Lauren Watkins has quickly become one of Nashville’s most captivating new voices, blending smoky vocals, razor-sharp storytelling, and an authentic Southern charm that’s impossible to fake. Raised just outside Music City, she grew up on the outlaw edge of country—shaped by the sounds of Miranda Lambert, Eric Church, and Sheryl Crow—before earning a marketing degree at Ole Miss and returning home to chase her own musical dreams. Her grassroots hustle, posting covers and performing wherever she could, caught the attention of Nicolle Galyon, who signed her to Songs & Daughters and Big Loud Records. Watkins’ 2024 debut, ‘The Heartbroken Record,' introduced her as a sharp new songwriter unafraid to blur the lines between heartbreak and humor, tradition and modernity.
Her follow-up, ‘In a Perfect World,' (our review here) marks a bold step forward both personally and creatively. Produced by her husband Will Bundy with collaborators like Joey Moi, Trannie Anderson, and Natalie Hemby, the album finds Watkins balancing the rush of sold-out shows with the grounding calm of newly married life. Across its ten tracks—ranging from the swagger of ‘Lose My Cool' to the wistful romance of ‘Marlboro Man'—she crafts a portrait of love and imperfection that feels as classic as it is current. Confident, witty and deeply human, Watkins is proving herself not just as one of country’s brightest new storytellers, but as an artist intent on carving out her own corner of its future. We recently caught up with her to talk all about it.
Thanks for you time today, Lauren, it's lovely to touch base with you about this superb album!
Thank you, thanks for saying that, I'm really proud of it.
It feels like a really complete, old school, tight, concise album in the truest sense of the word.
That is a huge compliment and exactly what I was trying to achieve. I think it's very inclusive of the good, the bad and the ugly of human nature. The heartbreak stuff has always been in my comfort zone but this time I did not stray away from the beautiful things in life either!
I love the bait-and-switch of the title. When I first read it I thought it might be a bit sugary…. but it's absolutely not!
Exactly and that's why that song is the opening track on the album. I want people to ‘get that' right off the bat, I want people to get that I am saying in a perfect world we would have all these things – everyone would have a lovely 9 to 5 job, a perfect house and a cookie-cutter life but it would be pretty boring and we wouldn't have all the great things that come with the good and the bad of life. I wanted people to get that right away and then I wanted people to enjoy the rest of the album for what it is…. which is just reality.
I love the fact that you've gone with a tight ten songs and not some 40 track content portal!
Yes! That was an intentional decision. There's so much music coming out right now, which is a great thing, but I am kinda of the belief that we shouldn't just put out music just to put out music, it should be songs that matter. I'm a newer artist to a lot of people so I wanted the album to be digestible too – I don't want people to be overwhelmed.
I've got more bullets in the chamber, ready to go, so people wont be starved of music from me moving forward but I wanted the start of this chapter to be really concise.
You and your husband (Lauren's co-writer and producer, Will Bundy) are still in that newly wed phase – congratulations – How has working with him and building a life together at the same time influenced the creation of this album?
It has influenced it so much, in a great way. We've been married now for a little over a year, almost a year and a half. It's been so different to dating, it feels like our relationship is on a higher level and getting to work together adds such an awesome layer.
People ask what it's like working together and the truth is that we met working together, so I've always known him as a creative and a co-writer so it wasn't like we had to make a big transition – that came when we started dating, if anything! (laughing) For us, the best way to do it has been to lean in and let the music be really intertwined in our lives, that's how we get the best out of each other. We do have some hard boundaries, like we do not talk about work over coffee in the morning! (laughing) Until it's 9am and that work day has started, we don't talk about work!
Anyone who knows a little about you knows that your sister Caroline has been a trusted co-writer of yours since the start of your career. You wrote the title track with her. What does Caroline bring to your sound as an artist and, particularly, to this album?
She has been such a huge part of my whole journey. There's no me without her, she's the one that got me into music in the first place. She's such a brilliant writer with great ideas and melodies and she knows me so well so that when she brings an idea, she'll know that it fits who I am. She'll even know what's in my heart better than I do at times!!!
Caroline is also very smart and honest with me. ‘In a Perfect World,' I'm pretty sure, was her title idea. We were kinda at the same stage of life when we wrote that song which helps. Now, she's had her first baby she's a little bit ahead of me I guess!
Another fabulous song is ‘Love is Tough.' There's a huge Sheryl Crow vibe on that song that suits your vocals and style. It's a little different from the smoky, bar-room vibes we are used to getting from you as well.
Thank you! I'm a big Sheryl Crow fan, so that makes sense. I'm really proud of that song. I had the original idea and threw it out to a few different people and they just didn't really get it. I saved it up because I knew that there was somebody out there that would get it and understand what I wanted to do with it.
The reason I've always shied away from writing love songs is because they always feel really cheesy to me – that type of sugar-coating can give me the ick sometimes! I wanted to write a ‘tough' love song to reflect that sometimes love can be hard. Dating can be hard. Marriage can be hard. Being in a relationship with another person is hard but it can also be the strongest thing in the world that can withstand absolutely anything and so we shined a light on that a little.
Another slightly different sounding song for you is ‘Lose My Cool.'
I'm really proud of that one too. I was in a similar headspace when I wrote that one to the headspace I was in when I wrote ‘Love is Tough.' I've always been the cool girl who doesn't want to show her cards or tries to make people think I don't care but when I started dating my husband I changed and realised that I didn't need to be like that with someone who it was the real thing with. I just needed to be myself with him and thank god I did.
On the other hand a song like ‘Marlboro Man' could be seen as ‘classic Lauren Watkins.' Even down to the smoking motif!
(laughing) Exactly! There's always going to be a little bit of that I think! I had the title first for that song. I'm a very nostalgic person and I've always been fascinated with old adverts. My dad smoked Marlboros growing up and the Marlboro Man has always been an interesting character to me – he was so tough and rugged and mysterious. Honestly, I thought he was very attractive.
You kinda then look up and go, wait, where did he go? They don't do those ads anymore and as a society he doesn't exist as much as he used to. It's turned out to be very relatable in that a lot of girls have got in touch with me saying they miss him and his traits and ideals as much as I do! People are craving that type of man a little more right now, he's still there you just have to look a little harder than you used to to find him.
I'm always interested in what song artists choose to close down their albums, particularly on Country music records. You went with ‘Pretty Please' which is a really intriguing song to have in that space.
To tell you truth, I think ‘Pretty Please' ends the album on a very unsettling note. Typically I would chose a song to complete the thematic feel of the album but I chose ‘Pretty Please' because it is unsettling! It kinda leaves you wanting more and I might well have a few more things up my sleeve so I wanted ‘Pretty Please' to leave everybody thinking, ‘What was that?' (laughing)
It's also a very vulnerable song for me and I wanted to put it at the end of this part of the journey, almost as if I was just tucking it away in the hope that no-one would notice it! (laughing) ‘Ill just leave this here and leave,' right? (laughing)
What you are singing about in that song is very relatable to people, though, so I think it will get a lot of attention!
Yes, I think it's something that, maybe, not everybody wants to say out loud but that kinda honesty is worth it. We all go through those things and thoughts so why not say them?
You co-wrote every track on the album. Which co-writers challenged you the most on this project?
That's a really good question. A lot of the things that pushed me into new territory were based around the life I am living now. The writers were all so down to go to these new places with me. Like I said earlier, with my sister, Caroline, she's travelling these new stages of life alongside me too and so we are both challenging each other to explore new ideas rather than write about experiences that we've already written about.
My husband, too, honestly, especially with him producing a lot of the songs as well, he's always challenging and pushing me to challenge myself. He has a very different brain to me so I would say that he challenges me a lot.
‘Slippery Slope' is a song that fits this ‘complicated life' narrative too. What made you choose John Morgan as a collaborator on that song, it was a great choice!
I'm a huge fan of his, as a person and of his music. He's such a cool guy. It needed to be a cool person to sing that song, someone who is just effortlessly cool. I also knew that he could pull it off because the guy part on that song is not easy at all. I knew he would be great and he was!! It's still got that old school feel to it, which I really like.
So many cool things happened to you during your ‘Heartbroken Record' phase. The shows and tours you did, the Morgan Wallen stuff, coming to the UK for the C2C festival. What goals are you setting yourself in this next phase of your career?
That's a good question. I want to sell out some headline shows and play to my own crowds a lot more than I have so far. I think my biggest abstract goal is to just go where this music takes me and I don't know where that is going to be right now. I'm going to follow the lead of the music and hope that it reaches the right people and is appreciated.
If I was in charge of picking the radio single for this album I would struggle because there are so many good songs that say so many different things in different ways. Have you got a firm idea of what it should be or are you open to suggestions from your team?
I'm very open to suggestions and I agree with you that it's a hard choice because a lot of the songs are so different. I haven't really explored radio yet and feel like such a fish out of water when it comes to that media. I don't know what works and what doesn't and I think it's harder to predict now than it used to be a few years ago.
There are songs like ‘Love is Tough' that I would think, traditionally, would sound great on the radio but then there are songs like ‘Average Jo and Plain Jane' which people are really liking on socials right now. As a woman I think it's sometimes harder than what would work for a guy on the radio too – it's so hard to predict!
I hope your music brings you back across the pond to Europe at some point during the ‘In a Perfect World' phase……..
I hope so too! We've already had conversations trying to figure out how to get back over to Europe because I had the best time ever last time we came. I'm ready to come back!
Check out Lauren Watkins' awesome new album ‘In a Perfect World' which is out everywhere in all the usual places TODAY! Our review is right here.
