Kacey Musgraves talks new paths, ‘cosmic country’
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa—Like athletes who wear the same undershirt or refuse to shave while on a hot streak, musicians also often embrace certain rituals—some pragmatic, some superstitious—in their efforts to deliver a peak performance.
Maverick country singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves is no exception.
While touring through the Midwest on a bill she’s sharing with headliner Little Big Town and rising country group Midland, Musgraves has been checking in on FaceTime two to three times a week with her personal trainer back in Nashville for morning workout sessions.
During a dinner break ahead of her set in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, recently, she loaded up on grilled squash and green beans to assuage any pangs of guilt over the modest portions of Dr. Pepper barbecued ribs and smoked Gouda mac and cheese she said “I just have to sample.”
Bypassing the banana cream pie that beckoned from the catered dessert offerings that also included peach cobbler and fudge brownies, she whimpered only briefly.
Just before taking the stage a few minutes later, after emerging from her self-adminstered makeup and hair-quaffing session aboard her tour bus parked behind the US Cellular Center arena, Musgraves gathered members of her band for another nightly ritual: a shot of tequila—a premium Herradura Anejo she brought back from a recent video shoot in Mexico City—slugged from green cactus-shaped shot glasses.
There’s one place, however, where she adamantly refuses to engage in anything approaching ritualistic inclinations: her songwriting.
“Music isn’t supposed to be a formula—it’s supposed to make you feel something,” said Musgraves, 29, the woman behind such country radio playlist brightening hits as “Follow Your Arrow,” “Merry Go ‘Round” and “Mind Your Own Biscuits” as well as the co-writer of Miranda Lambert’s career-boosting single “Mama’s Broken Heart.”
She quickly staked her claim in the progressive wing of country and Americana music by singing about enjoying a toke now and then (“Blowin’ Smoke”), about smalltown hopes, dreams and struggles (“Merry Go ‘Round”) and about embracing diversity (“Follow Your Arrow”).
On “Golden Hour,” her third studio album (released Friday), Musgraves branches out further, into what she refers to as “cosmic country,” marrying elements of pulsing electronic dance music with traditional genre sounds and instruments while retaining the lyrical freshness that characterized her first two efforts.
Relaxing midafternoon in the comfortable surroundings of the customized tour bus she shares with several of her band members—a few hours before an intense snowstorm blanketed the region in white—Musgraves spoke in no uncertain terms about how she’s determined to follow her own arrow as a musician, whether her impulses immediately connect with fans and radio programmers or not.
“I never want to make the same record twice,” she said. For “Golden Hour,” that meant, in part, turning to new producers. Although Luke Laird and Shane McAnally, who Musgraves collaborated with on her first two albums, contribute to the current work, she primarily focused on working with Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian.
“I like that they are very far removed from the typical Music Row, Nashville music mind-set,” she said. “I really liked that.
“But I think we all collectively knew it was time to change it up and try out new paths,” she said.
“I feel like it can be easy go get into hindsight and think, ‘Well, people liked the last album, so let’s keep doing that.’ To me, that’s dangerous.”
The yearning to mix things up is apparent in spades on “Golden Hour.”
In many ways, it diverges from and expands on the many attributes of her 2013 debut, “Same Trailer, Different Park,” which has logged total equivalent sales of more than 950,000 copies since it was released and earned her Grammy Awards for country album and country song (“Merry Go ‘Round”).
Its 2015 successor, “Pageant Material,” which has topped 300,000 equivalent sales, according to Nielsen Music, and collected her another country album Grammy nomination.