moment for women in Country music right now. Artists like Ella Langley have really hit in the last year or two and there's a group of girls coming up with her that haven't had their moment yet in terms of popping and those artists you just talked about…… I feel a real owndership and a responsibility towards helping them up a rung on the ladder.
Kelsea Ballerini was really good to me in the early part of my career. She took me out and helped me in the same way that Taylor Swift championed her. I've tried to really align with girls that I believe in and all three of those artists are tremendously good. Carter Faith has one of the best Country music voices I've ever heard!
‘hummingbird' came out last June. Are there any songs on the album that people like me are not asking you enough about?
I'd say that would be ‘Oklahoma.' Over here, on this tour, it's really having a little bit of a moment, you guys love that song in a way that I've not gotten from back home. My favourite song on the album is ‘My Place' so I'm always going to want to talk about that one. ‘Oklahoma' is a real sleeper, though.
There are three new songs coming out on the deluxe version in March. Are you happy with the way ‘hummingbird' turned out now that there has been some time and distance from its release?
I'm happy with it. I try not to overthink those things too hard because each album I make is like a yearbook and snapshot of who I was in that time that I made it. It was exactly what it was supposed to be for the time and who I was when I made it.
I feel the same about tattoos. If it meant something to me in that moment then I'm going to get it. It'll always be a part of me and represent something – I have some really stupid tattoos but I look at them like memories and I feel the same way about the albums.
Are the three new songs ones that could have been on the original version of ‘hummingbird' or have they been written recently?
I wrote ‘No Rain' a couple of months ago and I knew that it was something special but I felt like it was part of the ‘hummingbird' era rather than the next era that is coming for me. Using it as part of the title of the deluxe version felt like a fit too.
The other two songs were songs that I wrote during the sessions for the '29' album actually. If you listen to them you can kind of hear that but they just didn't feel right for that project. It's very rare that I go back and revisit old songs that I've written because I am so particular about what I put out but those two songs have just stayed in the back of my mind over the years and I felt like it was time people got to hear them.
I love your vocals on ‘Heart First.' Are you blessed with a voice that doesn't really require any upkeep or do you have to work hard to keep it in shape?
Thank you……. I don't really do anything to be honest (laughing) I know that sounds bad! I feel like I lean on god-given talent a lot but I know that I could be better! (laughing)
The message of ‘No Rain' is such a strong Country music lesson about needing to have the negative side of things to appreciate the positive. Is that where you are in your life now?
I think so, for sure. That song feels like the perfect button or bow to wrap up this season of my life. It's not been super-easy coming out of quite a dark season and it takes patience and work but I have found a really sweet spot now in which I can look back and appreciate things more, which is where that song came from. I can maybe begin to attach some humour to things now, learn some lessons and grow – I want that song to be there to encourage people who might be a few steps behind me to know that things will get better.
Are you putting anything together for your next release and your next era or is it still too soon?
It's halfway done! I'm hoping to go back into the studio in April and work on it some more. I'm not working with Shane McAnally this time, we've got a new producer, somebody I've known for a really long time who, to me, is making the best records in Nashville right now!
You know, it's funny, I'm making some of my favourite music that I've ever made right now but it's not all completely attached to me in the way that my last two albums have been. I'm writing my story, still, but I am also trying to write every woman's story at the same time – it's been quite liberating and such fun to be able to write in that space. I'm also cutting some songs from outside writers for the first time too – I want to experiment a little right now and continue to grow and evolve as an artist because I don't want to keep putting the same content out album after album.
I think it's time to turn the page a little bit….. I will always write from where I am at in my life at any current point but there are more stories to tell and I want to tell those as well.
I see ‘Written in Stone' and ‘hummingbird' as two sides of the same story. What you are saying now, though, is that story is coming to a close.
Correct! That story is coming to a close and it's time to move on. I'm excited about what comes next.
When you released ‘Written in Stone' it was full of earthy instruments, fiddles, banjos and a little Bluegrass leaning around the edges. No one else in mainstream Nashville was really doing that at that point. Everyone has fiddle on everything now – Jenee Fleenor must be the hardest working musician in town! Do you consider yourself something of a trailblazer because now everyone is doing what you were doing four years ago!
Yes. I haven't really thought of it in those terms before but, yes! There are other people using those instruments and they always have, I'm not the only one but there is a class of us that stood back and said, ‘We're Country purists and we're going to keep doing what is in our hearts no matter what they current trends are.'
We knew it wasn't that cool four or five years ago but here we are today! The fiddles on '29' were definitely a moment and I remember Jenee Fleenor saying that she couldn't believe how much she was getting to play on that record and now, you're right, she's the most sought after musician in Nashville!
Carly's ‘hummingbird' deluxe comes out on March 14th. You can find details about it here.
