Carly Pearce joins The Ty Bentli Show on Apple Music Country to talk about her upcoming album, 29: Written In Stone, her relationships with Patty Loveless and Loretta Lynn stemming from “Dear Miss Loretta”, and what it was like having Dolly surprise her with an invitation to be a member of The Grand Ole Opry. Listen to the full interview with Carly Pearce about 29: Written in Stone here.
Carly Pearce Tells Apple Music about 29: Written In Stone
“I think so many different things happened to me creatively and personally, and losing Busbee, and just going on this quest to find what my sound was going to take shape with without him… and I just kept writing and was shocked that I had a full 15-song album that I wrote myself….I think I’ve always been a situational writer, of writing what’s happening to me. I don’t really know how to not write things that I’ve experienced, and so I just kept writing and writing, and I feel like this album and starting the second half of it and being able to have a second half has just given me the confidence and the creative space to really make the album that I wanted to make, which is a lot more country than my previous…I tried to put them almost in order of how I saw this story playing out, I guess. I wanted to look at it as a whole body of work, but I also didn’t want it to feel like I was just… here’s the front half and here’s the second half. It’s not like a part A and a part B or a side A, side B. It really just a whole… I wanted people when they listen to maybe hear the songs that they’ve already heard on 29 the EP a little bit different…I think artists are all different. Some act like very big things in their life never happened, and I just didn’t know how to not go there when that’s how I’ve always created music. If you think about, “Every Little Thing”… I lived every word of that. And then you go to, “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” that was my story of telling somebody I was sorry. And it’s like, this is not me doing anything different than being the transparent, honest, real person that I am.”
“I think so many different things happened to me creatively and personally, and losing Busbee, and just going on this quest to find what my sound was going to take shape with without him… and I just kept writing and was shocked that I had a full 15-song album that I wrote myself….I think I’ve always been a situational writer, of writing what’s happening to me. I don’t really know how to not write things that I’ve experienced, and so I just kept writing and writing, and I feel like this album and starting the second half of it and being able to have a second half has just given me the confidence and the creative space to really make the album that I wanted to make, which is a lot more country than my previous…I tried to put them almost in order of how I saw this story playing out, I guess. I wanted to look at it as a whole body of work, but I also didn’t want it to feel like I was just… here’s the front half and here’s the second half. It’s not like a part A and a part B or a side A, side B. It really just a whole… I wanted people when they listen to maybe hear the songs that they’ve already heard on 29 the EP a little bit different…I think artists are all different. Some act like very big things in their life never happened, and I just didn’t know how to not go there when that’s how I’ve always created music. If you think about, “Every Little Thing”… I lived every word of that. And then you go to, “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” that was my story of telling somebody I was sorry. And it’s like, this is not me doing anything different than being the transparent, honest, real person that I am.”
Carly Pearce on Patty Loveless:
“She actually heard me sing on the Opry… she heard me sing, “Dear Miss Loretta,” the song that I wrote as a letter of question to Loretta, and I had actually asked her to sing on a different song… and she ended up saying, I really want to sing on your song, “Dear Miss Loretta,” so she’s now become a friend…I have never met her in person. We just reached out to her and I’ve FaceTime’d with her and texted with her and all of these different things, but I’ve always loved her and seen her in concert… and she’s one of the people that I tried to pay attention to the way she sang. She has such a tone to her voice, and as a kid, I wanted to find my tone like that. She just was so kind to be a part of this record.”
“She actually heard me sing on the Opry… she heard me sing, “Dear Miss Loretta,” the song that I wrote as a letter of question to Loretta, and I had actually asked her to sing on a different song… and she ended up saying, I really want to sing on your song, “Dear Miss Loretta,” so she’s now become a friend…I have never met her in person. We just reached out to her and I’ve FaceTime’d with her and texted with her and all of these different things, but I’ve always loved her and seen her in concert… and she’s one of the people that I tried to pay attention to the way she sang. She has such a tone to her voice, and as a kid, I wanted to find my tone like that. She just was so kind to be a part of this record.”
Carly Pearce on Loretta Lynn:
“I feel like I know her, and I feel like I’ve spent time with her, but I actually haven’t if I really think about it…She has reached out to me a few times after hearing, “Dear Miss Loretta.” She actually sent me a voice message telling me that she loved the song, and I actually have plans next month to go see her. And the little message was just so sweet, and… these are icons that I am now associating myself with, and that’s just something that’s really, really special to me…The first song that I ever learned to play on guitar was, “Blue Kentucky Girl,” but songs like, “You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man,” especially, “The Pill”… if you think about writing that back in the day…she just was apologetically herself, and she totally said things that I feel were a little bit, how do I say this?… it takes your breath away. Did she really just say that? … and I kind of feel like I’ve done that on this project. People are going… there’s a lyric in 29 “the year I got married and divorced” and everybody’s like, “Oh, she said that.” And it’s like, yeah, because it’s real.”
Carly Pearce Tells Apple Music about her music impacting people:
“I sit in a VIP before my tour every night, and I am not kidding you, I have at least one girl or guy come in there and sob to me and tell me that my music made them leave a relationship, made them feel like they were going to get through it, call off a wedding, get out of a toxic whatever… I’ve never had that. I’ve never quite had that kind of a connection with humans, and it just makes me proud…I wouldn’t change it, which is so wild. If you would’ve told me a year ago that I wouldn’t want to just erase that from my life, I would have said you were crazy. I absolutely had to go through that for personal reasons, for musical reasons, for everything… and at the time, I was just so distraught saying, “How could this happen to me? I don’t wish this on anyone.” And it’s like, no, no, no, no, no. Once the veil lifted, and honestly I got away from that situation, I was able to feel so much peace and breathe, but also learn from the experience. It’s just crazy when I look back at all of the good that has happened to me in this whole last year and a half.”
Carly Pearce on Dolly’s invitation to join the Opry:
“I was shocked to see her, but I’m always shocked to see her. I’ve known her since I was 17, just as an employee of Dollywood. I’ve met her several times, so it wasn’t our first meeting at all. Just the fact that she took the time to do that for me… she’s never invited somebody to be a member of the Opry and she made that happen for me because I think I mean something to her because of my relationship with Dollywood, but also she must think that what I’m doing is okay, and that’s a huge deal to me.”
“I was shocked to see her, but I’m always shocked to see her. I’ve known her since I was 17, just as an employee of Dollywood. I’ve met her several times, so it wasn’t our first meeting at all. Just the fact that she took the time to do that for me… she’s never invited somebody to be a member of the Opry and she made that happen for me because I think I mean something to her because of my relationship with Dollywood, but also she must think that what I’m doing is okay, and that’s a huge deal to me.”
