There’s no doubt Miranda Lambert sacrificed a lot to get where she is today.
She sat down on the Southern Living Biscuits & Jam podcast this week to talk about her new cookbook Y’all Eat Yet?, which is almost as much recipes as it is a memoir full of stories about her life growing up.
And she revealed an interesting tidbit that I’ve actually never before during the interview, telling Editor in Chief Sid Evans that when she told her parents that she wanted to chase her dreams in country music as a teenager, they told her they were going to use the money they’d been saving for her to go to college to pay for it.
Meaning, Miranda had no backup plan or anything of that nature, so if she was going to really do it, failure was not an option.
She added that it was an effective strategy, because it made her work that much harder knowing that this all had to work, and she was clearly willing to do anything to become successful:
“I know how hard the entertainment industry is because I’ve lived in it forever. But I am so thankful for a support system.
My parents heard me when I said, ‘I wanna do this. I’m gonna chase it.’ And they were like, ‘We’re gonna spend your college money on it, so there’s no net. There’s no backup plan.’ You know?
And it made me just work that much harder, because I didn’t have a backup plan, but I had a support system in my brother, and my parents, and my uncle and my aunts.”
She also said that they were all there to support her the whole way, and kept her going when she might’ve felt like giving up after missing so many birthdays, weddings and funerals over the years:
“And everybody was, like, cheering me on and there to help me push through the hard. ‘Cause early on they work you to (laughs) death.
There’s some really hard days. I missed every birthday party, funeral, wedding. I mean, I missed everything. I was on the road for 300 days a year.
But I am making up for that now and nobody held it against me.”
There’s no doubt that had to have been extremely difficult, and it’s definitely not something most people are willing to do, but it goes to show her work ethic and how badly she really wanted it.
Of course, she’s become a superstar in country music, and has won multiple Grammy Awards, ACM and CMA Awards, had plenty of #1 hits and done pretty much everything you could ever dream of as an artist.
All of that is in addition to her having her own clothing label Idyllwind, the aforementioned new cookbook, her Mutt Nation foundation, her bar Casa Rosa on Broadway in Nashville and several other business endeavors.
But obviously, it all came at a hefty price, monetarily and otherwise, and that all just makes me respect her that much more.
This one seems to sum it up quite well…
“Pursuit of Happiness”
Miranda Lambert’s Protective Dad
If you know anything about good dads, especially southern dads, then you know they’re not the kinda guys you want to mess with.
My dad is from a small town in North Carolina and was a lieutenant colonel in the army for years, so that’s pretty much all I have to say if I need to pull out the big guns (literally) when it comes to people messing with me.
Not so much now that I’m an adult, but I will pull that card every once in a while on a guy as a very last resort if I think they’re being a f-kboy (we also have a great list of songs for you if you’re in that exact predicament right now).
Anyways, I stumbled across this amazing story of Miranda Lambert summoning her dad to defend her during a wild encounter right before a show when she was a teenager.
As a little background, her dad, Rick Lambert, is a big part of why she even got into music. He would take her to “picking parties” on the front porches of neighbors and huntin’ buddies houses, and eventually, helped her get a little backing band so she could travel and start singing in honky-tonks around Texas.
This included plenty of hole-in-the-wall places that were full of mischief and God knows what else… also known as the best kinds of bars.
Of course, seeing as she was only 16 at the time, she had to have her parents with her at all the venues. Honestly, there were probably a lot of them she shouldn’t have even been in being underage. But, that’s the kind of stuff you can get away with at little dives like that.
So, Rick and her mom, Bev, were always there at her early shows to make sure she was safe and taken care of.
And nearly a decade ago, she told the hilarious story to Texas Monthly of the time a guy at one of these little joints (pun very much intended) asked her if she wanted to smoke pot.
The best part is, instead of saying yes like most teenagers her age would have, she immediately told her dad and he put the guy in a chokehold on command. I love protective dads.
Rick said she immediately started yelling for him and telling him to flat out kill the guy, which I find particularly hilarious…
Drama queen’s just get each other, okay:
“Miranda started yelling, ‘Kill him, Daddy! Kill him!’
She was trying to get ready to sing, and she was pissed that someone was trying to mess her up.”
Bev chimed in to say it went a little bit differently, and Miranda actually just wanted her dad to kick the guy’s ass, not murder him:
“No, that isn’t exactly what she said.
She only yelled, ‘Kick his ass, Daddy! Kick his ass!””
Either way, the guy was probably scared straight (and rightfully so).
Though dads and daughters will always have disagreements about certain things (like the time Miranda’s dad wouldn’t talk to her while they were on tour with George Strait years ago because she’d gotten her first tattoo), there’s nothing they wouldn’t do for their little girls no matter how old they get.
Aside from all that, though, there’s two very important lessons I got out of that story:
One, don’t offer Miranda a joint before a show (that might’ve changed these days).
And two, if she calls her dad to kick your ass for doing so…
Run.
(Yes, I’ll take any excuse to post this video…)
