When she was five years old, Ashley McBryde told her mother she wanted to be a country musician. Then, when she was 12, she said it again. And she didn't want to be just any country singer, either. The Arkansas native who grew up on a 400-acre cattle farm and loved attending bluegrass festivals dreamt of GRAMMY gold.

To make that dream happen, she dropped out of college and played TV-on-the-wall sports bars. When McBryde finally got the attention of record labels, she was told her hair was "too curly" and to lose weight. And she tried. She lost 35 pounds and wrote songs a certain kind of way. But it wouldn't stick—McBryde couldn't be who the glossy, 30-pounds-skinnier artist industry executives wanted her to be. So she turned a corner—if she was going to "become" anyone, it would have to be herself. The music industry would have to accept her as she was, tattoos, wild hair and all. 

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Her unapologetic nature has paid off: At 35 years old, McBryde has a critically acclaimed debut album, Girl Going Nowhere, and her first GRAMMY nomination for Best Country Album.

Ultimately, her experience has inspired the album. Songs like "Girl Goin' Nowhere" tell a story of fierce persistence. "Don't waste your life behind that guitar/ You may get gone, but you won't get far/ You're not the first, you won't be the last… But when the lights come up …. And I can't find an empty chair/ Not bad for a girl goin' nowhere," she sings.

In an exclusive interview, McBryde spoke to the Recording Academy about what it feels like to be where she is now, her first-time nomination, women in country radio, the artists who inspired her, and what she's looking forward to the most during the 61st GRAMMY Awards on Feb. 10.

What were you doing when you found out you were nominated for a GRAMMY?

I was in my bunk on the bus, and I had let my phone die on accident the night before because I'm one of those people that looks at their phone until they fall all the way to sleep. I woke up; phone was dead. I plugged it in and as it started to charge, it started to go off, of course, a million times. Ding, ding, ding, ding. That was annoying. So, I turned the ringer off and went back to sleep, and when I woke up I had 49 texts.

I kind of glanced at the screen and to see some of the names that were popping up, I was like, "Something bad or something really good happened. Because I didn't even know the nominees were being read that morning." When you're in tour mode, you just play the show, sleep, get up, play the show, sleep, and I clicked on a video my friend had sent me, and it was them reading the nomination on TV.

So I freaked out, and then I text that video to my band, and I got under the covers and put my head under the covers and just screamed.

After finding out, you tweeted: "When other girls my age were planning their dream weddings, I dreamt of a Grammy nomination." Talk to me about when you used to dream about this moment. What did you envision at that time?

I was such a weird kid I guess. I'd get in trouble all the time for practicing my autograph in classes I wasn't supposed to [be doing those things in]. I never wanted anything more than I wanted to do this for a living. So I kind of thought, how would I call my mom? Where would I be? How would I react? Should I tell my mom in a really big way and be like, "Oh my gosh, Ma! We got nominated for a GRAMMY!" And that's not at all what I did, I called her and just I said, "Hey Mom. What are you doing?" And she was working, and she said, "Oh, just working. What are you doing?" I said, "Oh, I just woke up on the bus and we're nominated for a GRAMMY." She goes, "Okay, honey. What?!"

So, I would kind of play through these scenarios. How I would tell my sister, how I'd tell my brother, and what it would feel like to be nominated for the biggest award there is for a musician, for a songwriter, for an artist. And all of the envisioning I did still didn't prepare my gut for the size of those butterflies.

My best friend called me. We have been best friends since we were 16, and I was having trouble processing this information. And she called, and she said, "Ashley, you remember sitting in Coach Hanson's class and we got in trouble because I was writing poetry and you were practicing your autograph." Yeah, and she goes, "Dude, you did it. 17-year-old you just did the thing we dreamt of." And that's when the tears started for me and started to creep in.

When did you know you wanted to become an artist? 

My new skills really developed until was 25. I told my mom when I was five that I was gonna be a country artist someday. And then, again when I was 12. It never changed, but I really reiterated again when I was 12. I said, "Mom, I'm gonna be a songwriter someday. I'm gonna move to Nashville, Tennessee and I'm gonna write songs." And she said, "Okay." Her answer was always, "Okay, honey." And not in a dismissive way, but in an "Absolutely" kind of way.

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Was there any moment in your journey that almost made you want to give up?

Nothing makes you wonder why the hell you're doing it like playing at a sports bar where they don't turn the TVs down for their live music. But that's one of those things you have to learn to adjust to when you're a chick that plays the bars for a living. Sometimes you're the thing that's happening, and sometimes you're the noise behind the thing that's happening. Either you get in your head about it and you're like, "Why the hell are they having me do this when a radio could do this job?" And some of the bars don't even turn the projector off behind you when the ball game was on.

You get in your head about it and you get, "Why the hell am I doing this?" And then you remember, you know what? You could always go back and work in retail. You can always go back. You could go do anything for a living. And you have to ask yourself, would you do anything else? No. Okay, then shut up and sing 'Fishing in the Dark'… You do this because you love it or you just don't do it. There are things that make you wonder if you should keep doing it, but if it's in your bones then the answer is still gonna be yes when you still check.

A lot of women in country, including Carrie Underwood, have spoken out about the lack of women represented in country radio. With so many music platforms available to share and discover music on nowadays, is terrestrial radio a priority for you?

I think terrestrial radio is a priority for anybody who is really wanting to do music on a level that we're doing. It's a weird struggle. It broke my heart to find out how radio worked 'cause I was so ... I've been playing in bars for 11 years. I had no idea what radio tour would be like. And I met such amazing people on radio tour and finding out how hard their job is as a program director and as a music director and finding out how it really works and how a song really gets on the radio has so little to do with music that it was just heartbreaking.

I don't understand why there aren't more chicks on the radio ... We have huge fans. We sell out shows. And you're right, with so many different platforms to get ahold of our music, you would wonder if terrestrial radio is still is a champion for you as you want it to be, but it's absolutely a thousand percent necessary. It doesn't have to be the biggest thing in your life. It doesn't have to be the only way they're gonna find you, obviously, because they ain't playin' it. But it's still a companion you have to have. The people who are singing the records and the people who are spinning the record and the people that are pushing the record, we're all the music industry, and we all have to be companions to each other.

Why do you think traditional country radio has been so slow to diversify its roster?

It's so weird because we diversify our genre. We represent the pop side of things on country radio. We represent the more traditional side. We represent the ritzy side. We represent kind of that shake-hop thing that happened. We're so diverse as a sound, I don't know why it's so hard to diversify as far as who's singing the song. I don't know why that is, but it wasn't always that way. You look at the '90s, they're were as many if not more strong female artists as there were strong male artist, and they all got along. Nobody was bitching about one another. I think that's the wrong way to go. Country music is a big-ass place. There's room for all of us.

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You've spoken about the importance of being your true self in this industry. What got you to realize this, and what motivates you to stay genuine as an artist and a person?

There's always that moment in everybody's career where it's "Lose 30 pounds, change your hair, change your name," all this stuff. And I knew I wasn't willing to do that from the get-go. You have to do a small percentage of it anyway, because if you don't ... how do I say this? If you don't buy tickets to the game, you don't get to go.

For me, learning that I had to be unapologetically myself was, I lost 35 pounds. I looked amazing, except my head was way too big for my shoulders. And there was a, "Your hair's really curly. Can we kind of make that more of a wave kind of a thing?" And I was like, "Okay. I'll trust you. I'll try anything one time. I won't have to tell you it looks stupid. You'll see it looks stupid." So, we did that and I tried to do the thing that people would have me do, and it was a momentum and a façade that I knew there's no way I could keep that up and maybe stick out my stomach, two for ten, that I'm the skinniest girl in the room. I'm never gonna be that and that's fine. I look silly with straight hair.

That for me was a big turning point, and also some of the songs that we were choosing for me at the time. It's not that I didn't like them. I wrote them, but they weren't exactly the thing I would want to do and the message that I wanted to put out. I had stuff that had better messages to it. And learning that I really suck at being anybody else, and as long as I've got permission to just be me, and me and the guys can just make the music that [speaks] to us, that's when it started working for us. That's when the ball really started rolling.

You bring up really great points and it kind of gets me thinking, did you ever see yourself represented when you were younger in the industry, in the singers that you saw?

I did. Really strong women like Trisha Yearwood, Lorrie Morgan, Patty Loveless. They were vocally so agile and so powerful. That was easy to look up to, but I grew up on a cattle farm in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas. I was in the cheapest Wrangler jeans you can get. We bought our clothes at a place called Tri-County Farm and Ranch Supply. I wore white Hanes T-shirts that were hand-me-downs from my older siblings and I rolled the sleeves up because I'm a really small statured person. I still roll my sleeves up to this day because even short sleeved t-shirts, the sleeves are too long for me.

And I ran across this song I really liked called "When Boy Meets Girl" by Terrie Clark. I went to Walmart and I bought her record and on the cover of the record, she had on a cowboy hat just like I did, she had on a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up just like I did, and she wore Wrangler.

So, for the first time I saw a strong female presence with good songs that meant something to me that looked like I did. And then later on in college, it would be Gretchen Wilson where I would go, "Hey, I'd dip tobacco. That chick dips tobacco," even though it's sort of unattractive … I can identify with her. So, I really did have some good role models I looked up to on both sides of the spectrum. People that I wanted to sound like and people that sounded like me. People that I can identify with just life wise. The way the women looked and the way we lived.

"Girl Going Nowhere" is such a powerful song. What is the inspiration behind it?

Ahh, that song is a 100% my story and it is 100% Jeremy Bussey's story, the friend that I wrote that with. That morning, Guy Clark had passed away. He's one of my favorite songwriters of all time, and I was really upset when I got to the writing room. To calm down, I'd just met Jeremy that morning and he said, "Yeah. Let's get your brain out of there out of being sad ..." "I'm from Alabama." And I'm like, "Oh, I'm from Arkansas." "When did you move to town?" I said, "Well, I was 22, 23." He's like, "Cool. I was much older than that when I moved to town to start this as a career." We just kind of interviewed each other kind of getting our brains going in the same direction.

We started swapping stories of all of the people that told us we were crazy to move to Nashville. The story that really stuck out that day for me was about that algebra teacher that I had that when she asked what I wanted to do for a living, I told her I was gonna write songs. And she told me that that was stupid, and that wasn't gonna happen. And the longer we talked about that, Jeremy said, "Have you played at the Grand Ole Opry?" And I said, "Not yet, but I will." And that was about a year-and-a-half before the Opry had ever even heard my name. He said, "I like the way you think. Today, all we have to do is write what you want to sing the very first time you step in that wooden circle and we'll write it in such a way that Guy Clark wouldn't hate it if he had to listen to it."

RELATED: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Tia Fuller On  Artistic Vision & Leading By Example

What would you tell your algebra teacher now?

She's getting on up in years, and as many things as I've dreamt of saying to that bitter old woman, I think now, the only thing I could say to her would be "Thank you." I was a stubborn kid. She gave me hell. I gave it right back. I ultimately got kicked out of her class, by the way, because of my mouth. But now, I would say thank you because nothing lights a fire under your ass like somebody telling you they don't think you can do it.

How's the next album going, have you written any songs for it yet?

Oh yeah. We started picking out the songs for the second record the day after we finished the first record. We have a huge pile already of stuff that I had already written. Just stuff that I've written over the last two years. And now, I'm gonna take a month and just write, not really toward anything, not trying to fill any gaps, but just write as many songs as we can in 25 days and see what pops out. 

What are you most looking forward to during the 61st GRAMMY Awards?

Just attending the Grammys is huge to me, and to be nominated is of course a dream come true, especially with these artists with these albums that I'm standing next to. I think what I'm most looking forward to is taking who I want to take to the GRAMMYs. I took my mother to the CMAs, so I have a pretty good idea of who I'd like to take to the GRAMMYs, but I won't say yet because she's gonna freak out.

RELATED: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Between The Buried And Me's Paul Waggoner

If there is something you want the world to take away from your music, what would it be?

The reason me and the guys even play music for a living is because at some point in our lives, music changed us. My goal is to do for one person what music did, but so many songs did for me growing up.

I got to perform at the CMAs, which was another dream of mine. And to think of me, a chick from Arkansas, being on that stage. That blows my mind. To think of the first time I step in the Opry circle, that blows my mind. If I can do that, you can do anything. Especially if someone told you not to do it. Then you should do it more colorfully, if someone told you not to do it or told you that you can't do it. If I can do it, you damn sure can.

Alicia Keys To Host The 2019 GRAMMY Awards

Faith has been a driving force behind Alabama band the Red Clay Strays, both in their music and in their journey to stardom. With their new album, Made By These Moments, the quintet leans into that foundation even further, giving listeners a look into their walk with God and road to redemption — all of which has helped them become one of country music's most exciting breakout acts.

Despite the divine influence, lead singer Brandon Coleman insists they're not a Christian band. And their music proves that: The Strays' sound delves as much into high-flying Southern rock and gritty delta blues as it does country, sounding like Waylon Jennings or Johnny Cash one minute, then Lynyrd Skynyrd or Elvis Presley the next. As Coleman insists, what's most important to the group is making music that resonates.

"Most of the time we're not setting out to write a worship song… or anything like that," he tells GRAMMY.com. "We don't want to be a Christian band or even a country band — we just want to make music, plain and simple."

Born out of a cover band in 2016, The Strays grinded it out for years in bars around Mobile and the Deep South before hitting a breakthrough with 2022's independently released Moment Of Truth. Their budding acclaim led to opening slots with Elle King, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church and Old Crow Medicine Show, their first chart hit with "Wondering Why," and debuts on the Grand Ole Opry stage and on national television. And just one week before Made By These Moments arrived, the group were featured on the star-studded soundtrack for Twisters.

That all culminated in them signing with RCA Records in April 2024 and working with producer Dave Cobb, who helped the Red Clay Strays deliver their most polished and faith-focused set  to date with Made By These Moments. Its 11 songs serve as a blueprint of how with hard work, patience and God in your corner no obstacle is too big to overcome. The band navigates everything from questioning oneself ("No One Else Like Me") and searching for purpose ("Drowning," "Devil In My Ear") to discovering and becoming grounded in faith ("I'm Still Fine," "On My Knees") and growing into the best version of yourself as a result ("Made By These Moments," "God Does"). 

"We're not trying to go out and preach to anybody, we're just singing songs about our lives and people can listen if they want," Coleman asserts. "I've had many people who aren't spiritual or religious come up to me and say that our music has gotten them to think and reevaluate how they go about their daily lives. That's all you can ask for if you're trying to inspire or help people with your music."

Before the release of Made By These Moments, The Strays' Brandon Coleman and Drew Nix spoke with GRAMMY.com about how faith influences their music, the album's range of inspirations, and more.

You guys haven't shied away from making your faith a focal point of your music. Mind telling me about the roots of that influence, particularly with how it relates to the 11 songs on this new record? 

Brandon Coleman: I mean, God's really the driving force in all of it. He's why we do this. Everyone's wondering why they were put here on Earth and what their purpose is. Once you're able to get an idea for what that is, that's often what you end up doing. Our music is about our lives and living on the road, and God is a big part of all of it.

Drew Nix: When God gives you a gift you have to use it or it's wasted, right? The biblical things we talk about in our music are lessons that we've learned growing up. It's such complex and simple truths all wrapped into one, which makes it really easy to write about. There's victory and strife and everything else you go through in life. It leaves us thanking God at the end of each and every day for giving us another one.

It sounds like rather than faith seeping into music that it's simply been ingrained in your DNA long before you started making music? 

Coleman: Exactly. We're always looking to put God above ourselves.

Nix: When I'm writing songs like "Drowning" — a song that came about when I felt like I couldn't get ahead in life because I kept slipping and falling — it's very therapeutic too. 

Another example is "Devil In My Ear," which sees me dealing with a close friend and someone I considered to be family's suicide. It was our drummer's brother Jacob, who was an unofficial member of the band and one of the best musicians we knew. He took his own life in 2020, so that song was me trying to deal with that. The only thing I could come up with at the time was that the devil got in his ear because he really had it made — he was an incredible musician with a loving family around him. It just didn't make any sense to me until writing that song.

I obviously hate to hear that, but at the same time I firmly believe that one of the most beautiful things about music is the positivity that can radiate from even the most tragic of circumstances. It's a way to make others who've gone through similar experiences feel seen and not alone, easing the weight of the trauma that comes with it in the process. "Devil In My Ear" is a perfect example of that. 

Nix: Not feeling alone, that's a huge part of it. On a related note, the song "Made By These Moments" touches on exactly what you're talking about. We go through all these horrible and beautiful things in our lives that make us who we are. It's also one of the songs that finally brings up the mood on the album as well. 

Coleman: That's the beauty of this album. It starts out great a lot of times like life does. It starts with a good rock song before taking you down into the dark places that we all go to with "Drowning" and "Devil In My Ear." Then you come out of that with "I'm Still Fine" realizing "Oh crap, I'm down in the valley but I'm still fine because God's still got me" ahead of rejoicing with "On My Knees," and realizing that getting through all these bad things is what makes us stronger with "Made By These Moments." Closing out the album with a perfect ending is "God Does," a gentle reminder that even though you may not think something is possible, God does.

It's like a roller coaster ride to redemption. 

Coleman: Addiction and survival, too — all of it.

You mentioned "Drowning" a moment ago, which is one of my favorites on the record due to both its message and Brandon's high-powered vocals — particularly during its chorus — that remind me a lot of Chris Stapleton. It's a little bit country, blues and rock with a heck of a lot of emotion. 

Coleman: Thank you. "Drowning" was originally written in A, so we were singing the chorus, but it wasn't quite up there note wise. I felt like we had a lot of room to keep going up, so we walked it up to a C so it has more of that screaming vibe to it, which definitely helped the song. 

It feels fitting and reminds me of when we were struggling in 2020 and 2021 and were driving for Uber. I finally scraped up $100 to get my car's oil changed. It was supposed to be free, but the place ended up charging me a $40 fee before convincing me to buy new air filters too, to which I said "go ahead" because I just can't say no. What was a $15 air filter I ended up getting charged $75 for, taking my would be free oil change up over the $100 I'd just saved up. 

I remember leaving there, going back home and kicking this drawer that I'd picked up on the side of the road. I ended up breaking it and screaming at the top of my lungs, and that's what the big notes in the chorus of "Drowning" remind me of. 

If it makes you feel any better I literally got my car's oil changed this morning and they got me on the upcharge for an air filter too. 

Coleman: It does, but it hits a lot different when you only have $100 to your name.

Absolutely. And thankfully that's something y'all aren't having to deal with anymore. What a difference a couple years can make! 

Coleman: Even going through all that, despite how hard it was, we were never hopeless. We all just looked at it as going through a battle. We still had faith in God all the way, even when it was very hard to, which was very scary and stressful. People always say to never quit and to never give up, and that's turned out to be true for us too. 

That leads me to "God Does." There's a lot of rockin' tunes on this record, but that song stands out from the rest, both in its message and the stripped back format you recorded it in. Was it always your plan to compose it like that or did you ever have a plan to give it a similar treatment to the rest of this project? 

Coleman: I can't speak for Drew, but that was always my idea of how it would be. Working with Dave, he has his ideas too, and in the studio they all mesh together as we figure out and create it. He changed the whole beat up on ["God Does"] and gave the song more of a waltz-y feel that completely transformed it for the better, in my opinion.

Nix: I had a country-er imagination for it when I wrote and demoed it. I bought a pedal steel about a year ago to have it go more of the country route, but the way it turned out is better than I ever imagined.

Coleman: I like the way Drew came up with it, too. I actually still have that work tape on my phone because I remember how that song helped me out during that time of uncertainty and struggling. We played a show in Baldwin County [Alabama] somewhere and were using Jacob's old bus because our's was broken down. One of its tires went flat, so we had to leave it at the venue. Drew and I returned the next day to change the tire so we could get home. It was then that Drew told me about this new song he'd just written called "God Does." 

I don't know if he knew, but I was sitting there just trying to hide my tears as I listened to it because of being in that time of life of not knowing what to do and feeling hopeless. That song came along at a very good time and really changed my trajectory mentally.

The word "rabid" may often be tossed around in conversations about fan bases, but Koe Wetzel's die-hard followers truly deserve the distinction. A quick search of the Texas-born singer/songwriter's fans reveals videos of Wetzel breaking up audience fights, arguments over featured vocalists and many, many Koe-inspired tattoos.

So, what is it about the 32-year-old country star that gets people so riled up? For starters, Wetzel, like Zach Bryan or Cody Jinks, is an outsider in the genre. He found his footing and honed his unorthodox sound — which defies traditional genre conventions to include influences from hard rock and hip-hop — as part of the Texas music scene rather than on Nashville's Music Row, the genre's commercial epicenter. Wetzel debuted in 2015 with Out on Parole, an album released under the name Koe Wetzel and the Konvicts. That record and its follow-up, 2016's Noise Complaint, made Wetzel a star on the college touring circuit, and by the time 2019's Harold Saul High was released, he was charting on Billboard while fielding management and label offers.

Wetzel's rough-and-tumble persona is another draw. He's outlaw country in his music and in life, with the Feb. 28 date of his 2016 arrest for public intoxication now known as "Koe Wetzel Day." He's known for working hard and partying harder — though, as he tells GRAMMY.com, he hopes to soften that image with his new album 9 Lives, out now.

As Wetzel puts it, at the heart of his gritty, irreverent persona is "just a goofball" who "probably should" go to therapy more often. Accordingly, his songwriting on 9 Lives is his most vulnerable to date, mingling meditations on fame and mental health with party anthems and hardscrabble tales of life on the road. Produced by Gabe Simon (Noah Kahan, Lana Del Rey), the record takes the gritty, rough-hewn country rock of Wetzel's earlier releases and lets it breathe a bit, adding touches of pop and roots to his grunge-leaning, hip-hop inspired beginnings.

Highlights on the record include the gritty and groovy title track and "Bar Song," a hypnotically infectious ode to a wild night out; "Leigh" shows off Wetzel's comedic side, as he playfully laments falling for "girls with names ending in Leigh." He also includes two drastically different covers: "Depression & Obsession" by late rapper XXXTentacion, and "Reconsider" by Keith Gattis, a country singer/songwriter who died in 2023 — further proof that Wetzel is anything but your typical country artist. 

On the album's July 19 release, Wetzel chatted with GRAMMY.com about his switch-up with 9 Lives, from recruiting a new producer to covering a rap song and more.

It's rare to speak to an artist on an album release day, so I'd love to hear how your day is going and what the feedback from your fans has felt like so far.

I'm just glad that everybody's taken [the album] in the way I wanted them to, you know? I didn't know how people were going to react to it, because it is a little bit different from the sound that we put out before. But the reaction has been great. I think people are getting a little bit more of a feel for the stuff that we put out in our earlier years. 

Your fan base is so passionate, and it seems like they are also really open to you taking risks and hearing new sounds from you. Does that resonate with you?

Yeah, for sure. It's not that they were getting used to the same sound we had been putting out for the last couple of records, but I felt like they were wanting something a little different than the country rock stuff. And I think with this record, we give them that. We're giving them  something that they haven't heard from me before. 

Take me back to the early days of plotting this record. What got the ball rolling for you?

Well, we really didn't go into it expecting it to be a full record. We hadn't put out music in a while, so we went into it with [the goal of] get[ting] a couple singles out, just to get stuff going for a record, possibly, in the future. I hadn't put out my music in almost two years at that point. And so, the idea was to go in and write some newer stuff. I knew the direction that I wanted it to go — a little bit softer, more honest, vulnerable route. 

We got in [the studio] with Gabe Simon and Amy Allen and Carrie K and Sam Harris in El Paso, and we were there for, I think, two or three days. We wrote four songs: "Damn Near Normal," "Sweet Dreams" and a couple other tunes. We kind of sat back and looked at everything, and it all came really easy for us. 

We looked back like, "All right, man, this sounds great. We should do it again." So, we hooked back up in Nashville at RCA, and we knocked out a couple more. I think we did four or five more songs in a couple of days there. Before we knew it, we're like, "Man, we got a whole record in there." It wasn't planned at all.

It must feel good to go in without any major expectations and come out of the studio with music that fits your vision.

Yeah, for sure. Gabe Simon — he really brought that out. It was my first time working with him. It was kind of scary, going in to write and work with somebody that you've never met before and being so open and honest with them. He pulled out everything that made all those songs [right for] the record.

It sounds like the two of you have a special creative partnership. What do you think it is about your work with Gabe that made him the right fit for the record?

One thing is just us coming from two different worlds. I'm a Texas guy, and he's coming from Nashville. It's just those two worlds colliding, pretty much. And he really cared about me and cared about my life, — things that are going on in my life instead of just being about the music. He cares about my well-being. We're friends now, and he'll hit me up on any given day and ask, "How you doing? How you feeling?" It has nothing to do with music. That's the type of dude Gabe is. 

I think that played a big part in this record. Of course, he cared about the music, but he also wanted everybody to understand the stories that were being told. 

You mentioned earlier that you get into more vulnerable territory on this record. What was it like for you to open up in that way in your music?

Honestly, it was kind of freeing. I don't go to therapy as much as I probably should. And I've said this a couple of times, that when I first met Gabe and Amy and all them, they all sat me down and picked my brain, just trying to get song ideas and [figure out] which way I wanted to go with the record. I always say that was my first real therapy session. And it was total strangers. 

I don't talk about my feelings and stuff as much as I probably should, so whenever I get to write this music and play this music, that's pretty much how I express how I feel.

On the other end of the spectrum, you're great at incorporating humor into your songwriting. On this record, I'm particularly thinking about "Leigh," which is just so clever. What role does humor play in your writing process?

I'm a goofball. [With] my persona, people want to think I'm just this hardass, kind of outlaw dude, but I'm really just a goofball. I like to have a lot of fun. I like my records to have a lot of fun. So throwing in songs like that to keep people on their toes, you know, it's just to let them know it's not always so serious. It's a lot of fun and games. 

We had a lot of fun making that song. At first, it kind of started off as a joke, and then we kind of sat back like, "Holy s—, this is pretty good. This is a fun song." We can't wait to play that one.

The two cover songs on the record fit so well, even though they are from drastically different artists, XXXTentacion and Keith Gattis. How did you choose those, and what made them fit the rest of 9 Lives?

Keith Gattis, I didn't really get to know him or do a deep dive into his music while he was alive. He passed away last year. And Charlie Robison was one of my favorite Texas artists growing up. They passed away pretty close to each other last year. 

Once I figured out that Keith wrote a lot of Charlie's songs, I really dug into his music a lot more… Something inside me was just like, "Yo, you gotta cut this song." I feel like it rounded out the record. We just tried to do it as much justice as possible. 

[It was] kind of the same with "Depression & Obsession." XX is one of my favorite underground rappers. I love that era of music. I love what he did. He was another artist that was gone too soon. There's no telling what more we could have gotten from him. So, I wanted to do it justice and give a nod to them by putting those songs on the record.

You have Jessie Murph joining you on "High Road." How did the two of you connect?

Ron Perry with Columbia, he signed her a couple years ago. When we signed with Columbia, he asked if I'd heard of Jessie Murph. I wasn't familiar with her at the time. Then I looked her up and instantly became a fan. She's a f—ing superstar. Her voice is amazing. 

We talked about having a duet on this record, but I couldn't find a singer that I wanted to have on the record. But it was kind of easy because Jessie worked with Columbia and, like I said, I was a huge fan. So, we hit her up. We let her put her own spin on it, and she absolutely crushed it. 

You're certainly busy enough, with a new record out and a tour coming up. What else are you looking forward to in the second half of 2024?

More new music. We're already trying to get more new music going. We've got a lot of songs that are still in the vault that probably should have made the record but it just didn't feel right at the time. I can't really say a whole lot, but we've got a lot of songs in the vault and I'm still writing. So, once the tour's over with, we're hoping to put on some new music pretty quick.

Haters take note: nothing fires up a country boy like HARDY more than a naysayer. And this redneck has a long memory.

Despite the coveted catalog of country music hits to his credit — tunes he wrote for artists like Florida Georgia Line, Blake Shelton and Morgan Wallen, plus his own work as a solo artist — HARDY's third album begins with a three-minute response to a heckler who once left a nasty note in his jar in place of a tip.

That moment may have occurred a decade ago, but it's key to HARDY's defiant persona. In fact, the album's title is exactly what that note read — Quit!! — and its cover art is the actual napkin the message was written on, which the singer/songwriter has held on to all these years.

HARDY laughs off the memory at first, but as the title track plays on, his olive branch soon turns to coal. "I'm not the GOAT, I'm the black sheep hell-bent to find closure," he barks as the song escalates. "I can't let go — a note somebody wrote like ten years ago put a chip on my shoulder. If you wanted me to quit, you should've saved it, bro."

The takeaway here? HARDY won't quit. Or, to quote another Quit!! banger, "I DON'T MISS," when a hit is in the crosshairs, he "don't hit nothing but the bull's eye."

No doubt, he has the numbers to back it up. HARDY linked up with Florida Georgia Line after moving to Nashville in the 2010s, and landed his first country No. 1 as a songwriter in 2018 thanks to the duo and Wallen, with the smash "Up Down." As he began building a solo career — releasing a pair of EPs in 2018 (This Ole Boy) and 2019 (Where to Find Me) — he continued delivering chart-topping hits for FGL, Shelton, LOCASH, Wallen, Dierks Bentley, and more. As Quit!! arrives, HARDY boasts 15 No. 1 hits: 11 as a songwriter, and four as an artist.

Along the way, HARDY also established his Hixtape series, a countrified version of a hip-hop mixtape now three volumes deep, bringing together friends and superstars like Keith Urban, Trace Adkins, Thomas Rhett and a host of other stars to collaborate. Not only did Hixtape Vol. 1 land HARDY his first No. 1 as an artist in his own right — the Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson team-up "ONE BEER" — but it put HARDY's shapeshifting musicality front and center.

"A lot of people ask, 'When did you decide to jump into the rock and roll thing?' HARDY, who uses his last name as his stage name, says. "I feel like I've always dipped my toes in it here and there, and a lot of my songs have been really close to it but not quite there. Hixtape, especially Vol. 1, I was definitely foreshadowing my sound, and I really didn't even know it at the time."

By now, modern country musicians regularly reflect influences from beyond Nashville's confines. But HARDY has played a big role in rock's country crossover, as he gradually showed more of his Mississippi-bred, guitar-riffing roots on his 2020 debut album, A ROCK. He fully embraced them on the 2023 double album, the mockingbird & THE CROW; while the first half has more country-oriented tunes like the Lainey Wilson-featuring murder ballad "wait in the truck," he lets loose on THE CROW.

"THE CROW will always be that cornerstone moment that defined who I am," he asserts. "It gave me the courage to do this Quit!! record."

HARDY has not only been an architect of this genre blending, but also its chief proponent — so much that in 2023, the L.A. Times crowned him "Nashville's nu-metal king." On Quit!!, he cashes in that currency with the gargantuan guitar riffs and bombastic beats popularized by acts like Limp Bizkit, and leans deeper into the rhythms and playful lyricism of hip-hop, a skill he recently flexed at the request of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre on a hicked-up rendition of Snoop Dogg's G-funk classic "Gin and Juice."

Ironically, the further HARDY gets from straightforward country music, the closer he gets to who he really is as an artist. Below, the chart-topping star details the backstory of Quit!!, his conflicted relationship with the country-music formula, and how he'll continue pushing boundaries within the genre and beyond.  

You grew up in the small town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. What role did music play in your upbringing?

My dad introduced me to rock and roll in general, but it was his era of rock and roll. Whatever you define as classic rock and everything under that umbrella. But music was a big deal in Philadelphia and it still is. There were tons of cover bands, and a lot of [my] buddies were into music. So that had a big influence on me. 

I, thankfully, was in that last era of kids that the only time they got to hear a song was on MTV or on the radio. And I remember hearing "In the End" [by] Linkin Park, and then getting Hybrid Theory on CD. I remember the first time I saw [Limp Bizkit's] "Nookie" video on MTV. I was heavily influenced by all that stuff. I'm very thankful that I grew up in the era before the internet was really big.

Were you into country music back then?

Surprisingly, not at all. Not until Eric Church, Brad Paisley, a couple of people started singing about stuff that really piqued my interest. But no, I didn't really listen to much country. 

I think the only country that I listened to, if you even call it that, was Charlie Daniels. He played at the Neshoba County Fair. I got to see him twice. But even he was more of, like, you'd almost call it more Southern rock. For some reason, country music at the time didn't do it for me. It took me a long time to get into it.

You recently re-envisioned "Gin and Juice." Were Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre big artists for you when you were younger?

Yeah, especially Snoop. Snoop was in his later years when he started doing more pop stuff. I was a little too young for Doggystyle. I was 4 years old when Doggystyle came out, so my folks weren't letting me listen to that. But I will say, [Dr. Dre's 1992 album] The Chronic and especially [1999's] Chronic II, those records were huge. And anything that Dre touched after that, like all the beats he produced for 50 Cent, and obviously I'm a huge Eminem fan. I mean, all the way up to Kendrick [Lamar]'s early stuff.

I don't know how much they influenced me musically, but I definitely listened to both of them at the time.

You've got so many projects and co-writes and stuff going on, always. Is it easy to pinpoint where your journey to Quit!! began?

I can tell you for a stone-cold fact that "BOOTS" [from A ROCK] is responsible for the album Quit!! That was the first song that I ever wrote that had a breakdown in it. And when I played that live before it came out, people didn't know it, so it was a little different then. But once the song came out, and we started playing it live, it was bigger than "ONE BEER." It was bigger than "REDNECKER." It was the biggest song in our set, and to this day, it's still one of the biggest songs in the set. 

But because I love the rock and roll sound so much, that's the song that I was like, Okay, this is working, because these people are losing their s— when we go into this song. So, then, that inspired me to write "SOLD OUT," and once "SOLD OUT" came out, and we started playing that song, that song was even bigger than "BOOTS," and it was heavier than "BOOTS." After "SOLD OUT," it was "JACK," and it's just a snowball of writing heavier songs and having the courage to keep going. "BOOTS" crawled so that Quit!! could run, you know? That was definitely the song that started it all.

The new album builds on the mockingbird & THE CROW and the direction you were heading.

Yeah, I think it builds on it maybe in the sense that there's a lot more screams, and maybe more breakdowns, and it's a little heavier than the mockingbird & THE CROW at times. But it is also very different. There's a lot more, like, pop-punk stuff and, I don't even know what you would call it, post-hardcore-sounding s—. 

But all of the rock and roll stuff stands on the shoulders of THE CROW. It will always be that cornerstone moment that defined who I am. I mean, it definitely teed me up. It gave me the courage to do this Quit!! record.

I like that word, courage. It's not a word I expected to hear out of you based on your persona, but that's a very interesting way to phrase it.

No, I mean, the metal and country cultures are very, very, very different. There's never fear, but there's definitely, what's the right way to say that? You know, there's like when we throw like the goat horns and s— on the screen. Country has a big Christian background, and metal is like the exact opposite of that, and those can clash a lot, but there's definitely a little bit of some reserve — it seems to not get too much push back — mixing the two. My mom's not crazy about it, but what can you do?

And you have moments like "wait in the truck," where you're not writing for the party. Do you see yourself pursuing those avenues more often? Does the world want to hear HARDY reflect?

You mean like more of the deeper country stuff?

Correct, yeah.

I hope. That's the s— I love. I feel like they're so few and far between. Like, "wait in the truck," we just got so lucky. I feel like "ONE BEER" was kind of the same. Like, it's gotta be the right day, and the right time, and the right people in the room to really tell a story. It's tough. But I would love to continue to have those cool story songs. 

But what I will say is there's a lot of gray area between the black-and-white of HARDY country and HARDY rock and roll. I'm still going to put out country songs. The gray area is that to me and to a lot of people, they're all just HARDY songs. But I have so many songs that I have written that I wanna put out that are so, maybe if they're not storylines, they're even deeper down the rabbit hole of thought-provoking stuff, like "A ROCK," or maybe even "wait in the truck," or even a song I have called "happy," on the last record — just songs that are very, very thought-provoking. 

Just trying to push my own boundaries of country music, and not everything is right down the gut, you know, "let's go to radio with it." But just really trying to experiment with what I wanna say with country music. So, yes, there's definitely more of that coming.

You're playing your first headlining stadium gig in September. How has performing in those venues, and anticipating that, informed how you write? Are you writing for the stage?

Yeah, 100 percent. I would say, 75 percent of the time you're writing for the stage — even if it's not for myself, if I'm writing for somebody else — I'm definitely writing for the stage. I cannot tell you how many times I've sat in the room and been like, This s— is going to pop off live! And then try to put the other writers in that headspace.

Like on [Quit!! track] "JIM BOB," when we did the pow-pow-pow! thing, I'm like, just think about how cool it's gonna be live, and living in that headspace, because that's where it all comes to life. That's the end product.

Writing for the stage is something that a lot of people do. And that's why songwriters love going out on the road, is because they go out and they write songs with these artists, but they love watching the show because they get to see what really translates live, and then take that back to the writing room and try to recreate that.

Did that kind of experience have anything to do with you making the move to a marquee artist? Because not all songwriters can make that jump. Or was that always the plan?

Yeah, I mean, it was always that kind of thing. I was fortunate that I got to see Morgan [Wallen] perform "Up Down," and FGL perform a couple of their songs before I made the jump into an artist. I kind of already scratched that itch a little bit. 

The Nashville writing scene can seem like a 9-to-5 kind of boring thing. But it doesn't sound that way from the way you describe it.

It's a little bit of both. The funny thing about that is like, if you walk into a publishing company, 10:30, 11 o'clock, whenever people start getting there, it's a bunch of dudes or girls standing around drinking coffee, hanging out. It's like a break room, and then everybody's like, "All right, well, y'all get a good one." And then everybody goes into their own rooms. That part of it is very 9 to 5. 

But there is definitely — especially with our group of people, when you get on something that is so special, it's beyond, like, "We're writing a hit today." There's just something that transcends that. I don't know how to describe it, man. That's when it's really, really, really, really great. The Nashville process, that's what it's all about — having those moments in the room where you're like, "This is special," and, like, "We're witnessing something special that is going to affect people on a global or on a nationwide scale." 

I remember when we wrote "wait In the truck" and how we were all just gassing each other up because we were like, "Dude, this song is gonna help a lot of people." And that's when the 9 to 5 goes away. We're being creative together, and it's a special thing. 

There's been so many moments like that, where you're just so thankful to be a part of a great song, and how hyped everybody is. It's a feeling that's really, really hard to beat. 

If Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers landed in 2024, how would we define them? For fans of the beloved heartland rockers and their very missed leader, it's a compelling question.

"It's not active rock. It's not mainstream rock. It's not country. It would really fall in that Americana vein," says Scott Borchetta, the founder of Big Machine Label Group. "When you think about what his lyrics were and are about, it's really about the American condition."

To Borchetta, these extended to everything in Petty's universe — his principled public statements, his man-of-the-people crusades against the music industry. "He was an American rebel with a cause," Borchetta says. And when you fuse that attitude with big melodies, bigger choruses, and a grounded, earthy perspective — well, there's a lot for country fans to love.

That's what Coran Capshaw of Red Light Management bet on when he posited the idea of Petty Country: A Country Music Celebration of Tom Petty, a tribute album released June 21. Featuring leading lights like Dolly Parton ("Southern Accents"), Willie and Lukas Nelson ("Angel Dream (No. 2)," Luke Combs ("Runnin' Down a Dream"), Dierks Bentley ("American Girl,") Wynonna and Lainey Wilson ("Refugee"), and other country luminaries covering Tom Petty classics, Petty Country is a seamless union of musical worlds.

Which makes perfect sense: on a core level, Petty, and his band of brothers, were absolutely steeped in country — after all, they grew up in the South — Gainesville, Florida.

"Tom loved all country music. He went pretty deep into the Carter Family, and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" and the folk, Americana heart of it," says Petty's daughter, Adria, who helps run his estate. "Hank Williams, and even Ernest Tubb and Patsy Cline… as a songwriter, I think a lot of that real original music influenced him enormously." (The Flying Burrito Brothers, and the Byrds' Gram Parsons-hijacked country phase, were also foundational.)

A key architect of Petty Country was the man's longtime producer, George Drakoulias. "He's worked with Dad for a hundred years since [1994's] Wildflowers, and he has super exquisite taste," Adria says.

In reaching out to prospective contributors, he and fellow music supervisor Randall Poster started at the top: none other than Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. "Having Willie and Dolly made people stand up and pay attention," Dreakoulias told Rolling Stone, and the Nashville floodgates were opened: Thomas Rhett ("Wildflowers"), Brothers Osborne ("I Won't Back Down"), Lady A ("Stop Draggin' My Heart Around"), and so many others.

Each artist gave Petty's work a distinctive, personal spin. Luke Combs jets down the highway of "Runnin' Down the Dream" like he was born to ride. Along with Yo-Yo Ma and founding Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench, Rhiannon Giddens scoops out the electronics and plumbs the droning, haunting essence of "Don't Come Around Here No More."

And where a lesser tribute album would have lacquered over the songs with homogenous Nashville production, Petty Country is the opposite.

"I'm not a fan of having a singular producer on records like this. I want each one of them to be their own little crown jewel," Borchetta says. "That's going to give us a better opportunity for them to make the record in their own image."

This could mean a take that hews to the original, or casts an entirely new light on it. "Dierks called up and said, 'Hey, do you think we would be all right doing a little bit more of a bluegrass feel to it?' I was like, 'Absolutely. If you hear it, go get it.'"

"It had the diversity that the Petty women like on the records," Adria says, elaborating that they wanted women and people of color on the roster. "We like to see those tributes to Tom reflect his values; he was always very pro-woman, which is why he has such outspoken women [laughs] in his wake."

Two of Petty Country's unquestionable highlights are by women. Margo Price chose "Ways to Be Wicked," a cut so deep that even the hardcore Petty faithful might not know it; the Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) outtake was buried on disc six of the 1995 boxed set Playback.

"Man, it's just one of those songs that gets in your veins," Price says. "He really knew how to twist the knife — that chorus, 'There's so many ways to be wicked, but you don't know one little thing about love.'" Founding Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell features on the dark, driving banger.

And all interviewed for this article are agog over Dolly Parton's commanding take on "Southern Accents" — the title track of the band's lumpy, complicated, vulnerable 1985 album of the same name. "It's just revelatory… it brings me to my knees," Adria says. "It's just a phenomenal version I know my dad would've absolutely loved."

"It's one of Dolly's best vocals ever, and it's hair-raising," Borchetta says. "You could tell she really felt that track, and what the song was about."

Adria is filled with profuse gratitude for the artists preserving and carrying her dad's legacy. 

"I'm really touched that these musicians showed up for my dad," she says. "A lot of people don't want to show up for anything that's not making money for them, or in service to their career, and we really appreciate it… I owe great debt to all of these artists and their managers for making the time to think about our old man like that."

Indeed, in Nashville and beyond, we've all been thinking about her old man, especially since his untimely passing in 2017. We'll never forget him — and will strum and sing these simple, heartfelt, and profound songs for years to come.

Let Your Heart Be Your Guide: Adria Petty, Mike Campbell & More On The Enduring Significance Of Tom Petty's Wildflowers