Gotta do what ya gotta do.
And Lainey Wilson has done it all, from a young age, to ensure that her country music dreams came to fruition.
She is gearing up to release her Whirlwind album tomorrow, and in an extensive interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 ahead of the big release, she talked a lot about the inspiration behind this project, and more specifically, her relationship with boyfriend Devlin “Duck” Hodges.
And Lainey also talked a good bit about her childhood and early career, and how she was famously a Hannah Montana impersonator as a teenager before she moved to Nashville from her hometown of Baskin, Louisiana.
Lainey recently honored Miley Cyrus at the her Disney Legend event with a rendition of “The Best Of Both Worlds,” and called Miley “an inspiration”:
“Just watching her on stage last night and how she just, you can tell everything that is coming out of her mouth, she means it. She’s real and she’s lived a lot of life in a short amount of time.
And that right there is hard on anybody. She was an inspiration then and she’s still an inspiration to me now… I mean, and she don’t even realize actually how much that she taught me.”
From 8th to 12th grade, Lainey’s job was to impersonate Hannah Montana at birthday parties all over Louisiana… and of course, before she turned 16, she had to have her parents drive her around to the different events (though it sounds like they might not have even known she did that).
Before she had her own driver’s license, and if she couldn’t get her parents or someone to take her, Lainey would just drive herself without a license:
“I mean, from eighth grade to 12th grade, I impersonated Hannah Montana. I mean, I had the wig, the portable sound system. You all, I would do three or four parties a weekend… It taught me that this ain’t going to be easy. So even when I moved to Nashville in 2011, I had been touring since the eighth grade.
Sorry, mom and daddy, but there were times when I was 14, 15, I was driving around without a license to get to the birthday party. You know what I’m saying? People made fun of me… That’s another reason why I’d come back home and I’d write a song.
If I had not been Hannah Montana and not been hurt by some of the things that people said to me or behind my back or whatever, I don’t know if I would’ve been inspired to write as much music.”
Obviously, it’s not a great idea to drive around without a license, especially when you’re 14 or 15 years old, but I have so much respect for Lainey and her hustle to make all of this happen for herself form such a young age, not letting a single thing stop her.
There’s a reason she’s having this moment right now… she’s put the time and work in, and she’s earned it.
Here’s the full Apple Music interview:
And I have to leave you with this, of course. Talk about a full-circle moment:
Whirlwind tracklist:
1. Keep Up With Jones (Lainey Wilson, Josh Kear, Wyatt McCubbin)
2. Country’s Cool Again (Lainey Wilson, Trannie Anderson, Dallas Wilson, Aslan Freeman)
3. Good Horses (feat. Miranda Lambert) (Lainey Wilson, Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick)
4. Broken Hearts Still Beat (Lainey Wilson, Dallas Wilson, Josh Thompson, Blake Pendergrass)
5. Whirlwind (Lainey Wilson, Trannie Anderson, Dallas Wilson)
6. Call A Cowboy (Lainey Wilson, Trannie Anderson, Dallas Wilson)
7. Hang Tight Honey (Lainey Wilson, Driver Williams, Jason Nix, Paul Sikes)
8. Bar In Baton Rouge (Lainey Wilson, Trannie Anderson, Kasey Tyndall, Jason Nix)
9. Counting Chickens (Lainey Wilson, Trannie Anderson, Josh Kear, Dallas Wilson, Jon Decious)
10. 4x4xU (Lainey Wilson, Jon Decious, Aaron Raitiere)
11. Ring Finger (Lainey Wilson, Aaron Raitiere, Marti Dodson, Jon Decious)
12. Middle Of It (Lainey Wilson, Trannie Anderson, Dallas Wilson)
13. Devil Don’t Go There (Lainey Wilson, Abram Dean, Lance Miller, Joe Fox)
14. Whiskey Colored Crayon (Lainey Wilson, Josh Kear, Wyatt McCubbin)
