Lainey Wilson is the cool girl of country

Lainey Wilson slid into her first pair of bell bottoms when she was nine years old. They were blue leopard print, a gift from her mother, and a source of élan vital. “I remember as a little girl putting them on and feeling myself, like, ‘OK, I can do this,’” she says, “even if I was just performing in front of a mirror with a hairbrush.”

Cosied up by a fireplace on a scenic ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley of California’s Central Coast, about an hour north of Santa Barbara, the 32-year-old country singer-songwriter traced much of her present self to that watershed year. In 2001, she also wrote her first song, adopted her brown quarter horse, Tex, and went to Nashville for the first time, attending the famous live country music broadcast Grand Ole Opry. Sitting in the audience with her parents, Wilson absorbed every note of the night’s performers: pop-country deity Crystal Gayle, novelty jokester Little Jimmy Dickens, 90s hitmaker Phil Vassar and tender crooner Bill Anderson. “I just knew,” Wilson says, in her thick-as-molasses drawl, “that I was going to be able to play there one day.”

Twenty-three years later, the singer became the Opry’s 229th member. Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood — two country music icons whose songs soundtracked Wilson’s childhood — inducted her on 7 June 2024. This was on the heels of winning the prestigious Entertainer of the Year award at the Country Music Association’s annual ceremony in 2023. Wilson beat arena-filling artists Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs and became the first woman to win since Taylor Swift. The singer estimates that she played 186 shows in 2023 and spent very few nights sleeping in her own bed in Nashville. In this sense, she entertained more than any other person nominated. But most and best are two very different things.

“It was a little bit shocking,” she says of her big win that night at the CMAs. “But when they put that crown on your head, you ain’t gonna give it back.”

Her new album, Whirlwind, reflects Wilson’s dizzying ascent over the past couple of years. Featuring a collaboration with country superstar Miranda Lambert, a number one single (‘4x4xU’ topped the Mediabase Country Airplay chart), and a sweeping world tour, it’s a testament to dreams, realities, and where they may intersect with a little bit of grit and determination. The album encompasses the traits Wilson witnessed at the Opry as a child. Its lyrics are by turns relatable, witty, powerful and tender; and its arrangements combine touchstones of country, pop, rock, soul and blues music for a sonic composite that feels lived-in and studious, as if to educate listeners about country music’s diverse origins. On 14 March, Wilson headlined London’s O2 Arena as part of the Country to Country festival.  

What makes Wilson stand out in the panorama of country music today? “Authenticity,” Lambert says of the star. “You know it’s her from the first note, and she has a way of changing every room she walks into for good.”

Cody Johnson, a close friend of Wilson’s, whose star rose in a similar trajectory, concurs, “Lainey has earned her stripes by her work ethic and conviction,” he says. “She is simply real to who she is, and the fans know it and love it. The artist community can’t help but rally around and support her because she is such a champion for our format. She is uber talented and has only scratched the surface of a long career.”

The psychologist Carl Jung believed that a child is born with natural patterns and instincts that react to his/her environment to form a unique personality. If his theory is correct, Wilson was all but fated to be a country musician. Raised on a farm in Baskin, Louisiana, a 200-person village in Franklin Parish in the Northeast part of the state, she loved 90s-era country music and idolised Dolly Parton. 

Her father was a fifth-generation farmer who grew corn, soybeans, wheat and oats, and her mother was a teacher. Growing up, Wilson learned the fine art of hard work, witnessing her dad take on several side jobs to supplement his income from the farm. Young Wilson rode horses, sang at rodeos with her sister, and had a successful run as a Hannah Montana impersonator in high school. Her guts, gumption and rustic environment became the fulcrum on which the rest of her life pivoted. She exemplified the age-old American maxim: you can take the girl out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the girl.

Her mum and dad never questioned her desire to be a musician. “I felt that this was my gift that the Lord gave me, and my parents thought so too,” she says. “People probably thought we were nuts and it was just never gonna happen, but my parents had a weird sense of peace about it.” After high school, she enrolled at the University of Louisiana at Monroe — “I was in the club every night,” she says jokingly while twerking — but decided to take all of her classes online so that she could move to Nashville. In 2011, at the age of 19, she bought a Flagstaff bumper-pull camper trailer, drove it up to Music City, and lived in it for three years as she tried to eke out a living. 

As it stands, the per-capita rate of exceptionally gifted, aspiring musicians and songwriters in Nashville is staggering. The joke among hopefuls is that every mechanic, waiter and Uber driver you meet in town is probably a better picker or writer than you are. Though this fact is daunting to many, Wilson was undeterred. “It made me feel like I wasn’t alone,” she says. “I should have been intimidated, but I wasn’t. You have to be a little crazy to do this, and I felt like, ‘Man, this city is full of dreams that come true, and full of a bunch of broken ones, but I’ll be danged if I’m gonna end up the other way around.’”

After a few years of trudging up and down Nashville’s Broadway strip in search of gigs at honky tonks, playing half-empty bars, and performing at open mic nights, Wilson met her manager Mandelyn Monchick in 2015. Then an unknown who worked as an assistant for an entertainment lawyer, Monchick was taken with Wilson’s on-stage energy, ability to connect with people, and songwriting. She couldn’t believe that no one was advocating for the singer, so she helped set up co-writing sessions and put together a songwriter’s showcase. As it happened, very few attended — maybe 10 people — but the pair decided to bet on one another as friends and co-workers and forge on.

“I knew she was good, damn it!” Monchick says with a laugh. “Also, if you haven’t won before, it doesn’t really hurt too bad to lose.”

“Lainey is simply real to who she is, and the fans love it”

Cody Johnson

Wilson and Monchick signed a management deal in the autumn of 2017, with Monchick handling her friend’s day-to-day duties. As they worked to find Wilson a recording contract, a common response was that Wilson was “too country”. Some questioned if her thick Louisiana accent was real. This was at the height of so-called ‘bro-country’ — a term coined by a New York magazine writer to describe the paint-by-numbers commerciality of such acts as Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line. Bro-country songs blended country twang with hip-hop beats and hard-rock guitars, with lyrics centred around drunken debauchery, pick-up trucks and objectifying women. Amid its stranglehold on country radio, it seemed there was little room for Wilson’s earnest lyrics and classic sound.

Critics and fans eventually clapped back against the tattooed young white men and their party anthems, however, and Wilson also made a few key allies. The most crucial was the actor, producer and director Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of the hit Western drama Yellowstone, a streaming series that ran for five seasons and had millions of viewers. He began placing Wilson’s songs in the show in 2019, the year after she had signed a deal with Broken Bow Records. Sheridan also cast her as Abby, an aspiring country musician and love interest of a cowboy wrangler named Ryan.

Wilson had her first hit with ‘Things a Man Oughta Know’ in 2021 after being named iHeartCountry’s On the Verge artist, which placed the song in heavy rotation on country radio stations across the US. But the singer says there was a disconnect between that success and her concert ticket sales. “A lot of people knew the voice on the radio but didn’t know who was singing,” Wilson recalls. It wasn’t until her fourth studio album, Bell Bottom Country, released in October 2022, that things began to click.

The songwriter was nominated for six CMA awards at around the time of the album’s release. She also began appearing on Yellowstone, and the show made sure that viewers could Shazam Wilson’s songs as her episodes aired, even though she was performing them live. Then, in the unlikeliest of twists, her butt — in a pair of leopard-print bell bottoms — went viral on TikTok. “So many things started firing at once,” Monchick recalls. 

Wilson’s punchy and lyrically-cable-knit songs about love, resilience and country life, combined with her powerfully expressive voice, vintage cowgirl glam and bootstraps story, resonated in Nashville and beyond. The album opened doors and closed the loop on Wilson’s hero’s journey: from the little girl with big dreams in tiny Baskin, to the woman who pulled on adult bell bottoms, fulfilled those aspirations, and survives as a hometown victor. Fans around the globe began to recognise Wilson as the tough, tender and free-spirited country singer whose personal style references 60s and 70s icons such as Dolly Parton, Janis Joplin and Stevie Nicks, women who, she says, “weren’t scared to take it up a notch”.

Bell Bottom Country features a song called ‘Hillbilly Hippie’, and to some extent Wilson’s attitudes reflect her flower-child identity. When we discuss the acutely polarised political environment in America, she says that her hope is that the country will “get to a place of understanding”.

I explain to Wilson that I’ve had to politely remind some of my peers in California that not everyone in Indiana, the red state where I grew up, is dumb or evil, and that many of them vote for Democrats.

“People probably look at country music and, like, a place where I grew up and have that perception, too,” Wilson says, “and that does hurt my feelings because these people are some of the best people you will ever meet.

“I think it is our job to love our neighbours,” she continues. “I have a lot of people in my life who might believe different things than I do. That don’t mean I’m gonna love them any different.”

Wilson says her hippie essence lies in her love of being in nature with her “feet in the dirt”, enjoying the simple things in life, and in her abiding belief in the power of kindness and community. In an American climate that can feel divided at best, and sinister at worst, those principles have great significance. Wilson made relationship-building a priority as she made her way in Nashville, and says it’s important to her to be remembered as someone who “treated people right”. 

Friends like Monchick agree that Wilson’s ability to bond with people is nearly as important as her gift as a singer-songwriter. “What drew me to Lainey is her spirit and the unbridled way that she is just herself all the time,” Lambert says. “She is warm and makes everyone in the room feel important.” 

“When I’m doing things that make me feel like a sister, a friend, daughter, girlfriend or dog mama, that’s what refills my cup”

What may sound like public relations veneer has numerous real-world examples. When the singer encountered a young fan on TikTok who said she was being bullied at school for dressing like Wilson, she created a duet with the video to encourage its maker. Later, Wilson pulled the same girl out of the crowd at a concert in New York and honoured the fan’s request for an autograph — on her forehead. Wilson then bent down and had the girl sign her own forehead.

The singer’s Heart Like A Truck Fund donates $1 from each North American concert ticket sale to charity. Its beneficiaries so far include the Salvation Army; the non-profit Rainbow Omega, which serves adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities; North Carolina hurricane relief; I Support the Girls, which provides menstrual hygiene products to homeless women, girls and transgender people;  St. Jude; and Make-a-Wish.

When I ask her what she’d do if she wasn’t a country star, Wilson quickly replies: “It would definitely be working with special needs children.” It is clear that she’d thought about it long before our interview.

She may not be a pot-smoking radical, but Wilson’s peace and love bona fides are well demonstrated. She tells me that wearing bell bottoms and cowboy hats comes from her childhood in Louisiana — from the blue leopard print her mom bestowed years ago and the clothes she wore while riding horses at home and at the rodeo. Her vibrational flare, however, extends far beyond aesthetic. In person, Wilson emanates a quick-witted good nature and seems genuinely interested in the people around her.

That unique style and attitude has become so adored by fans that Wilson has added a third hyphenate to her musician-actor title: fashion designer. In the spring, she’ll release her second collection of 70s- and Western-inspired clothes for global denim brand Wrangler, which Wilson and her family wore while she was coming of age on the farm. “It felt very natural and exciting,” she says of the partnership. A review of the Wrangler website reveals that most of her first collection sold out.

The singer has been hands-on with the clothes, and explains that she’d never blindly slap her name on anything. She even travelled to the brand’s archive in North Carolina, where she and her team perused vintage fabrics and designs. The denim and patterned trousers she creates adhere to her most beloved silhouettes: bell bottom and boot cut (the latter is better for riding horses, she says). There are also denim vests and jackets, throwback T-shirts, and sizing for young girls. The most important thing, Wilson says, is that the clothes reflect her story.

This can be literal, like the jacket and bell-bottom trousers she designed, which are printed with what is essentially a collage of her life, featuring a barn, cowboy hat, her French Bulldog named Hippie, leopard print, horses, the number 9, a tractor and other imagery. For other pieces, she has simply incorporated design elements that she enjoys, like fringe, embroidery and turquoise. “This kind of reminds me of Alan Jackson,” she says, while pointing to a photo of one of the outfits in the second collection. “I wanted to include something kind of like 90s country because that’s what I grew up listening to.”

Outside of Wrangler, Wilson has also extended her design prowess and partnered with hatmakers Charlie 1 Horse for her own line of cowboy, cowgirl and fashion hats. She’s also appeared in commercials for Coors Light and Ford Trucks. This is on top of playing hundreds of shows in the past couple of years. Wilson is not just a talented musician, she’s trend-setting dynamite.

The day after our interview, she hit the Grammys circuit in Los Angeles. In early February, she performed ‘Dream On’ with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith at his annual Jam for Janie viewing party, and sang with Jelly Roll at his Concert for All First Responders at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. During our conversation, she was particularly excited about a request that had come in a few days prior. 

“I wouldn’t consider myself a blues or jazz singer, but I’m gonna put a little country spin on it,” she said of Ray Charles’ ‘Let the Good Times Roll’, which she performed during the Grammys as part of a tribute to the late producer Quincy Jones. “It’s great to be a part of something like that,” she adds, “to bring country to it, and also show how country has been influenced by so many different things.” Wilson was also nominated for Best Country Album for Whirlwind, a category she won in 2024.

Since her meteoric rise from Nashville nobody to country music It Girl, Wilson has operated at a pace that would retire a Formula 1 car. On top of everything else, she’s had hit collaborations with Post Malone (‘Nosedive’) and Jelly Roll (‘Save Me’) and recorded a duet with her hero Dolly Parton (The Judds’ ‘Mama He’s Crazy’). She also contributed the soul-stirring ballad ‘Out of Oklahoma’ to the 2024 film Twisters. The song was shortlisted for an Oscar. On 14 February, Myles Smith released a new version of his hit ‘Nice to Meet You’ featuring Wilson’s rich vocals.

Smith said of their collaboration: “Lainey’s voice carries so much soul and honesty. It’s impossible not to feel every word she sings. She brings a timelessness to country music that sets her apart, and collaborating with her was an incredible experience!”

It’s only been a short while that the Louisiana native has finally been able to rest, reconnect and reflect. “When I’m doing the things that make me feel like a sister, friend, daughter, girlfriend or dog mama, that’s what refills my cup,” she says. “That way, I can go back out and pour out the way that I want to. I’ve tried pouring from an empty cup and it don’t work.” Recently, she’s made time to leisurely drink coffee on her front porch in Nashville, have long FaceTime conversations with her friends and family, and spend quality time with her fiancé Devlin “Duck” Hodges, a former NFL player. 

“This will be the first year that I will actually have a bus to myself,” she adds. “I wanted to create a sanctuary where I can be in my pyjamas, do my Bible studies, and let it all hang loose until I go back out and do my thing.”

Two-and-a-half years ago, Wilson’s road crew consisted of five people with whom she crammed into a van. Today, she has 60 on her payroll. As the singer’s professional life has swelled, she’s held her longtime friends close. It’s another grounding element amid such a tectonic shift. “I think back to something my daddy used to say to me because he had five jobs all the time — horse trader, farmer, banker, he had a dirt-hauling business — but he always reminded me and my sister that he wasn’t working hard for himself, he was working hard for us,” she says. Though the singer’s proud that everyone in her band has been able to buy a home, she acknowledges the pressure that comes with having that many mouths to feed.

What helps keep her going is the bigger picture. “Even though, yes, I’m the face of this and I’m the voice of this,” she says, “it feels better when I can make it about everybody else but me.” Wilson tells me she’s in a place of a lot of growth across mind, body and spirit. She regularly convenes with God, her therapist, and her red-light sauna, a recent splurge that she says has “changed her life”. She’s also been writing poetry and working on her next album. 

Her eyes widen when I bring up Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, a best-selling, faintly woo-woo manual/workbook from 1992 that centres the god of one’s choice and helps unlock creativity. Wilson says it sounds like something she might enjoy, and that I’m the third person to recommend it to her. In many contexts, ‘country star’ and Cameron’s ‘morning pages’ may seem like odd bedfellows. Not so for Lainey Wilson, who is undeniably country — but always country with a flare.

Taken from the April/May issue of Rolling Stone UK, which is out on Thursday, March 20. Pre-order your copy here.

Photography: Leigh Keily
Styling: Caro Jin Park
DP: Germano Assuncao
Hair: Laura Rugetti / The Only Agency
Makeup: Afton Williams
Nails: Jasmyne Parker / The Only Agency using The GelBottle Inc
Styling Creative: Aaron Pandher
Styling Assistant: Rachel Cocca
Photography Assistant: Dante Talano