March 1, 2026 • 52 mins
For 15 years, Lainey Wilson chased a dream that didn’t seem to want her back.
She was rejected. Overlooked. Living in a camper trailer in Nashville while the industry moved on without her.
Now she’s one of country music’s biggest stars.
In this episode of No Filter, Lainey reflects on the decade-and-a-half grind behind her so-called “overnight success” from auditioning for Idol and The Voice, to impersonating Hannah Montana for five years, to going viral in a way she never expected.
She talks about faith, exhaustion, ambition, meeting Miley Cyrus after years of portraying her on stage, and the advice from Keith Urban that reframed everything.
You can find Lainey’s latest music, tour dates and more at laineywilson.com.
CREDITS:
Guest: Lainey Wilson
Host: Kate Langbroek
Group Executive Producer: Naima Brown
Executive Producer: Bree Player
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
Video Producer: Josh Green
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to a mother and mea podcast. I had
been on the road just I think we played one
hundred and eighty something shows that year. And I saw
him and I was telling him. I was just like,
I'm tired, and he was like, no warning on the
yacht ah, And I was like, Keith, you better get
about my face.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Laney Wilson grew up in a town of one hundred
and seventy people, a place with one caution light and
a whole lot of storytelling. At nine years old, she
told her parents Nashville was home, not one day, not
maybe home. Fifteen years later, after living in a camper
trailer in a studio car park, auditioning for Idol and
(00:56):
the Voice impersonating Hannah Montana to pay the bills, and
knocking on every door on music Row, she's one of
country music six biggest stars. In this episode of No Filter,
Laney talks about the long road to overnight success, the
viral moment that introduced her butt to the Internet before
her music, the faith that kept her going when nothing
(01:19):
was happening, and why she still grinds like she's got
something to prove. This is Laney Wilson. Laney Wilson. Welcome
to no Filter.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I love it because I have no filter.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, so this is the thing. It's perfect. I was
thinking today she's going to be wearing a hat.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, girl, make sure that lighting is looking good.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
They must always when you turn up to places, they
must be like, can you lose the hat?
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Oh yeah, they're like can you tilt the hat up?
And I've got a toilet ball on my head.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
But you grew up in hat country?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I did. I did. I grew up rodeo one and
me and my sister we were PRC a rodeo flag girl,
so we would like in the professional rodeo yep, and
I would see the national anthem.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
And you grew up singing I did you grew up
in a tiny town.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I grew up in a town of one hundred and
seventy people.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So Bree, our producer who saw you on Monday night
in Sydney at a show with tens of thousands of people,
she actually said she was sitting there thinking, just the
people in the first row, that's more than the town
that you grew up with.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
And what was that town like and what was your
childhood like?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Oh my goodness, So it's actually called the Village of Baskin.
If you've ever heard of Monroe, Louisiana, there is a
show there that happens there called Duck Dynasty. I don't
know if you've ever.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Hen Duck Dynasty.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
That should explained the way a little bit, right. But
where I'm from, it's really just like a big farming community.
Like my daddy farms corn wheat, soybeans, oats. Very blue
collar town. We don't even have a red light. We
have a caution light. Everybody knows everybody. It's like the
best thing and the worst thing. You know every It's
like they're there when you need them, and they're there
(03:10):
when you don't. They're just there. And I grew up
knowing how important like community really really was. And even
though now that I've been living in Nashville for fifteen years,
I really do still feel like I have like that village.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Well that's interesting because I think city people in particular
like to have this view of country that it's kind
of unaccepting, but in fact, when you're in a really
small town, in a really small community, it's the opposite.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
You have to learn to accommodate everybody.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yes, and my folks especially, I mean, I just they're
the kind of people who would they would get a
call in the middle of the night and they'd go
help the neighbor. I mean, they would give you the
shirt off their back. That's the kind of people that
I'm from.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
And then when you and who else was in the family.
So your muther was a teacher, your dad farmer.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yep, And it's just me and my sister nineteen months apart.
She's my big sister, and now she's got three little boys,
and it's just you're an auntie yep, a lane.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
But when you so, what I find fascinating about you
is I think it's really unusual to meet someone who's known.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
From inception.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
What they were going to do for sure, and everything
can seem evident in retrospect. So it seems like, oh,
here's Landy Wilson, She's got everything for sure. How did
you know when was the You've always had this certainty.
You've spoken about this certainty that you had. How did
it manifest from when you were a child?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Oh my goodness. So yeah, I was nine years old,
and like I knew that I wanted to tell stories.
I just knew that wrote my first song at my
best friend's house. We were having a sleepover, and I
went home and I told my mama. I said, I
wrote a song. And she's like, in the world, like
nobody in this family sings, you know what's happening. And
(05:16):
I sang it to her and she's like, that's not
that bad.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
And I was a song.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
It was called Lucky Me right, and she kind of
thought it would never happen again. But then like that
next week, I had had a dream and then I
wrote this. I wrote a song about a dream, and
then like the next week, something else would happen and
I'd write a song. And I was coming home from
school and just writing these songs a cappella at nine
years old. And then when my hands got a little
(05:42):
bit bigger, my daddy showed me a few chords on
the guitar, and.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
So he was musical enough.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, he could play a little bit by ear. Not
a singer, And my mama sings the loudest in church.
But she's not a singer. She says, I'm not singing
for you, I'm singing for the Lord.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
I appreciating it.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Well, No, the Lord is like holding his ears. But yeah,
so I was from a town where like storytelling was
one of the things to do. Like you sit around
the kitchen table and you like tell the same old stories.
You hear the same old stories, but you hear them
from a different angle than you did the last time
(06:21):
you heard the story, right, Okay, embellished or embellished everything.
Like my daddy tells this story about getting thrown off
of a horse, and I was like, last time you
told that story, you said you flew ten feet. Now
you're saying twelve. But yeah, and then also just country
music being in the background. It was it was our life,
like we lived it. And I felt like they were
(06:44):
talking directly to me and took my first trip to Nashville.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
So when you say they were talking directly to you,
what song in particular or what artist?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Oh, I can guess one of them. I think I
can guess.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
One of them. You're probably Dully Partner.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, she's tapped you on the shoulder.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Like when you say no one was musical in your family,
no singers in your family, that voice that you have
is so reminiscent of Dolly Parton.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, it's uncanny.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, I love I love her. It's one of those
things that like I just I remember like feeling like
I knew her and now that I know her, and
maybe she does that to everybody. She just kind of
like you know, brings you.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
In and like the power of Dolly.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, there's something about the woman that like it's it's
a real power and a big part of that power
is her kindness. Her kindness just like Usa is through
in everything that she does, whether it is her performing,
her speaking, her now just even like being somebody that
I can go to and ask questions, you know. So
she's definitely been somebody that I've watched very closely, and
(07:57):
I'm like, man, she's done it right.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Right, Yes, there's many ways to do it wrong. That's right,
and there's many temptations along the way to distract you
from Like in your case, what is a calling that's right?
Was there a moment, like a critical defining moment where
that voice came out of you?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
People must have been like yeah, wow.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
You know, to tell you the truth, Like the way
that I sang is is the way that I've always sung.
The stories that I tell are the same stories that
I've been telling, but it took me. I've been in
Nashville for fifteen years. The first three of those years
I lived in a little twenty foot caravan. I think
(08:45):
that's what y'all call it. I call it a camper trailer, right.
But I was just really working on my craft of
like writing music. I knew that my storytelling was the
thing that kind of set me apart at that time,
and so that was the foot that I led with. Then.
It wasn't until year eight that I had I had
just signed a publishing deal of the year before, and
they started pitching my music around to labels, and the
(09:08):
label heard my voice through just a song that they
had pitched of mine for their other female artist, And
so that's when I feel like my voice started getting noticed.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
So do you think it was.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
It kind of like I said, it feels ordained in retrospect,
But at the time, did you feel like you were.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Like pitching into the wind?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Oh? My goodness, for years? For years, Like when I
tell you, I've I've really been working on this since
I was nine years old. I mean I took like
every opportunity that there was, every like honky Tonk, Talent Serch,
every Country, Colgate showdown, Hanna Montana Yes, impersonated Handam Montana
for five years. I tried out for American Idol probably
(09:54):
seven times, tried out for the Voice a handful of times, wow,
And walked up and down music road, knocked on doors,
passed out CDs.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
When you were audition for those shows. What feedback were
you getting?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Not much? It was it was literally like the very
beginning stages of those shows, and it like how it
actually worked really like blew my mind of like you
know how they get their top whatever, Like you don't
even see the like you don't see Simon Cowell and
for a while.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Saying and so you're hopefully getting through to every stage.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
How far through were you getting?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Oh? I wasn't even getting through the first really the
first round.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Jes there's be some people kicking themselves. Now.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Well, I tell you what I'm I'm so thankful that
it worked out the way that it did. But there
were definitely times where I was like I must be
absolutely insane to not be wanting to pack my stuff
up and move home. I still had this weird sense
of peace and faith that I would not have had
that feeling. I was just holding on to that feeling
(10:59):
like this is what.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I was saying, Okay, so what was that feeling and
how did you explain it or was it just accepted
within the family that like, this is what Laney is
and this is what Laney wants to be.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, So my parents we went on a vacation to
Tennessee and we didn't take vacation a lot hide for farmas,
that's right, And so I begged them just to drive
back through Nashville on the way back home. And so
we did, and they took me to the Grand to
Opry and I remember exactly where I was sitting, who
I was watching. I remember where I was when we
(11:35):
were like driving kind of like the downtown area. We
were on I forty, and I remember telling my parents,
I said, I said, this is home, like I knew
it even at nine years old. And that's why I'm like,
encourage parents. I'm like, your kid might actually know more
than you give them credit for. Like I just knew it, right,
I just knew it. And they I'm so thankful that
(11:56):
they like heard me, and they were like, Okay, well
let's help her, you know, let's help her get there,
you know, let's help buy her a camper trailer. It's
like my mama was signing me up for all these things.
Of course, it was never like, hey, you should do this,
you should do it was always something that I wanted
to do.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
The driving, and that's unusual as well, for lots of
children have dreams, I guess, but to have the engine
in you that keeps driving, it is unusual for sure.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I think that's probably from growing up being a farmer's daughter. Right, work,
It's like you, he gets up every day, he bust
his tail, he has a good season, a bad season,
a storm could roll through. But like when it's country song,
that's it, that's it. When it's just in you, it's
in you, and it's your livelihood. And like, even if
(12:48):
I wouldn't making a dime, I'd still be doing this
because I don't really know how to do anything else.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Well, you had a long time where you weren't making
a dime, it's right. And so then how old were
you when you moved to Nashville?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I was nineteen?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And how did that play out in the family? Did
that seem inevitable that you had to leave?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah? It did, it did. And a quick little story
about how I even wound up there at nineteen was like,
so I knew at nine that I wanted to be
there at some point. Well, in Basking, there was this
man there that he was like married to my cousin
at one point and then we were like family, but
not really. And my grandfather back in the late seventies
(13:31):
had given him a little bit of money to move
to Nashville to become a producer songwriter, right, and so
as a favor in return, I mean he was my
mentor growing up. Like he would stop in Basking when
he was coming home to see his mama for Christmas
and tell me what I needed to do make my
songs better, and he was helping them. He heard you, Yes,
(13:53):
he heard me. And so he was the one that
let me park my camper trailer in his studio parking
lot for free the first three years I was in Nashville.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So you were living in the parking lot. Did I
have a shower?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
It did have a shower, right, So you were self
water and right far electricity propane made it work. But honestly,
it was a thing from my family that was it
was just inevitable. You know. They knew that I was
going to be doing that and I was going to
do whatever it took to be there. So they said,
let's see if she wants to live in a camper
(14:26):
and you did, and I did you.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Know you had that calling? But when you have the
calling and you're living in a camper van.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And you're not.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Getting anywhere, did you feel like you were getting somewhere?
So the world at some point is providing resistance for sure?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
And then I think if you persist, you receive assistance
for sure.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
When did that start to happen where you got a
sniff of maybe I'm not barking up the wrong tray
or did you never think it was the wrong tray?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I never really thought it was the wrong tree, because
even at nineteen years old, I went and I met
with pretty much every single label, like record label in Nashville, right,
And I was just so crazy to think that, well,
you know what, if it's gonna be a no always,
I would have never had this opportunity. Or if I
got a meeting with a publisher, you know, on music Row,
(15:25):
even if they didn't want to sign me, then I
was like, well, this is a step in the right direction,
you know, this is brick vibriate, Like I'm gonna find
my people. I'm gonna find the people who understand the
stories that I'm trying to tell in my vision, just
like hanging there, hold on. And then it was not
till year seven that things really started like looking a
(15:45):
little bit better.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
And what shifted then it.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Was finding my manager, Mandlin, who was my best friend
and still my best friend. And she felt sorry for
me because she saw something in me, and she was
working as a business manager or somewhere, and I felt
sorry for her because I saw something in her too,
And honestly, we just thought we were like, well, let's
(16:10):
just try to do this thing together. And she started
helping like set up co writes or like send my
music to random people in the industry. And that was
that was a shift. To just find a champion, right,
somebody who would go scream your name on the corner.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
If you would go into these meets with these record companies,
what would that look like you to go in?
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Do you sing to you? Is it shaking hands? Is
it they want to get the shape of you, or
they just want to hear your voice.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
They want to see it all right, and you're a
great package.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I don't understand how what they couldn't see then.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Well, to tell you the truth, like what I do,
what I do was not cool. During that time, there
was a shift happening. It was going in a little
bit more of like a bro country.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Right direction, very bro. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
There were definitely people who would listen to some of
my demos because I can write, I can write that
kind of stuff. Yeah, they would say, like, that's what
you need to be doing. But in my heart I
knew that, Yeah, that might be the easy route for
me right now, but this is going to be something
that I have to like sing for the rest of
my life if it does good. And I don't know,
(17:27):
I just I knew that going into this. I'm like,
I have to be one hundred and ninety percent myself
because if I'm doing this the rest of my life,
I cannot act like I'm something that I'm not. I'm
not doing it. That takes too much effort.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
But so when you had that first connection, who was
the first person that saw you and whent Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
It was probably Sony Publishing that I was in there
writing because I was writing for other artists.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I was that way performing with songs.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yes I'm here and there and nothing was like a
real big hit or anything, but I was still, you know,
having a little bit of traction that way.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
And that's good as well.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
You're happy to be selling a song because it means
that that's right.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah, And so I remember writing with one of my
best friends, Casey Tendall, and a guy named Shane Minor,
and Shane texted the head of Sony at the time
from our writing room in the office and said, if
you don't sign this girl, I'm taking her across the
street to Universal. And that got the attention of some people.
(18:38):
And then it was like once somebody believed like that much,
it kind of that energy spreads. Yes, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yes, when it's.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Somebody that they trust and like somebody that doesn't go
around like blowing smoke, that's I think that's what it
took right there.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
And then did things snowball from there.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah. I will say like when I signed my publishing deal,
I was like, Okay, now I can like pay the
bills a little bit, you know, it's still just like
just a little bit of money. But I signed my
record deal and honestly, that's when the hard work really began.
I mean, I was still like traveling on the weekends
playing shows. I was playing, you know, three or four
(19:22):
shows a week with a guy named Frank Foster from Louisiana,
traveling to Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
What did those shows look like?
Speaker 1 (19:31):
They were club shows. So it was just like me
and my guitar opening the show, and then I'd run
out back and I'd go sell my merchant his merchant.
But did that for years, but I knew. I was like, okay,
like now I've got a record deal. I've been preparing
for the race. Now I just entered it. Yeah, now
I'm about to run it.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
And sometimes even I imagine to get into the race,
you can be exhausted by the time you get into it.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
They're like, I don't even know if I got anything.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Else in me, but you did.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
But I did because I was like, Okay, now the
opportunity has arrived, yeah, and let's see if I got it.
So then radio tour and we did that for I
went to almost every single radio station you could possibly
imagine in the States and in Canada, and then they
ended up playing a song of mine called Things a
(20:24):
Man Ought to Know.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I thinks a man ought to know, and who was
the man that didn't know?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Well, So it's funny because I think I was I
was dating a boy at the time that he might
have to be I was foreshadowing something, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
And he didn't know. He did not to let Forever
go down the driveway.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
But I'm glad he did now because I'm I'm getting
married to After.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
The break, Laney explains how her bum went viral and
what she did next. So things a man ought to
know change everything, didn't it?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
It did? And our heart chose me to be an
on the verge artist, which means that pretty much all
of their iHeart stations had to like add the song
in a rotation, right, And that's really also what it
had to be like. It was the perfect storm. It was.
I was my involvement with yellow Stone during that day. Yes,
(21:27):
my butt went viral on TikTok. I don't know. Oh yes, lord,
I'm like, whatever brings you to my music, And it
was just a lot of like really random things, and
I was like, let's rite it.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
What was it about your ass by the way, because.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, you say ass, but what that this is always
this is such an interesting conversation it's a huge conversation.
But it's always if you're a woman in your front
facing you're inviting being seen. There's a backlash often that
comes or a covetching sort of nastiness or people just trolling.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
What happened with the ass, it was.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
The weirdest thing. I'll never forget. I just got on
TikTok one day and I saw a clip of me
playing at a show. I was opening for Jason al Dean,
and I guess I was having a good butt day,
I don't know, And then I thought it was something
that was just going to kind of like go away.
And then a week later it was just like bigger
(22:33):
and bigger and bigger and bigger the ass or the ass,
And I was like, all of it.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
And is it comments? People weighing in?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Oh, I mean, it was like a handful of it
was funny. And then the other part was then just
like people just picking me apart at that point, because
then you invited them in to like just say whatever
they want to say about you, which was a weird thing.
But I also thought, how would Darley handle the situation?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Well, okay, it wasn't her ass, but she also say.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
The perfect package.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And then when you were thinking how would Dolly handled
the situation, what was the answer?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
It was with humor and also like this is something
that I can't change. It just happened. And the silver
Larnen was that it really did introduce some people to
my music and they're like, all right, she don't just
have a fat ass, She's got some decent music do Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
But also when your response, which was kissed my fat ass, yeah,
showed it was sort of like you standing in yourself,
then yeah, what could you do? But in fact, then
the world sort of rose to meet you because they
could see the shape of you, not just your your
body shape, but the shape of who you were. Yeah,
(23:51):
And there was a strength in that, and that propelled
you forward again like that's kind of liberating.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
It was, it was, It was very liberating, Like looking
back on a naw, I don't know if I'd change
a thing, but it gave me an opportunity to definitely
show my personality.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yes, yeah, you know which often I think there's a
pressure on you, particularly when you're you know, you're achieving
that sort of success. People are trying to sanitize you
or to make you vanilla. The most popular flavor.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
That was not vanilla.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
We meant chocolate, Yeah, chocolate meant chocolate yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
And then what happened after that?
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I feel like I just had to keep kind of
like proving myself, improving myself over and over through the
music or through the music with everything. You know. It's
because yes, the music is the most important to me. Yeah,
but there's so many different parts to this job. There
are so many different parts, and honestly, sometimes it feels
(24:58):
like music is like twenty percent and the rest is
business and you've got to do all the other so
you can do the twenty percent.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Well, how.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Did you navigate that, how did you prioritize it? And
who were the people around you at that time, because
often I think when someone's star is ascendant, people can
come out of the woodworks.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
For sure, I have kept my people really close, like
my family and my friends, not just like my blood family,
but like people who are who have been with me
from the beginning, like the people that I ate dirt
with is what I say, people that like know me,
know my heart. But also I have found people along
(25:42):
the way, like Miranda Lambert. She has been somebody that
I can call and she she just like tells you
like it is. And she's one of the people who
told me. She's like it's twenty percent music and eighty
percent business. And so once I started hearing that kind
of stuff and just picking up on like random wisdom
that so many artists have been willing to share with me,
(26:04):
I'll write it down in a little section of my phone.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Like what's top of mind?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh my gosh. Keith Urban has been one of those
guys for me. He told me not long ago. He's like,
it's better to maintain balance than I always be trying
to achieve it.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
So to me, that means figure out what works for you. Yeah,
have work life balance and don't lose that, because once
you do and it's you're, you know, kind of lopsided,
then like it's hard to get back.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Okay, So Keith Urban legend, how did there.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Was a moment when you're suddenly these people that you've
admired and his work you've loved, Yep, they're in the
same room with you.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
How was that and how did that meeting come about?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
There were some significant ones, I think Keith Urban one
for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
It was one of those things where like, Okay, now
I'm getting invited to the CMA Awards, you know, the
Country Music Awards. Now I'm getting to like like sit
with these people and like sit at the same table
as them. It's the craziest thing. And then they start
treating you like you are one of them. And I
just remember being a little girl like watching all these
(27:25):
awards thinking, man, it'd be really cool if I could
like be down there in the mix with those people
because I felt like I was one of the honest.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Yes, but that's what they saw in you.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That's the thing about artists is I think they can
recognize that in each other for sure, but sometimes you
need that template or that you need that moment to
affirm in yourself what you've kind of always suspected or
dreamed of or longed for has been the essence of you.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
That's right. And so when we started winning some awards,
yes with like New Artists and then Female and then
it on to Entertainer, it was one of those moments
for me where I'm like, Okay, this industry that I
have been working on my relationships for fifteen years now
like these people have come about for me. And now
(28:19):
people like Keith urban and all the other people like
in between that I've met. When your peers and the
people that you look up to are like proud for
you and voting for you, it's uh, it makes you
feel like okay, like that little nine year old girl,
(28:39):
wasn't that crazy?
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Well, that's also when you're talking about relationships, it's kind
of the essence of what I guess your music is about.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
And country music broadly is about relationships, and it's about
where you come from, and it's about being true to yourself.
And it's also and I think this is why it
resonates with so many people that's having a moment again,
it's because it's about pain.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
So when you.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Had this affirmation and then you realize you were in
the room with people, how do you still stay connected
with the essence of the music that you have to write?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Sure? For me, that has been like doing all the
things that make me feel like Laney, the sister, Lane,
the friend, the daughter, the granddaughter, the aunt, the fiance,
the dog mama. And that's also something else that Miranda
Lambert has told me from the beginning. You know, she
called me over to her house and her farm, and
(29:47):
she's like, you need to take a nap ah, and
then we got some stuff to talk about, and she's like,
you gotta like, yes, work, do your thing, but you
have got to put your feet in the dirt. You
have got to do the things that you grew up
doing because your feet can get lifted up off the ground. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Quit, you can drist away like a balloon.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I can see how it happens.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Well, you see it constantly in people who come untethered
from themselves.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah, I just can't. I'm like, man like, I don't know.
That's a scary feeling to me because I'm like, then
what am I gonna write about?
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, that's why. That's why I hold on to it.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
So you does that mean back to Baskin?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Not necessarily. I go home for the holidays and birthdays
and things like that.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
But your dad's still farming.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
He is right, we're forming forever.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
But yeah, it's just like being outside riding a horse,
me and duck riding around the farm, like doing those
things that just make me. I don't know, like that
give me inspiration.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
You know, because there's you said that the eighty percent business,
how do you carve away the parts that are not
beneficial to you. What's that process been like, because that's
another aspect of yourself you have to.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Have for sure. I think in the beginning I just
tried everything, you know. I was like, let me do
it all, because for so long I didn't have any
opportunity that all of a sudden I got it kind
of all at once. It was like literally a ten
year overnight yeah, success that I wanted to do it all.
(31:29):
I'm like, yes, I want to do that. Oh my gosh, yes,
I want to do that, to the point to where
I like had burned myself out.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Real bad, right, And where where were you when that
was happening.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
It was probably like two years into the rise, right,
because I felt like I was running off of adrenaline
a lot of the time. But then you know, you
stay up here like at this vibration for a long time.
It's like I got to fill my cup. Yes, if
I'm gonna keep pouring out, yeah, I got to feel
what is that? And so it's really now it's about
(32:01):
like putting time on your calendar to do that.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
It takes chulenge, yes, the discipline to do that, because
no one's going to magic everyone wants. When everyone wants
a piece of you, no one's going to magic you
out of the equation. So you have to claim that
for yourself. But then at this time as well, how
do you find romance and how do you nourish that
(32:28):
part of yourself? Because you're a beautiful young woman. You're
at the height of your powers, like your physical powers,
your beauty, your grace. You know, are you drawing the
eye of people or are you not focusing on that?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
So I'm at my fiance name five years ago, and
this was right when things started kind of looking a
little bit better for me, right, yeah, And so he
kind of he always says, he's like, it's because I
came into the picture and luck yeah, yeah, yeah, But
(33:08):
it was around that time that that thing started kind
of shifting. And so I'm so thankful that I was
not in a position to where I feel like he
was using me or anything like that. It was like, yes,
I didn't have a pot to piss in.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
You know, and he had his own.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
He had his own stuff going, and he was playing
football and all of that. But I found somebody who
he worked his entire life to play football since the
time he was four years old, and he dedicated his
life to it, and so he understood that, like there
were going to be moments, especially in the beginning, where
(33:47):
I was gonna have to choose this.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
And then how was that first meeting?
Speaker 1 (33:53):
It was we knew, We kind of knew immediately. We
were like, Okay, we can kind of get down with this,
Like he's from Alabama and you could just tell like
we we talked very easily about what we love to do,
and both of us just kind of had this this
like similar you know, thread of like our parents helped
(34:15):
us any way that they possibly could to get where
we wanted to go. We've dedicated our life to something,
and then once you finally get it, you better write
it as long as you can.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, And then how was he was He surprised as well,
because when you're that focused on a goal, there's not
necessarily the.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Room for romance.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Was he as surprised by it as you were? That
there was like this connection that felt so damed?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I think so it was it was like Matt, I
think we're just equally gooped. Like I feel like we're
on the same page, we want the same things in life,
and he makes me want to be a better person,
and I'd hope that he's say the same about me.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
And also his name was Duck.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, I mean, I'm like I'm dating a duk. Lord's jokes.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
So when you then move into this next chapter of
your life or the next I mean that sounds too
defined to say chapter because it kind of feels like
a flow. It's like you're in flow and you now
have this person by your side. What difference does that
(35:32):
make to a creative life?
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Oh my gosh, it like it gives me even if
I'm not at Nashville at my house, like he is home.
You know, I'm saying, like we even go on to
minds now and I can facetarm him and just for
a minute, I feel like at home. He he helps
me kind of come back down to my center and
(35:56):
he's just my biggest cheerleader.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Really and you were a cheerleader. Yeah, you got with
a football player, do you seek? And then so you
live together now?
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (36:10):
And when you what does your family life look like?
Speaker 3 (36:13):
What does your home life look like? Dog two Dogs has.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
A little black lab. Her name is Willow and she's
the sweetest dog. And prior to douck. I had one
name Hippie, and she is a French bull dog, right
and so yeah, yeah, she looks like she got hit
by a portore. But it's just us. We light load
up on the on the four by four, the side
(36:40):
by side and right around and we do all the
simple things in life like that's that's the things that
that bring us the most happiness, like running down the
road and going to hang out with the neighbors and
things like that.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
So if you had a plan for yourselves, what does
that look like?
Speaker 1 (37:03):
We definitely want to have a face family, you know.
That's that time's a ticking.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Time's always a time is always a Time's always a ticking.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, But I think him and I both would be
good parents, and I'd love to see him be a dad.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
So, well, you'll getting married first.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, we're gonna get married. We're gonna do the whole thing,
and kids will be you know, kids will be later,
but we're definitely gonna do it.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
When you when he proposed to you, where where was that?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
We were at George Jones old house. So there's like
he had this house that I've been wanting to go
see for a long time and Duck was like, all right,
we got like my buddy, he's he's doing a house showing,
and he told me where the key's at so we
can go over there and look. And then when I.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Walk up, what's the story with his house?
Speaker 1 (37:54):
It's just I'm a big fan of George Jones and
he lived there for quite a long time and I
think wrote a bunch of his music there afforded there,
and I just wanted to see it, and so he
knew that it would be pretty special to do it
there on the doorstep. I couldn't say no.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Were you expecting?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
I had to do about it earlier that day because
he was acting a little weird. Yeah, he was like,
he's like, hey, can we do that breathing exercise that
you normally do? And but then I had talked to
myself out of it because I was like, I don't want.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
To be mad if you don't yeah, or disappointed or yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
And then the moment.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
And then it happened, and then I was like, well,
now we're really doing this thing. We're really doing it.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
If you had seen your life when you were nine,
which she kind of did see, I guess in a way,
what part of it would you have had to stand
by yourself the most Oh.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
My gosh, you mean like which part rephrase that?
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Where would you have needed to hold your own hand?
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Oh my gosh, it has I mean to tell you
the truth, there was like when I was living in
my camper. Those first three years were some of the
hardest days, some of the like darkest days. But I
could still see like this tiny little lake, you know,
light at the end of the tunnel. Because my producer
at the time was very, very sick and like he's
(39:32):
Jerry Cupid, the guy that was let me live in
his studio a parking lot, and so he ended up
passing away. And at that point, I'm like, this is
the only guy that I know in Nashville, right, this guy?
And what do I do now? And I knew what
he would want me to do, and that was staying.
So I started over completely started over.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Right, Where did you move the camp of VA?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
I sold it right because to pay to like park
it in a koa, yeah, the cost just as much
as an apartment.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
And also that camp had seen some batter days.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Next, Laney shares the full circle moment of meeting Miley
Cyrus after years of performing as Hannah Montana. So in
your life, what do you attribute your I'm going to
say success, but that sounds like kind of a commodification
(40:34):
of what you are.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
But you know what I mean, like the unfolding of
yourself and the living up to the promise of yourself.
What do you attribute that to?
Speaker 1 (40:45):
I think it is like at the root of all
of it, I think it is a weird sense of
peace that the Lord put on my heart when I
was a little girl, Like it is something that I
just it was a weird feeling of like I need
to trust this feeling right, whatever this is just felt divine.
(41:07):
It felt like I would be an idiot to not
listen to it, and so I felt like I owed
it to myself to see it through as long as
I possibly could.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
You know, it's interesting because Australians are very not like Americans.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Americans, it's very common.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Particularly it awards, people will thank God, praise Lord, et cetera.
Australians are generally very uncomfortable talking about notions of faith
or God, and yet there's something like just the voice
in you seems like it's come from Yeah, it something divine.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah, it feels like I don't know, just like thinking
back to that specific feeling that I remember having exactly
where I was only interstate to like telling my parents
to everything that has happened, just even the opportunities that
I'm getting now, and how it feels like you like
come up to a roadblock and then it's like you
(42:08):
take a right left, but somehow it is you, you
like had the team around you that helps you figure
out which to take and then you end up to
the next thing. But it all still feels like I'm
right where I'm supposed to be, and I'm like, there's
got to be something else involved, you know, this is
not me, Like I'm just a vessels. That's what I
(42:29):
feel like. I'm just so thankful that I get to
like make people feel something because it makes me feel something.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Well, that's the That's the gift, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
When you, for instance, met Miley Cyrus after having played
Hannah Montana, did that feel like an extension of that?
Speaker 1 (42:51):
It did those full circle moments where you're just like
you've had a lot of this up, You've had a
lot of them. Yes, those moments And.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
How was she towards you when she was how did
she become aware of.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
You, probably through her sister Brandy, right, I think that's
that's probably how. But she's great. I mean we know
a lot of the same people. I told her. I
was like, Hannah Montana meant a lot to me. It
kept some money in the bank for five years from me.
So yeah, it's she has influenced more people than I
(43:31):
think that she even realizes.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Well, she's had a similar sort of journey, I guess
in terms of coming back to herself for sure, and
the truth of herself and unapologetic, unapologetically herself.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I think she is a rock star. Oh, she's a
rock star.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Your work ethic is.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
You know, speaks for itself really, But you're at a
point now when you could choose to take your foot
off the gas a little, Like even turning up here
today is not necessary for you, you know what.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
It's probably one of those things for me where I'm like,
I will probably be eighty years old still doing this stuff,
like I just love it that much and if I
can like reach one more person, then sign me up.
I don't really know any other way to be no
like any other gear, you know. I mean, there might
(44:30):
be times in my life where I'm kind of coasting
along a little bit more. But I don't know. I'm
just trying to take advantage of the opportunity and especially
like being over here. We don't get to come over
here a lot.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
No, no, And the Americans will say, fixated on what
a long way away these that's whereas for Australians to
go anywhere, we have to travel.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
That's that's right. But I enjoy playing music here, I
enjoy the people here, I enjoy I think it's just beautiful.
There's something really special about this place. And so I'm
just trying to, you know, lay the foundation of so
I can come back. I want you to have me back, please, I.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Will have you back. We'll have you back with your husband.
We'll have you back with your baby.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Dogs are difficult, because I know I heard I'm a
paranoid about I've heard dogs from overseas. Hipp you want,
but otherwise we'll have every part of you.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Okay, I'll take you up on that.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
What was Keith Urban's advice again? What did he say?
Speaker 1 (45:26):
There's been a few. He told me it's it's better
to maintain balance right than try to always be achieving
it right. He's told me. I ran into him and
I was so tired. I had been on the road
just I think we played one hundred and eighty something
shows that year, right, And I saw him and I
was telling him. I was just like, I'm tired. And
(45:46):
he was like, no whinning on the yacht. And I
was like, Keith, you better get about my face.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Goodness, that's a better expression. You're on the yacht.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, no whinning on you.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
But what do you do out of interest? Because we
all know those times you're expending a lot.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
Of energy, even just physically to.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Be match fit, when you do feel like you're depleted,
when your tank is depleted, how.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Do you.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Quiet time a long time, just like being by myself
do and breathing exercises, like trying to meditate, prayer time,
like talking to my family.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Do you exercise?
Speaker 1 (46:33):
I do. I try to ass look after itself. No,
But yeah, I don't necessarily love working out, but it's
just a part of something that I gotta do.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Yeah, it's part of the discipline.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Chop would carry water, that's it, and then after enlightenment,
Chop would carry water.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Motto to live by put that in a song.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
I know that's write it down.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
What do you want in the future. Obviously there's the
personal thing and the extension of your love and the family,
But do you hold like professional goals with they be
more acting.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
I definitely want to do more acting. It's something that
I've really.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
Like.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
I enjoy it. I didn't know if I was. I
don't know if I expected to enjoy it as much
as I do, because it's not taking me away from
my songwriting. If anything, it's like giving me another taste
of like stepping into somebody else's shoes. Yes, and so
it's just to create another creative outlet.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
And there's a lot of time when you're acting. There's
a lot of time waiting around.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
There is there is. I want to do more of
that if things keep going the way that they're going
right now, Like I want the shows to keep getting
bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. I mean we
have just in the last few years. I went from
not hardly being able to sell a ticket too. Yeah,
now I'm here on the other side of the world
and we're playing arenas arenas.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
It's so I'm like, we're going to the stadium.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Well, not that you want to question.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
The magic of it, but what do you think is
the magic of it? What's the magic of you?
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I think there's a few things. I think it's probably
my hard headedness, right, but also just like the belief,
like the belief that I can do it, and also
when other people around you believe it too. Yeah, you
know I believed it for a long time.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Well, hard head and big heart.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, that's a balance.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Ye, I think that's it.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
I think you got the balance right.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
I can act up.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
I can act if you, for instance, had just been
this little girl that had this beautiful voice and you'd
stayed would you have stayed on the farm, What would
life have looked like had you not chase the dream
down the driveway?
Speaker 1 (49:11):
It just was so never in the cards for me
that like it was I would be living a very
miserable life. Not because I don't love my family and
where I'm from and whatever, but it was like this
thing inside of me that was just like, go do it.
I'd probably be married to somebody I grew up with
(49:31):
and farming, or I'd probably be a teacher, right, like
my mama was a teacher, All of my aunts my granny.
I love kids, I love like special needs kids, and
I'd probably be doing something like that and yeah, still
living a very simple life. But and I'd probably be
coming home from teaching school and still writing songs.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, because that you had the music in you and
you've shared it with the world.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
Yep, and the world is really enjoying it.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Oh that makes me.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Uh, the world is loving it.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Well, thank you, thank you for sharing yourself with us.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
You this great.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Oh I love it. I love it, I said to
my Well, I do. It's interesting to know what I think.
There's often the external, and particularly now with social media
or whatever, we're very conditioned to judge things by the external,
and people often have comparison, which is why I think
(50:34):
people are.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
So emotionally briefed.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
And then to meet someone who's shared themselves so openly
but has also had the calling is quite extraordinary. I
think there's a lot in that for people who to
try and live up to their own dreams for themselves,
(51:00):
to advocate for yourself.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
That's right, that's what I want. Like all the little
girl and little boys that come to my show. The
reason I'm like people have told me, like Laney, don't
tell people that you've been in Nashville for fifteen years
and blah blah blah blah blah like that kind of
like datsha, right, and I'm like, oh, hell no, these
kids are gonna know yeah that, like I have spent
(51:22):
a long time to get to this point. Things don't
happen overnight.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
She roll up your sleeves and you get it done.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Yeah, you know you're getting it done. You're getting it
done and done. Laney Wilson, you are a piece of gold.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
Back at you.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
What struck me most about this conversation was the quiet
sense of peace. Laney describes the one she felt at
nine years old, the certainty of it, and the discipline
it took to honor that feeling for fifteen years. There's
something incredibly reassuring about hearing someone say it took time.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
It was hard.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
I doubted myself and I kept going anyway. Thanks for
listening to No Filter. The executive producer of No Filter
is bre Player. Audio production is by Jacob Brown, and
video editing is by Josh Green. This episode was recorded
at Session in Progress Studios, and I'm your host, Kate Langbrook.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
I'll see you next Monday.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
waters that this podcast is recorded on.
You're listening to a mother and mea podcast. I had
been on the road just I think we played one
hundred and eighty something shows that year. And I saw
him and I was telling him. I was just like,
I'm tired, and he was like, no warning on the
yacht ah, And I was like, Keith, you better get
about my face.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Laney Wilson grew up in a town of one hundred
and seventy people, a place with one caution light and
a whole lot of storytelling. At nine years old, she
told her parents Nashville was home, not one day, not
maybe home. Fifteen years later, after living in a camper
trailer in a studio car park, auditioning for Idol and
(00:56):
the Voice impersonating Hannah Montana to pay the bills, and
knocking on every door on music Row, she's one of
country music six biggest stars. In this episode of No Filter,
Laney talks about the long road to overnight success, the
viral moment that introduced her butt to the Internet before
her music, the faith that kept her going when nothing
(01:19):
was happening, and why she still grinds like she's got
something to prove. This is Laney Wilson. Laney Wilson. Welcome
to no Filter.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I love it because I have no filter.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, so this is the thing. It's perfect. I was
thinking today she's going to be wearing a hat.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, girl, make sure that lighting is looking good.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
They must always when you turn up to places, they
must be like, can you lose the hat?
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Oh yeah, they're like can you tilt the hat up?
And I've got a toilet ball on my head.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
But you grew up in hat country?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I did. I did. I grew up rodeo one and
me and my sister we were PRC a rodeo flag girl,
so we would like in the professional rodeo yep, and
I would see the national anthem.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
And you grew up singing I did you grew up
in a tiny town.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I grew up in a town of one hundred and
seventy people.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So Bree, our producer who saw you on Monday night
in Sydney at a show with tens of thousands of people,
she actually said she was sitting there thinking, just the
people in the first row, that's more than the town
that you grew up with.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
And what was that town like and what was your
childhood like?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Oh my goodness, So it's actually called the Village of Baskin.
If you've ever heard of Monroe, Louisiana, there is a
show there that happens there called Duck Dynasty. I don't
know if you've ever.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Hen Duck Dynasty.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
That should explained the way a little bit, right. But
where I'm from, it's really just like a big farming community.
Like my daddy farms corn wheat, soybeans, oats. Very blue
collar town. We don't even have a red light. We
have a caution light. Everybody knows everybody. It's like the
best thing and the worst thing. You know every It's
like they're there when you need them, and they're there
(03:10):
when you don't. They're just there. And I grew up
knowing how important like community really really was. And even
though now that I've been living in Nashville for fifteen years,
I really do still feel like I have like that village.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Well that's interesting because I think city people in particular
like to have this view of country that it's kind
of unaccepting, but in fact, when you're in a really
small town, in a really small community, it's the opposite.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
You have to learn to accommodate everybody.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yes, and my folks especially, I mean, I just they're
the kind of people who would they would get a
call in the middle of the night and they'd go
help the neighbor. I mean, they would give you the
shirt off their back. That's the kind of people that
I'm from.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
And then when you and who else was in the family.
So your muther was a teacher, your dad farmer.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yep, And it's just me and my sister nineteen months apart.
She's my big sister, and now she's got three little boys,
and it's just you're an auntie yep, a lane.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
But when you so, what I find fascinating about you
is I think it's really unusual to meet someone who's known.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
From inception.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
What they were going to do for sure, and everything
can seem evident in retrospect. So it seems like, oh,
here's Landy Wilson, She's got everything for sure. How did
you know when was the You've always had this certainty.
You've spoken about this certainty that you had. How did
it manifest from when you were a child?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Oh my goodness. So yeah, I was nine years old,
and like I knew that I wanted to tell stories.
I just knew that wrote my first song at my
best friend's house. We were having a sleepover, and I
went home and I told my mama. I said, I
wrote a song. And she's like, in the world, like
nobody in this family sings, you know what's happening. And
(05:16):
I sang it to her and she's like, that's not
that bad.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
And I was a song.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
It was called Lucky Me right, and she kind of
thought it would never happen again. But then like that
next week, I had had a dream and then I
wrote this. I wrote a song about a dream, and
then like the next week, something else would happen and
I'd write a song. And I was coming home from
school and just writing these songs a cappella at nine
years old. And then when my hands got a little
(05:42):
bit bigger, my daddy showed me a few chords on
the guitar, and.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
So he was musical enough.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, he could play a little bit by ear. Not
a singer, And my mama sings the loudest in church.
But she's not a singer. She says, I'm not singing
for you, I'm singing for the Lord.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
I appreciating it.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Well, No, the Lord is like holding his ears. But yeah,
so I was from a town where like storytelling was
one of the things to do. Like you sit around
the kitchen table and you like tell the same old stories.
You hear the same old stories, but you hear them
from a different angle than you did the last time
(06:21):
you heard the story, right, Okay, embellished or embellished everything.
Like my daddy tells this story about getting thrown off
of a horse, and I was like, last time you
told that story, you said you flew ten feet. Now
you're saying twelve. But yeah, and then also just country
music being in the background. It was it was our life,
like we lived it. And I felt like they were
(06:44):
talking directly to me and took my first trip to Nashville.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
So when you say they were talking directly to you,
what song in particular or what artist?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Oh, I can guess one of them. I think I
can guess.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
One of them. You're probably Dully Partner.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, she's tapped you on the shoulder.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Like when you say no one was musical in your family,
no singers in your family, that voice that you have
is so reminiscent of Dolly Parton.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, it's uncanny.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, I love I love her. It's one of those
things that like I just I remember like feeling like
I knew her and now that I know her, and
maybe she does that to everybody. She just kind of
like you know, brings you.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
In and like the power of Dolly.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, there's something about the woman that like it's it's
a real power and a big part of that power
is her kindness. Her kindness just like Usa is through
in everything that she does, whether it is her performing,
her speaking, her now just even like being somebody that
I can go to and ask questions, you know. So
she's definitely been somebody that I've watched very closely, and
(07:57):
I'm like, man, she's done it right.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Right, Yes, there's many ways to do it wrong. That's right,
and there's many temptations along the way to distract you
from Like in your case, what is a calling that's right?
Was there a moment, like a critical defining moment where
that voice came out of you?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
People must have been like yeah, wow.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
You know, to tell you the truth, Like the way
that I sang is is the way that I've always sung.
The stories that I tell are the same stories that
I've been telling, but it took me. I've been in
Nashville for fifteen years. The first three of those years
I lived in a little twenty foot caravan. I think
(08:45):
that's what y'all call it. I call it a camper trailer, right.
But I was just really working on my craft of
like writing music. I knew that my storytelling was the
thing that kind of set me apart at that time,
and so that was the foot that I led with. Then.
It wasn't until year eight that I had I had
just signed a publishing deal of the year before, and
they started pitching my music around to labels, and the
(09:08):
label heard my voice through just a song that they
had pitched of mine for their other female artist, And
so that's when I feel like my voice started getting noticed.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
So do you think it was.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
It kind of like I said, it feels ordained in retrospect,
But at the time, did you feel like you were.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Like pitching into the wind?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Oh? My goodness, for years? For years, Like when I
tell you, I've I've really been working on this since
I was nine years old. I mean I took like
every opportunity that there was, every like honky Tonk, Talent Serch,
every Country, Colgate showdown, Hanna Montana Yes, impersonated Handam Montana
for five years. I tried out for American Idol probably
(09:54):
seven times, tried out for the Voice a handful of times, wow,
And walked up and down music road, knocked on doors,
passed out CDs.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
When you were audition for those shows. What feedback were
you getting?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Not much? It was it was literally like the very
beginning stages of those shows, and it like how it
actually worked really like blew my mind of like you
know how they get their top whatever, Like you don't
even see the like you don't see Simon Cowell and
for a while.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Saying and so you're hopefully getting through to every stage.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
How far through were you getting?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Oh? I wasn't even getting through the first really the
first round.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Jes there's be some people kicking themselves. Now.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Well, I tell you what I'm I'm so thankful that
it worked out the way that it did. But there
were definitely times where I was like I must be
absolutely insane to not be wanting to pack my stuff
up and move home. I still had this weird sense
of peace and faith that I would not have had
that feeling. I was just holding on to that feeling
(10:59):
like this is what.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I was saying, Okay, so what was that feeling and
how did you explain it or was it just accepted
within the family that like, this is what Laney is
and this is what Laney wants to be.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, So my parents we went on a vacation to
Tennessee and we didn't take vacation a lot hide for farmas,
that's right, And so I begged them just to drive
back through Nashville on the way back home. And so
we did, and they took me to the Grand to
Opry and I remember exactly where I was sitting, who
I was watching. I remember where I was when we
(11:35):
were like driving kind of like the downtown area. We
were on I forty, and I remember telling my parents,
I said, I said, this is home, like I knew
it even at nine years old. And that's why I'm like,
encourage parents. I'm like, your kid might actually know more
than you give them credit for. Like I just knew it, right,
I just knew it. And they I'm so thankful that
(11:56):
they like heard me, and they were like, Okay, well
let's help her, you know, let's help her get there,
you know, let's help buy her a camper trailer. It's
like my mama was signing me up for all these things.
Of course, it was never like, hey, you should do this,
you should do it was always something that I wanted
to do.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
The driving, and that's unusual as well, for lots of
children have dreams, I guess, but to have the engine
in you that keeps driving, it is unusual for sure.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I think that's probably from growing up being a farmer's daughter. Right, work,
It's like you, he gets up every day, he bust
his tail, he has a good season, a bad season,
a storm could roll through. But like when it's country song,
that's it, that's it. When it's just in you, it's
in you, and it's your livelihood. And like, even if
(12:48):
I wouldn't making a dime, I'd still be doing this
because I don't really know how to do anything else.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Well, you had a long time where you weren't making
a dime, it's right. And so then how old were
you when you moved to Nashville?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I was nineteen?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And how did that play out in the family? Did
that seem inevitable that you had to leave?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah? It did, it did. And a quick little story
about how I even wound up there at nineteen was like,
so I knew at nine that I wanted to be
there at some point. Well, in Basking, there was this
man there that he was like married to my cousin
at one point and then we were like family, but
not really. And my grandfather back in the late seventies
(13:31):
had given him a little bit of money to move
to Nashville to become a producer songwriter, right, and so
as a favor in return, I mean he was my
mentor growing up. Like he would stop in Basking when
he was coming home to see his mama for Christmas
and tell me what I needed to do make my
songs better, and he was helping them. He heard you, Yes,
(13:53):
he heard me. And so he was the one that
let me park my camper trailer in his studio parking
lot for free the first three years I was in Nashville.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So you were living in the parking lot. Did I
have a shower?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
It did have a shower, right, So you were self
water and right far electricity propane made it work. But honestly,
it was a thing from my family that was it
was just inevitable. You know. They knew that I was
going to be doing that and I was going to
do whatever it took to be there. So they said,
let's see if she wants to live in a camper
(14:26):
and you did, and I did you.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Know you had that calling? But when you have the
calling and you're living in a camper van.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And you're not.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Getting anywhere, did you feel like you were getting somewhere?
So the world at some point is providing resistance for sure?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
And then I think if you persist, you receive assistance
for sure.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
When did that start to happen where you got a
sniff of maybe I'm not barking up the wrong tray
or did you never think it was the wrong tray?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I never really thought it was the wrong tree, because
even at nineteen years old, I went and I met
with pretty much every single label, like record label in Nashville, right,
And I was just so crazy to think that, well,
you know what, if it's gonna be a no always,
I would have never had this opportunity. Or if I
got a meeting with a publisher, you know, on music Row,
(15:25):
even if they didn't want to sign me, then I
was like, well, this is a step in the right direction,
you know, this is brick vibriate, Like I'm gonna find
my people. I'm gonna find the people who understand the
stories that I'm trying to tell in my vision, just
like hanging there, hold on. And then it was not
till year seven that things really started like looking a
(15:45):
little bit better.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
And what shifted then it.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Was finding my manager, Mandlin, who was my best friend
and still my best friend. And she felt sorry for
me because she saw something in me, and she was
working as a business manager or somewhere, and I felt
sorry for her because I saw something in her too,
And honestly, we just thought we were like, well, let's
(16:10):
just try to do this thing together. And she started
helping like set up co writes or like send my
music to random people in the industry. And that was
that was a shift. To just find a champion, right,
somebody who would go scream your name on the corner.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
If you would go into these meets with these record companies,
what would that look like you to go in?
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Do you sing to you? Is it shaking hands? Is
it they want to get the shape of you, or
they just want to hear your voice.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
They want to see it all right, and you're a
great package.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I don't understand how what they couldn't see then.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Well, to tell you the truth, like what I do,
what I do was not cool. During that time, there
was a shift happening. It was going in a little
bit more of like a bro country.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Right direction, very bro. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
There were definitely people who would listen to some of
my demos because I can write, I can write that
kind of stuff. Yeah, they would say, like, that's what
you need to be doing. But in my heart I
knew that, Yeah, that might be the easy route for
me right now, but this is going to be something
that I have to like sing for the rest of
my life if it does good. And I don't know,
(17:27):
I just I knew that going into this. I'm like,
I have to be one hundred and ninety percent myself
because if I'm doing this the rest of my life,
I cannot act like I'm something that I'm not. I'm
not doing it. That takes too much effort.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
But so when you had that first connection, who was
the first person that saw you and whent Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
It was probably Sony Publishing that I was in there
writing because I was writing for other artists.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I was that way performing with songs.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yes I'm here and there and nothing was like a
real big hit or anything, but I was still, you know,
having a little bit of traction that way.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
And that's good as well.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
You're happy to be selling a song because it means
that that's right.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah, And so I remember writing with one of my
best friends, Casey Tendall, and a guy named Shane Minor,
and Shane texted the head of Sony at the time
from our writing room in the office and said, if
you don't sign this girl, I'm taking her across the
street to Universal. And that got the attention of some people.
(18:38):
And then it was like once somebody believed like that much,
it kind of that energy spreads. Yes, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yes, when it's.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Somebody that they trust and like somebody that doesn't go
around like blowing smoke, that's I think that's what it
took right there.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
And then did things snowball from there.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah. I will say like when I signed my publishing deal,
I was like, Okay, now I can like pay the
bills a little bit, you know, it's still just like
just a little bit of money. But I signed my
record deal and honestly, that's when the hard work really began.
I mean, I was still like traveling on the weekends
playing shows. I was playing, you know, three or four
(19:22):
shows a week with a guy named Frank Foster from Louisiana,
traveling to Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
What did those shows look like?
Speaker 1 (19:31):
They were club shows. So it was just like me
and my guitar opening the show, and then I'd run
out back and I'd go sell my merchant his merchant.
But did that for years, but I knew. I was like, okay,
like now I've got a record deal. I've been preparing
for the race. Now I just entered it. Yeah, now
I'm about to run it.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
And sometimes even I imagine to get into the race,
you can be exhausted by the time you get into it.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
They're like, I don't even know if I got anything.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Else in me, but you did.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
But I did because I was like, Okay, now the
opportunity has arrived, yeah, and let's see if I got it.
So then radio tour and we did that for I
went to almost every single radio station you could possibly
imagine in the States and in Canada, and then they
ended up playing a song of mine called Things a
(20:24):
Man Ought to Know.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I thinks a man ought to know, and who was
the man that didn't know?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Well, So it's funny because I think I was I
was dating a boy at the time that he might
have to be I was foreshadowing something, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
And he didn't know. He did not to let Forever
go down the driveway.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
But I'm glad he did now because I'm I'm getting
married to After.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
The break, Laney explains how her bum went viral and
what she did next. So things a man ought to
know change everything, didn't it?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
It did? And our heart chose me to be an
on the verge artist, which means that pretty much all
of their iHeart stations had to like add the song
in a rotation, right, And that's really also what it
had to be like. It was the perfect storm. It was.
I was my involvement with yellow Stone during that day. Yes,
(21:27):
my butt went viral on TikTok. I don't know. Oh yes, lord,
I'm like, whatever brings you to my music, And it
was just a lot of like really random things, and
I was like, let's rite it.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
What was it about your ass by the way, because.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, you say ass, but what that this is always
this is such an interesting conversation it's a huge conversation.
But it's always if you're a woman in your front
facing you're inviting being seen. There's a backlash often that
comes or a covetching sort of nastiness or people just trolling.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
What happened with the ass, it was.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
The weirdest thing. I'll never forget. I just got on
TikTok one day and I saw a clip of me
playing at a show. I was opening for Jason al Dean,
and I guess I was having a good butt day,
I don't know, And then I thought it was something
that was just going to kind of like go away.
And then a week later it was just like bigger
(22:33):
and bigger and bigger and bigger the ass or the ass,
And I was like, all of it.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
And is it comments? People weighing in?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Oh, I mean, it was like a handful of it
was funny. And then the other part was then just
like people just picking me apart at that point, because
then you invited them in to like just say whatever
they want to say about you, which was a weird thing.
But I also thought, how would Darley handle the situation?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Well, okay, it wasn't her ass, but she also say.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
The perfect package.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And then when you were thinking how would Dolly handled
the situation, what was the answer?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
It was with humor and also like this is something
that I can't change. It just happened. And the silver
Larnen was that it really did introduce some people to
my music and they're like, all right, she don't just
have a fat ass, She's got some decent music do Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
But also when your response, which was kissed my fat ass, yeah,
showed it was sort of like you standing in yourself,
then yeah, what could you do? But in fact, then
the world sort of rose to meet you because they
could see the shape of you, not just your your
body shape, but the shape of who you were. Yeah,
(23:51):
And there was a strength in that, and that propelled
you forward again like that's kind of liberating.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
It was, it was, It was very liberating, Like looking
back on a naw, I don't know if I'd change
a thing, but it gave me an opportunity to definitely
show my personality.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yes, yeah, you know which often I think there's a
pressure on you, particularly when you're you know, you're achieving
that sort of success. People are trying to sanitize you
or to make you vanilla. The most popular flavor.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
That was not vanilla.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
We meant chocolate, Yeah, chocolate meant chocolate yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
And then what happened after that?
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I feel like I just had to keep kind of
like proving myself, improving myself over and over through the
music or through the music with everything. You know. It's
because yes, the music is the most important to me. Yeah,
but there's so many different parts to this job. There
are so many different parts, and honestly, sometimes it feels
(24:58):
like music is like twenty percent and the rest is
business and you've got to do all the other so
you can do the twenty percent.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Well, how.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Did you navigate that, how did you prioritize it? And
who were the people around you at that time, because
often I think when someone's star is ascendant, people can
come out of the woodworks.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
For sure, I have kept my people really close, like
my family and my friends, not just like my blood family,
but like people who are who have been with me
from the beginning, like the people that I ate dirt
with is what I say, people that like know me,
know my heart. But also I have found people along
(25:42):
the way, like Miranda Lambert. She has been somebody that
I can call and she she just like tells you
like it is. And she's one of the people who
told me. She's like it's twenty percent music and eighty
percent business. And so once I started hearing that kind
of stuff and just picking up on like random wisdom
that so many artists have been willing to share with me,
(26:04):
I'll write it down in a little section of my phone.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Like what's top of mind?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh my gosh. Keith Urban has been one of those
guys for me. He told me not long ago. He's like,
it's better to maintain balance than I always be trying
to achieve it.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
So to me, that means figure out what works for you. Yeah,
have work life balance and don't lose that, because once
you do and it's you're, you know, kind of lopsided,
then like it's hard to get back.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Okay, So Keith Urban legend, how did there.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Was a moment when you're suddenly these people that you've
admired and his work you've loved, Yep, they're in the
same room with you.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
How was that and how did that meeting come about?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
There were some significant ones, I think Keith Urban one
for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
It was one of those things where like, Okay, now
I'm getting invited to the CMA Awards, you know, the
Country Music Awards. Now I'm getting to like like sit
with these people and like sit at the same table
as them. It's the craziest thing. And then they start
treating you like you are one of them. And I
just remember being a little girl like watching all these
(27:25):
awards thinking, man, it'd be really cool if I could
like be down there in the mix with those people
because I felt like I was one of the honest.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Yes, but that's what they saw in you.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That's the thing about artists is I think they can
recognize that in each other for sure, but sometimes you
need that template or that you need that moment to
affirm in yourself what you've kind of always suspected or
dreamed of or longed for has been the essence of you.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
That's right. And so when we started winning some awards,
yes with like New Artists and then Female and then
it on to Entertainer, it was one of those moments
for me where I'm like, Okay, this industry that I
have been working on my relationships for fifteen years now
like these people have come about for me. And now
(28:19):
people like Keith urban and all the other people like
in between that I've met. When your peers and the
people that you look up to are like proud for
you and voting for you, it's uh, it makes you
feel like okay, like that little nine year old girl,
(28:39):
wasn't that crazy?
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Well, that's also when you're talking about relationships, it's kind
of the essence of what I guess your music is about.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
And country music broadly is about relationships, and it's about
where you come from, and it's about being true to yourself.
And it's also and I think this is why it
resonates with so many people that's having a moment again,
it's because it's about pain.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
So when you.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Had this affirmation and then you realize you were in
the room with people, how do you still stay connected
with the essence of the music that you have to write?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Sure? For me, that has been like doing all the
things that make me feel like Laney, the sister, Lane,
the friend, the daughter, the granddaughter, the aunt, the fiance,
the dog mama. And that's also something else that Miranda
Lambert has told me from the beginning. You know, she
called me over to her house and her farm, and
(29:47):
she's like, you need to take a nap ah, and
then we got some stuff to talk about, and she's like,
you gotta like, yes, work, do your thing, but you
have got to put your feet in the dirt. You
have got to do the things that you grew up
doing because your feet can get lifted up off the ground. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Quit, you can drist away like a balloon.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I can see how it happens.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Well, you see it constantly in people who come untethered
from themselves.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah, I just can't. I'm like, man like, I don't know.
That's a scary feeling to me because I'm like, then
what am I gonna write about?
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, that's why. That's why I hold on to it.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
So you does that mean back to Baskin?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Not necessarily. I go home for the holidays and birthdays
and things like that.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
But your dad's still farming.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
He is right, we're forming forever.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
But yeah, it's just like being outside riding a horse,
me and duck riding around the farm, like doing those
things that just make me. I don't know, like that
give me inspiration.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
You know, because there's you said that the eighty percent business,
how do you carve away the parts that are not
beneficial to you. What's that process been like, because that's
another aspect of yourself you have to.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Have for sure. I think in the beginning I just
tried everything, you know. I was like, let me do
it all, because for so long I didn't have any
opportunity that all of a sudden I got it kind
of all at once. It was like literally a ten
year overnight yeah, success that I wanted to do it all.
(31:29):
I'm like, yes, I want to do that. Oh my gosh, yes,
I want to do that, to the point to where
I like had burned myself out.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Real bad, right, And where where were you when that
was happening.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
It was probably like two years into the rise, right,
because I felt like I was running off of adrenaline
a lot of the time. But then you know, you
stay up here like at this vibration for a long time.
It's like I got to fill my cup. Yes, if
I'm gonna keep pouring out, yeah, I got to feel
what is that? And so it's really now it's about
(32:01):
like putting time on your calendar to do that.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
It takes chulenge, yes, the discipline to do that, because
no one's going to magic everyone wants. When everyone wants
a piece of you, no one's going to magic you
out of the equation. So you have to claim that
for yourself. But then at this time as well, how
do you find romance and how do you nourish that
(32:28):
part of yourself? Because you're a beautiful young woman. You're
at the height of your powers, like your physical powers,
your beauty, your grace. You know, are you drawing the
eye of people or are you not focusing on that?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
So I'm at my fiance name five years ago, and
this was right when things started kind of looking a
little bit better for me, right, yeah, And so he
kind of he always says, he's like, it's because I
came into the picture and luck yeah, yeah, yeah, But
(33:08):
it was around that time that that thing started kind
of shifting. And so I'm so thankful that I was
not in a position to where I feel like he
was using me or anything like that. It was like, yes,
I didn't have a pot to piss in.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
You know, and he had his own.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
He had his own stuff going, and he was playing
football and all of that. But I found somebody who
he worked his entire life to play football since the
time he was four years old, and he dedicated his
life to it, and so he understood that, like there
were going to be moments, especially in the beginning, where
(33:47):
I was gonna have to choose this.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
And then how was that first meeting?
Speaker 1 (33:53):
It was we knew, We kind of knew immediately. We
were like, Okay, we can kind of get down with this,
Like he's from Alabama and you could just tell like
we we talked very easily about what we love to do,
and both of us just kind of had this this
like similar you know, thread of like our parents helped
(34:15):
us any way that they possibly could to get where
we wanted to go. We've dedicated our life to something,
and then once you finally get it, you better write
it as long as you can.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, And then how was he was He surprised as well,
because when you're that focused on a goal, there's not
necessarily the.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Room for romance.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Was he as surprised by it as you were? That
there was like this connection that felt so damed?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I think so it was it was like Matt, I
think we're just equally gooped. Like I feel like we're
on the same page, we want the same things in life,
and he makes me want to be a better person,
and I'd hope that he's say the same about me.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
And also his name was Duck.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, I mean, I'm like I'm dating a duk. Lord's jokes.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
So when you then move into this next chapter of
your life or the next I mean that sounds too
defined to say chapter because it kind of feels like
a flow. It's like you're in flow and you now
have this person by your side. What difference does that
(35:32):
make to a creative life?
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Oh my gosh, it like it gives me even if
I'm not at Nashville at my house, like he is home.
You know, I'm saying, like we even go on to
minds now and I can facetarm him and just for
a minute, I feel like at home. He he helps
me kind of come back down to my center and
(35:56):
he's just my biggest cheerleader.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Really and you were a cheerleader. Yeah, you got with
a football player, do you seek? And then so you
live together now?
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (36:10):
And when you what does your family life look like?
Speaker 3 (36:13):
What does your home life look like? Dog two Dogs has.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
A little black lab. Her name is Willow and she's
the sweetest dog. And prior to douck. I had one
name Hippie, and she is a French bull dog, right
and so yeah, yeah, she looks like she got hit
by a portore. But it's just us. We light load
up on the on the four by four, the side
(36:40):
by side and right around and we do all the
simple things in life like that's that's the things that
that bring us the most happiness, like running down the
road and going to hang out with the neighbors and
things like that.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
So if you had a plan for yourselves, what does
that look like?
Speaker 1 (37:03):
We definitely want to have a face family, you know.
That's that time's a ticking.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Time's always a time is always a Time's always a ticking.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, But I think him and I both would be
good parents, and I'd love to see him be a dad.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
So, well, you'll getting married first.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, we're gonna get married. We're gonna do the whole thing,
and kids will be you know, kids will be later,
but we're definitely gonna do it.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
When you when he proposed to you, where where was that?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
We were at George Jones old house. So there's like
he had this house that I've been wanting to go
see for a long time and Duck was like, all right,
we got like my buddy, he's he's doing a house showing,
and he told me where the key's at so we
can go over there and look. And then when I.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Walk up, what's the story with his house?
Speaker 1 (37:54):
It's just I'm a big fan of George Jones and
he lived there for quite a long time and I
think wrote a bunch of his music there afforded there,
and I just wanted to see it, and so he
knew that it would be pretty special to do it
there on the doorstep. I couldn't say no.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Were you expecting?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
I had to do about it earlier that day because
he was acting a little weird. Yeah, he was like,
he's like, hey, can we do that breathing exercise that
you normally do? And but then I had talked to
myself out of it because I was like, I don't want.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
To be mad if you don't yeah, or disappointed or yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
And then the moment.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
And then it happened, and then I was like, well,
now we're really doing this thing. We're really doing it.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
If you had seen your life when you were nine,
which she kind of did see, I guess in a way,
what part of it would you have had to stand
by yourself the most Oh.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
My gosh, you mean like which part rephrase that?
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Where would you have needed to hold your own hand?
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Oh my gosh, it has I mean to tell you
the truth, there was like when I was living in
my camper. Those first three years were some of the
hardest days, some of the like darkest days. But I
could still see like this tiny little lake, you know,
light at the end of the tunnel. Because my producer
at the time was very, very sick and like he's
(39:32):
Jerry Cupid, the guy that was let me live in
his studio a parking lot, and so he ended up
passing away. And at that point, I'm like, this is
the only guy that I know in Nashville, right, this guy?
And what do I do now? And I knew what
he would want me to do, and that was staying.
So I started over completely started over.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Right, Where did you move the camp of VA?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
I sold it right because to pay to like park
it in a koa, yeah, the cost just as much
as an apartment.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
And also that camp had seen some batter days.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Next, Laney shares the full circle moment of meeting Miley
Cyrus after years of performing as Hannah Montana. So in
your life, what do you attribute your I'm going to
say success, but that sounds like kind of a commodification
(40:34):
of what you are.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
But you know what I mean, like the unfolding of
yourself and the living up to the promise of yourself.
What do you attribute that to?
Speaker 1 (40:45):
I think it is like at the root of all
of it, I think it is a weird sense of
peace that the Lord put on my heart when I
was a little girl, Like it is something that I
just it was a weird feeling of like I need
to trust this feeling right, whatever this is just felt divine.
(41:07):
It felt like I would be an idiot to not
listen to it, and so I felt like I owed
it to myself to see it through as long as
I possibly could.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
You know, it's interesting because Australians are very not like Americans.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Americans, it's very common.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Particularly it awards, people will thank God, praise Lord, et cetera.
Australians are generally very uncomfortable talking about notions of faith
or God, and yet there's something like just the voice
in you seems like it's come from Yeah, it something divine.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah, it feels like I don't know, just like thinking
back to that specific feeling that I remember having exactly
where I was only interstate to like telling my parents
to everything that has happened, just even the opportunities that
I'm getting now, and how it feels like you like
come up to a roadblock and then it's like you
(42:08):
take a right left, but somehow it is you, you
like had the team around you that helps you figure
out which to take and then you end up to
the next thing. But it all still feels like I'm
right where I'm supposed to be, and I'm like, there's
got to be something else involved, you know, this is
not me, Like I'm just a vessels. That's what I
(42:29):
feel like. I'm just so thankful that I get to
like make people feel something because it makes me feel something.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Well, that's the That's the gift, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
When you, for instance, met Miley Cyrus after having played
Hannah Montana, did that feel like an extension of that?
Speaker 1 (42:51):
It did those full circle moments where you're just like
you've had a lot of this up, You've had a
lot of them. Yes, those moments And.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
How was she towards you when she was how did
she become aware of.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
You, probably through her sister Brandy, right, I think that's
that's probably how. But she's great. I mean we know
a lot of the same people. I told her. I
was like, Hannah Montana meant a lot to me. It
kept some money in the bank for five years from me.
So yeah, it's she has influenced more people than I
(43:31):
think that she even realizes.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Well, she's had a similar sort of journey, I guess
in terms of coming back to herself for sure, and
the truth of herself and unapologetic, unapologetically herself.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I think she is a rock star. Oh, she's a
rock star.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Your work ethic is.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
You know, speaks for itself really, But you're at a
point now when you could choose to take your foot
off the gas a little, Like even turning up here
today is not necessary for you, you know what.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
It's probably one of those things for me where I'm like,
I will probably be eighty years old still doing this stuff,
like I just love it that much and if I
can like reach one more person, then sign me up.
I don't really know any other way to be no
like any other gear, you know. I mean, there might
(44:30):
be times in my life where I'm kind of coasting
along a little bit more. But I don't know. I'm
just trying to take advantage of the opportunity and especially
like being over here. We don't get to come over
here a lot.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
No, no, And the Americans will say, fixated on what
a long way away these that's whereas for Australians to
go anywhere, we have to travel.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
That's that's right. But I enjoy playing music here, I
enjoy the people here, I enjoy I think it's just beautiful.
There's something really special about this place. And so I'm
just trying to, you know, lay the foundation of so
I can come back. I want you to have me back, please, I.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Will have you back. We'll have you back with your husband.
We'll have you back with your baby.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Dogs are difficult, because I know I heard I'm a
paranoid about I've heard dogs from overseas. Hipp you want,
but otherwise we'll have every part of you.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Okay, I'll take you up on that.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
What was Keith Urban's advice again? What did he say?
Speaker 1 (45:26):
There's been a few. He told me it's it's better
to maintain balance right than try to always be achieving
it right. He's told me. I ran into him and
I was so tired. I had been on the road
just I think we played one hundred and eighty something
shows that year, right, And I saw him and I
was telling him. I was just like, I'm tired. And
(45:46):
he was like, no whinning on the yacht. And I
was like, Keith, you better get about my face.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Goodness, that's a better expression. You're on the yacht.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, no whinning on you.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
But what do you do out of interest? Because we
all know those times you're expending a lot.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
Of energy, even just physically to.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Be match fit, when you do feel like you're depleted,
when your tank is depleted, how.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Do you.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Quiet time a long time, just like being by myself
do and breathing exercises, like trying to meditate, prayer time,
like talking to my family.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Do you exercise?
Speaker 1 (46:33):
I do. I try to ass look after itself. No,
But yeah, I don't necessarily love working out, but it's
just a part of something that I gotta do.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Yeah, it's part of the discipline.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Chop would carry water, that's it, and then after enlightenment,
Chop would carry water.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Motto to live by put that in a song.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
I know that's write it down.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
What do you want in the future. Obviously there's the
personal thing and the extension of your love and the family,
But do you hold like professional goals with they be
more acting.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
I definitely want to do more acting. It's something that
I've really.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
Like.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
I enjoy it. I didn't know if I was. I
don't know if I expected to enjoy it as much
as I do, because it's not taking me away from
my songwriting. If anything, it's like giving me another taste
of like stepping into somebody else's shoes. Yes, and so
it's just to create another creative outlet.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
And there's a lot of time when you're acting. There's
a lot of time waiting around.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
There is there is. I want to do more of
that if things keep going the way that they're going
right now, Like I want the shows to keep getting
bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. I mean we
have just in the last few years. I went from
not hardly being able to sell a ticket too. Yeah,
now I'm here on the other side of the world
and we're playing arenas arenas.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
It's so I'm like, we're going to the stadium.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Well, not that you want to question.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
The magic of it, but what do you think is
the magic of it? What's the magic of you?
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I think there's a few things. I think it's probably
my hard headedness, right, but also just like the belief,
like the belief that I can do it, and also
when other people around you believe it too. Yeah, you
know I believed it for a long time.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Well, hard head and big heart.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, that's a balance.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Ye, I think that's it.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
I think you got the balance right.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
I can act up.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
I can act if you, for instance, had just been
this little girl that had this beautiful voice and you'd
stayed would you have stayed on the farm, What would
life have looked like had you not chase the dream
down the driveway?
Speaker 1 (49:11):
It just was so never in the cards for me
that like it was I would be living a very
miserable life. Not because I don't love my family and
where I'm from and whatever, but it was like this
thing inside of me that was just like, go do it.
I'd probably be married to somebody I grew up with
(49:31):
and farming, or I'd probably be a teacher, right, like
my mama was a teacher, All of my aunts my granny.
I love kids, I love like special needs kids, and
I'd probably be doing something like that and yeah, still
living a very simple life. But and I'd probably be
coming home from teaching school and still writing songs.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, because that you had the music in you and
you've shared it with the world.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
Yep, and the world is really enjoying it.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Oh that makes me.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Uh, the world is loving it.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Well, thank you, thank you for sharing yourself with us.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
You this great.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Oh I love it. I love it, I said to
my Well, I do. It's interesting to know what I think.
There's often the external, and particularly now with social media
or whatever, we're very conditioned to judge things by the external,
and people often have comparison, which is why I think
(50:34):
people are.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
So emotionally briefed.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
And then to meet someone who's shared themselves so openly
but has also had the calling is quite extraordinary. I
think there's a lot in that for people who to
try and live up to their own dreams for themselves,
(51:00):
to advocate for yourself.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
That's right, that's what I want. Like all the little
girl and little boys that come to my show. The
reason I'm like people have told me, like Laney, don't
tell people that you've been in Nashville for fifteen years
and blah blah blah blah blah like that kind of
like datsha, right, and I'm like, oh, hell no, these
kids are gonna know yeah that, like I have spent
(51:22):
a long time to get to this point. Things don't
happen overnight.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
She roll up your sleeves and you get it done.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Yeah, you know you're getting it done. You're getting it
done and done. Laney Wilson, you are a piece of gold.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
Back at you.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
What struck me most about this conversation was the quiet
sense of peace. Laney describes the one she felt at
nine years old, the certainty of it, and the discipline
it took to honor that feeling for fifteen years. There's
something incredibly reassuring about hearing someone say it took time.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
It was hard.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
I doubted myself and I kept going anyway. Thanks for
listening to No Filter. The executive producer of No Filter
is bre Player. Audio production is by Jacob Brown, and
video editing is by Josh Green. This episode was recorded
at Session in Progress Studios, and I'm your host, Kate Langbrook.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
I'll see you next Monday.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
waters that this podcast is recorded on.
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Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.