Editor’s Note: In celebration of Women’s History Month, You Sing I Write is highlighting female country artists and songwriters throughout March.
I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Cam several times over the years. In October 2020, we caught up and discussed her excellent sophomore album The Otherside. The singer has lived a lot of life since the release of her major label debut album Untamedin 2015. She got married, switched labels from Sony Nashville to RCA in New York, and had her first child, Lucy. Her many highs and lows, and life changes throughout the past five years, are all reflected within the memorable 11 tracks of The Otherside. Below is an excerpt of our conversation.
“The past five years since Untamed and ‘Burning House’ I’ve been through a lot and learned a lot and I feel like I’m on the other side of learning some stuff,” Cam said via livestream ahead of playing title track “The Otherside” during an album release show from Nashville’s The Bluebird Cafe Oct. 30. “It feels so right to be playing this. I’m so grateful we get to sing something that’s so magical in the spirit of someone who inspired us so much.”
Cam penned the tune with the late Swedish DJ Avicii (Tim Bergling), Hillary Lindsey and Tyler Johnson. She credits Bergling’s “next level songwriting” and detailed vision for the song as inspiring and says not having him around to finish “The Otherside” had some added pressure.
“It put a drive in me to make sure that I lived up to his perfectionism and genius to try and give his family and his fans something that they could all enjoy again,” she tells me. “That was heavy. Even with Harry [Styles] and Sam [Smith] too — taking songs that they had written — I felt like I really wanted to make sure I do right by them and have them feel good about it. I could see myself in [the songs]. That’s why I choose them because I trust them [and] I recognized the ache in the songwriting.”
Other songs on The Otherside are more personal to Cam as she lived through some of the experiences she sings about. Songs like the autobiographical “Redwood Tree” and sweeping “Like a Movie” strike a chord with both Cam and the listener.
“I think because I came from a psychology background I always think of songwriting as pulling out something from the subconscious,” she says. “That’s something that I feel in my gut. I have to say it, I have to wrap it up in a story so that I can face it and heal from it. ‘Redwood Tree’ is definitely poignant right now with how you spend your limited time here, what amount of that you get with your parents and your family.”
Other songs, like “Classic” and “Like a Movie,” were inspired by her husband, Adam. As Cam explains, shortly after they got married, she asked her husband how he knew to wait for her and how he knew it was her he was meant to be with and not someone else.
“He was like, ‘When I met you it was like a movie.’ It was just so sweet. Even in that song, there’s a little bit of sadness because there’s all these times when it doesn’t work out. You’re afraid to think that it might be the right one,” she explains. “Every song is really important. I try to wrap them up in really cool production so that you start to get lost in a song a little bit and then maybe, sneakily, the words work their way into your heart.”
On “Like a Movie,” Cam went to Capitol Studios in Los Angeles to record the string accompaniment. She enlisted the help of David Campbell (Mulan, Rent, Dreamgirls) who arranged and conducted an orchestra for the song. Cam says she told Campbell that she wanted the feeling of a 50s or 60s romantic film where there is tension and he knew exactly what she was looking for.
“It was perfect,” she says of the arrangement. “I always feel like I’m caught in the rain on a movie set right before they kiss. It’s so sweet.”
2020 was anything but predictable. Thankfully, the constant for me remained writing about what I love: country music. While the year brought about a lay-off from Billboard in April, I began freelancing in May for Forbes, Sounds Like Nashville and CMA Close Up before joining Country Insider full-time in October.
Interviews looked a little different this year between Zoom and phoners due to COVID-19. Before the world shut down in March, I was able to do a few in-person interviews including my first of the year with Dierks Bentley’s alter-ego Douglas D. Douglason of his ’90s-influenced band Hot Country Knights and shadowing Lainey Wilson as she made her Grand Ole Opry debut.
Here’s a look back at my favorite interviews from 2020.
1. Dolly Parton
While I’ve attended press conferences of Dolly’s before, getting 20 minutes of one-on-one time over the phone was added pressure. What has Dolly never been asked before? How do you cover everything she’s been working on in 20 minutes? I tried my best! From her giving heart to writing in graveyards and not giving up her publishing of “I Will Always Love You” to Elvis Presley, Parton shared a lot of her journey and career with me for Sounds Like Nashville’s December cover story. She also touched upon why it’s important to give back following her $1 million donation to Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center to aid researchers studying COVID-19.
“It’s better to give than receive, but it’s just as important that once you get into a position to be able to help that you really should,” she tells me. “It really helps a lot of people and it makes you feel good about yourself. I love being able to be in a position to help. There’s a scripture in the Bible that says, ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ I always think about that. I’ve been given so much, so why not give back?”
2.Brett Eldredge
I’ve followed Brett’s career since the beginning and have been interviewing him over the past seven years. We’ve grown up in the country industry together and our chats about songwriting and Nashville have always been my favorites. (Here’s a photo of us after a chat in 2013!) His 2020 album Sunday Drive shows his growth as an artist and songwriter. During our conversation for Sounds Like Nashville’s July cover, he opened up about signing off from social media and stepping away from the spotlight to write his fifth studio album and shared many of the stories behind the songs on the project.
“As soon as I started giving myself the time to feel things and to be vulnerable, it was the most empowering thing. It was also the most creatively, supercharging thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “All these lyrics and all these melodies, all these things were coming up in my mind and in my heart because I was not distracting myself with phones or with anything. I was just being and that’s a huge thing to do.”
3. Hot Country Knights
My first interview of 2020 was one I’ll never forget. I spent nearly an hour with Douglas D. Douglason – aka Dierks Bentley’s alter ego and lead singer of ’90s-influenced country band Hot Country Knights – for Billboard. Mullet, ’90s attire and all, Doug kept me on my toes with his comical stories of his band’s escapades and how the Hot Country Knights planned to shake up country music.
“Look, the ’90s are hot right now,” Douglason says matter-of-factly. “[Bentley is] pretty much riding our mullets to the finish line on this one. He wanted to get involved with us and produce us and [we] wrote some original songs. It’s been awhile since I’ve done that—writing. Just using a pen. I don’t read or write much. He wrote most of them but stole most of my ideas.”
4. Sam Hunt
Sam’s sophomore release Southside was the album country fans had been waiting six years for. With the coronavirus at the forefront of everyone’s minds, our normal chats about the story behind the song and evolution of the project turned into album release plans in the midst of a pandemic for an article in the April 25 print issue of Billboard. At the time, a tour in support of Southside was up in the air but there was no doubt in the singer’s mind about releasing his much anticipated second album.
“People are at home on their phones entertaining themselves with music and videos — it’s a perfect time to release an album,” he says.
5. Nashville songwriters
I have been fascinated with songwriters for as long as I can remember. How do they walk into a room with nothing and several hours later leave with a three-minute song that can change a person’s life? For months I had worked on a story about the Evolution of the Nashville songwriter which published on Forbesin May. Quite possibly the longest feature I’ve written to date, it was a look into how Music City’s songwriters have changed since the ’90s.
Since the article published I’ve continued writing about songwriters for both Forbes and my monthly column for Sounds Like Nashville. This year I’ve been fortunate to interview the genre’s most revered country songwriters including Shane McAnally, Ashley Gorley, Nicolle Galyon, Hillary Lindsey, Kent Blazy and Ray Fulcher. I could probably fill up another Top 10 list with all these chats! Maybe next year!
6. Kip Moore
It’s no surprise that Kip would end up on my year-end list. He’s long been my favorite interview for his honesty and fresh perspective on country music, songwriting and life. (Above is a photo of our first chat in 2014!) I had the pleasure of interviewing him three times this year for three separate publications. In March, Billboard announced the date of his fourth studio album aptly titled Wild World.
“My first hope at all times is that it does something to your soul when you’re listening to it,” Moore says. “I never want it to be fodder and just words and melodies. I hope that it somehow applies to other people’s lives and brings them a little peace with questions they have and their own internal struggles they’re having. I’m always hoping they can feel my heart as far as that goes. My heart was put in the project.”
In May, I caught up with him for Forbeswhere he detailed releasing music in a pandemic and why he hopes Wild World serves as escapism for his fans. “My hope was that new music would offer that to anyone needing to immerse themselves in something outside of everything that is happening for a moment.”
Several months later I hopped on Zoom for Country Insider to discuss Kip’s music video for “Don’t Go Changing” and why it was important to raise awareness and money for Nashville’s struggling music venues after they were forced to close their doors in March due to COVID-19. He urged those who had the means to donate via Music Venue Alliance Nashville’s website.
“If we can’t make society get back to that stage, then we have to take care of our own. You can’t just walk around in a fog and expect everything to be normal if you’re not doing your part to take care of these people,” he stresses. “Those venues that you think you’re just going to walk back into at some point — they’re not going to be there. It breaks my heart when I think about it.”
7. Cam
I’ve interviewed Cam several times over the years and after every chat I walk away with a new perspective. This year’s conversation for Sounds Like Nashville about her sophomore album The Otherside was no different.
“I think because I came from a psychology background I always think of songwriting as pulling out something from the subconscious,” she says. “That’s something that I feel in my gut. I have to say it, I have to wrap it up in a story so that I can face it and heal from it. ‘Redwood Tree’ is definitely poignant right now with how you spend your limited time here, what amount of that you get with your parents and your family.”
8. Lainey Wilson
Watching an artist make her debut at the Grand Ole Opry is always special but being asked to shadow her throughout the process is an experience like no other. I was lucky enough to spend Feb. 14 at the Opry as Lainey rehearsed for her debut later that night. Surrounded by friends, family and industry executives, Lainey shared with me her backstory and journey to the famed stage from her first trip to Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry at the age of 9.
“I knew eventually I would have this opportunity; I just didn’t know when. This is the ultimate goal for anybody that does country music. When you play the Grand Ole Opry, you’re on the right track,” she says.
9. Carly Pearce
Carly Pearce went through a lot in 2020. “It’s no secret that I’ve had the worst yet best year ever,” Pearce told me over the phone during a chat for Country Insider. “Anything that I’m releasing right now is obviously reflective of that.” The singer finds her songs under the microscope following her divorce from Michael Ray earlier this year and was honest about the music she’s releasing.
“I’m the type of artist that I don’t know how to not write what I go through, regardless of if that’s about somebody that everyone knows or not,” she says. “Not to say that every single song I’m putting out is about this person or this relationship: It’s about relationships in general. But I had to make the decision and I don’t know how to not do that.”
10. Martina McBride
Martina has played a big role in my career as a country music journalist. She was one of the first country acts I interviewed during my first trip to Nashville in 2009. She also served as my first live coverage for Billboardback in 2011 when I covered her performance atop the Empire State Building.
It was only fitting that she was my first artist interview for Forbesin May when I began contributing to the publication. We discussed the recording of her latest single “Girls Like Me,” featured on Songland, during the pandemic.
“It’s challenging,” she tells me over the phone from her home in Nashville. “Studios are closed, and you’re not allowed to have musicians congregating together to record. So even before this pandemic happened, I started sitting with the song. I knew that I wanted the producer to be Nathan Chapman, who I’ve worked with before. I went to his house and played him the song and talked about it.
“After that, we never spent a second in the same building together throughout the whole recording process,” she continues. “Luckily, he’s an extremely gifted musician and producer so he was able to play all the instruments and record from his home studio.”
March is Women’s History Month and after venting with several friends about the lack of females on country radio and brainstorming ways to highlight the unique and empowering women that make up the genre, I decided for 31 days to showcase female artists on You Sing, I Write.
Truthfully, this idea was sparked by Cam and her previous post on Twitter about the twisted reasoning some radio executives have on why they don’t play women on radio.
The majority of country listeners are female (actually true) but apparently we prefer listening male singers so we can “dream about them being [our] boyfriend” (actually said to me). Sure hope #iHeartAwards picks the hottest one, cause that’s all my lady-brain can understand! https://t.co/gWx09SlQJI
Her response was to the 2018 iHeartRadio Music Awards nominee list, which includes 10 male nominees and only one female. Lauren Alaina is the sole woman nominated at the awards show for Best New Country Artist.
While I’m a huge fan of the genre, it only hurts females by not showcasing other talented women. Artists like Cam speak out and in turn create change. Also, her music is unlike anything heard on today’s country radio (in the best way). Her new single, “Diane,” is a heartfelt response to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” The song tells the heartbreaking tale of a woman who learns the guy she’s been dating is married.
“It’s the apology so many spouses deserve, but never get,” Cam says of the song. “The other woman is coming forward to break the news to the wife about an affair, respecting her enough to have that hard conversation, once she realized he was married. And in true country fashion, I’ve set the whole raw story to upbeat music, so you can dance while you process it all.”
Watch the video for “Diane” below and stay tuned for a month of features and interviews with some of my favorite females in country music.
