She didn’t take no for an answer, and that certainly paid off.
Last Friday, Miranda Lambert released her new disco-inspired album Crisco, which she co-produced with Jesse Frasure, and of course, she’s been doing a ton of press around the release, so of course, plenty of people have asked her about her friendship with Ella Langley.
Miranda co-wrote Ella’s record-breaking hit “Choosin’ Texas,” as well as their duet “Butterfly Season,” and Miranda co-produced the entire Dandelion record, which is easily one of the biggest albums of this year. Ella is also featured on a song on Miranda’s aforementioned new album called “Snakeskin Boots.”
The two of them have developed not only a very successful working relationship, but a close friendship too, and Ella has talked a lot about
As you can probably imagine, making an album is a grueling process, and that kind of creative endeavor can sometimes lead to artistic differences, which was the case even for Miranda and Ella.
During interview with CBS Mornings, Miranda talked about how she and Ella even got connected to begin with, and she recalled Ella pulling her to the side at the ACM Awards red carpet and telling her she wanted Miranda to produce for her.
Time went by, it was obviously a “busy moment,” though the two of them ended up writing together, and during the first writing retreat with their “Choosin’ Texas” co-writers, Miranda remembers seeing herself when she first got started in Ella:
“Yeah, I’ve co-produced for myself. Ella is very strong, she is somebody that knows exactly who she is, what she wants and how to get it. She grabbed me at the red carpet at the ACM’s, probably, four years ago, ‘I wanna talk to you about producing.’
And I was like, ‘Okay,’ and it was in a busy moment. And then we had set up some writes with our friend Luke Dick, he already knew Ella, and he was like, ‘I think y’all will love each other.’ And we got in there to write, we were holed up in this little house outside of town with Joybeth and Ella, Luke and myself, and she was just holding court.
She was saying exactly what her vision was, I loved that. I saw a lot of my 19-year-old self when I got to town, like, ‘This is what I’m gonna do’ I saw that fire in her, and it relit my fire in a way.”
Miranda laughed as she said that, also, Ella didn’t give her a choice… if Ella wants you to do something, you’re doing it, and Miranda loves that about her:
“And also, she didn’t really give me a choice. If Ella wants it, you’re doing it. She’s a very strong personality in that way, so confident. I’m honored that she trusted me, but I think how ever I’ve influenced her, because we’re about 4 years apart, she kinda grew up with my music.
So I think that she trusted it because she had seen my journey, and I did not take it lightly. I loved the process and I’m so thankful for it, I learned so much.”
The way Ella went about getting Miranda to be part of all of this speaks to why she’s become so successful… she goes after what she wants, unapologetically, and like Miranda says, she gets it.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing… in an interview with the New York Times podcast Popcast, she admitted that there were times they butted heads while making Dandelion. Though she viewed it as a good thing, saying:
“If we don’t fight by the end of this, we probably didn’t do it right.”
I completely agree, and as Miranda explained, there are lots of emotions involved in a process like this, especially because the songs are so personal, but it was all for the good of the music at the end of the day:
“There was hard parts of it. Creating a record is not… I mean, it’s a long journey, you know what I mean? And it’s a lot of emotions… We did a lot. And I think that’s important because we needed to.”
Miranda has never been one to back down from an argument or fight of any kind, and that was no different here.
I think most country fans know Miranda is pretty dang “scrappy,” as she put it:
“Yeah, I’m scrappy… I wanted it to be right, you know what I mean?”
When asked how often she let Ella win the arguments, Miranda laughed as she explained it was a good balance, because it’s Ella’s music and her name on the record. Of course, Miranda has had a very successful, lengthy career and she knows what it takes to not only make it in this business, but maintain it at a high level for many years:
“Yeah. I mean, it’s her name. But, yeah, it was a good balance, I felt like, of bouncing songs off each other, saying like, ‘That’s too far one way,’ or ‘That doesn’t fit the record,’ whatever it was. And I love that she trusted me with that. I really do.”
They make an incredible pair, and I hope this is just the start of much more of them as a team.
“Snakeskin Boots”
The full interview is available here:
