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Ingrid Andress is ready to move on from her controversial national anthem performance.
In her first interview since going to rehab after her botched take of the “Star-Spangled Banner” at the 2024 Home Run Derby served as a wakeup call to her issues with alcohol, the country singer-songwriter opened up to Rolling Stone about everything that led up to her “worst moment” — and how she’s grown from it since. “I am sorry you had to witness that horrific rendition of our nation’s anthem,” she began in a piece published Thursday (March 6) .
“Whoever that was is not an accurate representation of who I am at all,” she continued. “You got to see me in my worst moment, so now, everything from here will be great.”
Andress went on to explain that, by the time she stepped onto the field in Arlington, Texas, last July, she’d already been accustomed to drinking before gigs to numb unresolved feelings about her career and a certain breakup — and that day was no exception. Up until then, however, she’d “never let it get in the way of my performance,” she told the publication. “I liked the numbness … That’s part of how it got out of control.”
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This time around, the “More Hearts Than Mine” singer said she was too “blacked out” to hear the anthem’s starting pitch in her in-ear monitors, which contributed to the pitchiness and questionable melodic choices viewers witnessed that day. “If you don’t start on the note that it gives you, you’re screwed,” she explained. “It was my voice fighting with the tuner, which is a losing battle.”
Andress didn’t immediately realize how badly the performance went, but the online vitriol that followed quickly opened her eyes to how serious the issue was. She quickly drafted a statement at her team’s suggestion — “I’m not gonna bulls–t y’all, I was drunk last night … That was not me last night,” she wrote — and was on a plane to a rehab facility outside of her home state of Tennessee mere hours later.
“I didn’t run that statement by anybody,” she said in the interview, adding that she received messages of support from fellow women country artists such as Elle King, Kelsea Ballerini and Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild in the aftermath. “I needed to let people know that it’s not just this one incident that I messed up. ‘I need to get better. I’m at such a low place, I’m not gonna lie about it.’”
The four-time Grammy nominee has since completed treatment and, after spending months reconnecting with herself in her native Colorado, redeemed herself with a second national anthem performance at a recent Colorado Avalanche hockey game. On Monday (March 3), she also released her first song since the debacle: “Footprints,” a musical “reminder to all the people I love the most, and also to myself, that I’m out here trying my best at this ‘life’ thing,” she wrote on Instagram this week.
Of what her redemption arc has taught her, Andress told Rolling Stone, “I learned to not ever let your past dictate what you can do in the future.”
She added, “Sometimes it takes a little public humiliation to turn your life around.”
Country Music Hall of Famer Randy Travis‘s life and career will be spotlighted in the upcoming biopic Forever and Ever, Amen, which will also star his fellow country singer Clay Walker, Travis announced on Wednesday (March 5) during his performance at the Grand Ole Opry.
The film is currently being cast by Anne McCarthy, Kellie Roy and Morgan Robbins at Engine Casting; the role of Travis will be portrayed by three actors. Walker will play Travis in his 40s and 50s, while casting is underway for actors to portray him as a child (around 9-12 years old) and at 20-30 years old, according to the press release.
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Writer-director Andrew Hyatt will direct from his own script, while Travis and his wife, Mary Travis, will serve as executive producers alongside Walker.
“We’ve been approached many times through the years about doing a movie … but the timing or team has never felt quite as good as it feels right now,” Randy Travis said in a statement. “With Clay on our side, and the creative direction he and the producers have, I feel good about telling my story through this medium.”
Walker added: “Randy Travis is the voice of a generation and one of the greatest country singers of all time. I am truly honored to be a part of this project, and cannot believe I get to play one of my heroes.”
The biopic will spotlight Travis, who sparked a time of surging sales success in country music in the mid-1980s, when he ushered in his traditional country sound and unmistakable, burnished voice on hits such as “Forever and Ever, Amen,” “Diggin’ Up Bones,” “1982,” and “On The Other Hand.”
The biopic’s titular song earned single of the year honors from the Country Music Association in 1987, while his album Always & Forever was named CMA album of the year, stayed at the pinnacle of Billboard‘s top country albums chart for 43 weeks, and sold 5 million copies. Travis’s subsequent five projects also reached platinum sales status. Along the way, he won numerous accolades, including the CMA’s horizon award (1986) and male vocalist of the year honor (1987-1988), the ACM’s male vocalist honor (1986-1987) and Grammy accolades for best country vocal performance, male, in 1987 and 1988.
Beyond music, Travis made his mark as an actor in film and television, with roles in films Black Dog, Maverick, The Rainmaker, The Legend of O.B. Taggert and The Wager, and television series including Touched by an Angel, King of the Hill and Matlock.
He made a music comeback in the 2000s, thanks to his country-gospel hit “Three Wooden Crosses,” which won song of the year at the CMA Awards and a GMA Dove Award for country song of the year. He released country-leaning gospel albums including Rise & Shine, Inspirational Journey and Passing Through.
Nearly 12 years ago, Travis suffered a stroke which limited his ability to sing and perform, but he has continued to release original music with the help of new AI technology.
Rascal Flatts announced their upcoming star-studded collabs album Life Is a Highway: Refueled Duets on Thursday (March 6). The project due out on June 6 through Big Machine Records will feature 10 re-imaginings of the country trio’s most beloved hits with guests including Kelly Clarkson, the Backstreet Boys, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean and Carly Pearce.
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“It was such an honor to create this project with such incredibly talented artists, it’s a pretty indescribable feeling having your colleagues and friends do your songs in such unique ways and knock your socks off with the results,” said lead singer Gary LeVox in a statement. “This album is just another attempt for us to thank our fans for the blessings they’ve given us on this crazy journey the past 25 years, thanks for riding along with us!”
Rascal Flatts teamed up with the Jonas Brothers in January for the first single from the collection, “I Dare You,” which was written by the JoBros’ Nick Jonas with Dan + Shay’s Shay Mooney along with Dewain Whitmore Jr. and Tommy English. The song gave the Jonas siblings their first hit on the country charts after “I Dare You” spent a week on the Billboard Hot Country Charts (No. 31) last month; it is currently charting at No. 37 on the Country Airplay chart.
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Among the other acts who team up with LeVox, bassist/singer Jay DeMarcus and guitarist/vocalist Joe Don Rooney on the album are: Brandon Lake, Ashley Cooke, Jordan Davis and Halestorm singer/guitarist Lzzy Hale.
The country group is gearing up to kick off their Life Is a Highway tour in their hometown of Columbus, OH at the Nationwide Arena on Thursday night.
Check out the track list for Life Is a Highway: Refueled Duets album below.
1. “I Dare You” (with Jonas Brothers)
2. “Fast Cars And Freedom” (with Jason Aldean)
3. “My Wish” (with Carly Pearce)
4. “Mayberry” (with Blake Shelton)
5. “Stand” (with Brandon Lake)
6. “Summer Nights” (with Ashley Cooke)
7. “What Hurts The Most” (with Backstreet Boys)
8. “Yours If You Want It” (with Jordan Davis)
9. “Life Is A Highway” (with Lzzy Hale)
10. “I’m Movin’ On” (with Kelly Clarkson)
Since bluegrass artist and mandolin virtuoso Sierra Hull signed her first label deal at just 13 and released her Rounder Records debut in 2008, she’s long since grown used to shattering glass ceilings.
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In 2016, Hull became the first woman named the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)’s mandolin player of the year — and went on to win in the category five more times. She is also part of the acclaimed assembly The First Ladies of Bluegrass, who were the first women to win IBMA musician accolades in their respective instrument categories — in addition to Hull winning mandolin player of the year, her cohorts include Missy Raines (bass player of the year), Alison Brown (banjo player of the year), Becky Buller (fiddle player of the year) and Molly Tuttle (guitar player of the year).
So, the title of Hull’s new album, A Tip Toe High Wire, out Friday (March 7), nods to the ambition and uncertainty that comes with high-flying acrobatics—a feeling familiar to Hull, who is stepping out onto her own highwire, as the album marks not only her first release in five years, but Hull’s first as an independent artist after parting with Rounder.
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“It is so wild to think how different the landscape was for an artist releasing music than what it is now,” Hull tells Billboard, adding, “I’m so grateful to Rounder and the experience I got to have there. I feel like a lot of people start out their careers more independent, hoping to get signed or go the label route and then go back independent. But for me, [making records independently] is brand new.”
When Hull’s contract with Rounder had been fulfilled, she says, “I just felt like I wasn’t in a rush to make any decisions. I felt like it was a good opportunity to have a clean slate. I didn’t have an album that was about to come out, so I thought, ‘Let me take a moment of pause and see what happens.’ I don’t know if I’ll forever be independent. Who knows? But I felt like I owed it to myself to have this moment to experience it and learn from it.”
The album takes its title from one of the project’s songs, “Spitfire,” which Hull wrote for her late grandmother over two years ago. The song touches on the hardships Hull’s grandmother faced, including becoming a widow by 18 after her husband died in a drowning accident roughly a month after their wedding.
“There’s a lyric, ‘Tougher than thorns on a brier.’ That was her, this country woman who grew up in the boonies of Tennessee,” Hull says. “She grew up poor and never had a lot of education and things like that in her life, but she was just an instinctually smart woman. So much of what she had to endure, she fought her way through. When I think about something that I feel down about, sometimes I think of Granny and knew she would’ve been tough. She would do anything for her family and fight for all of us in the most beautiful way, but she ain’t going to take no crap from nobody.”
It’s a song that has fueled Hull as a creator and as a businesswoman in her new space as an independent artist.
“It can be a little scary stepping into this space,” says two-time Grammy nominee Hull, who pulled together a supportive team around her that includes TMWRK Management’s Paddy Scace and Dylan Sklare, and Wasserman for booking. “It felt like I didn’t have to ask too many questions to anybody else… It was me calling the shots. It’s different investing your own time and vision and financially, and all those things. I’m kind of putting everything on myself, but there’s freedom in that, too.”
Her first session for the new album stretches back to December 2021, when Hull did basic tracking for a couple of songs. But the project was sidelined as Hull took on roles providing instrumental work on a range of albums including Sturgill Simpson’s Passage du Desir, a John Anderson tribute album, Béla Fleck’s Rhapsody in Blue and My Bluegrass Heart, Tuttle’s Crooked Tree, and some of Brad Paisley’s recent music releases. She also toured with Simpson’s and Devon Allman’s bands, in addition to helming her own shows.
Those live performances informed A Tip Toe High Wire, which features Hull’s touring band, including Shaun Richardson on guitar, Avery Merritt on fiddle, Erik Coveney on bass and Mark Raudabaugh on drums. Hull had intended to tour with a full band to promote 2020’s 25 Trips, but the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered those plans. So, when the opportunity to hit the road reopened, Hull took advantage and those performances prompted Hull to draw in the tightknit feel of the live band into the new project.
“Just the inspiration of working with those guys [made me think] about what the music would feel like if they were part of it in the recorded setting as well,” she says. “It was the first time where I had written specific songs, thinking about how this group of musicians would sound playing on it.”
Hull and her bandmates worked to create a balance on A Tip Toe High Wire, upholding her reverence for bluegrass traditions, while simultaneously looking forward with unique collaborations.
“I wanted something fresh, new and maybe innovative feeling,” Hull says. “That’s always the desire for me as an artist to grow and learn, especially as an instrumentalist. I’ve been able to do fun collaborations, but I also just love good, simple songs. The other part of me is not trying to rewrite the script. I just want to do music that feels meaningful to me, and kind of lean into my roots all at the same time.”
The fleet-fingered instrumental track “E Tune,” an older tune on the album that features Fleck, was previously considered for Hull’s 2016 album Weighted Mind, and the 25 Trips album, but didn’t make the cut until now.
“It became a staple of our live show. Once we recorded it, I thought it would be cool with banjo. I’ve done so much with Béla Fleck over the past few years that I asked him to be on this track with us. When he played on it, it just kind of clicked in a way that I was like, ‘Okay, this is making the record. This is the moment.’ We needed that Béla Fleck magic on there.”
Hull produced the album with longtime friend and engineer Shani Gandhi. Other collaborators include Tim O’Brien on the balmy “Come Out of My Blues,” and Aoife O’Donovan on the harmony-drenched “Let’s Go.” The project’s lead single, “Boom” has been a frequent inclusion in Hull’s live shows for the past couple of years.
“It has a few versions of it,” she says. “There’s a real relaxed thing when we get to play this song, something joyful that you can lean into that relaxed nature.”
In May, Hull and her band will take the new music on the road, joining Willie Nelson’s 10th anniversary Outlaw Music Festival Tour, with a lineup that also includes Bob Dylan, Billy Strings, Lake Street Dive and Lily Meola.
There are a few things we know about Post Malone. The “I Had Some Help” singer is unfailingly polite, can 100% rip a Nirvana cover anytime you need him to and is a self-proclaimed master beer pong player.
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Except, that is, when he isn’t.
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According to Taste of Country, in a recent chat on CMT, Kane Brown revealed the story behind the picture that circulated a few months ago of himself, Posty, Jason Aldean and Jelly Roll playing beer pong at last year’s ACM Awards. Brown said he was teamed up with Jelly and, not for nothing, they beat Post and Aldean.
Because the internet is filled with haters, Brown took the opportunity to clear a few things up about the victory. “A lot of people are like, ‘Oh, who do you think won?’ A lot of people are like, ‘Oh, it’s Post and Jelly, ’cause they play all the time,’” Brown said. “Wrong! Man, I was killin’ ’em!” he added unequivocally before sharing the price Malone paid for the loss.
“It was water in the cups, it wasn’t beer,” Brown said. “But, he [Post Malone] was dumping his cigarettes in the last cup, and the table was super long. I was like, ‘I’m gonna hit this cup.’ He said, ‘If you hit this cup, I’ll drink it.’” Brown said he then made eye contact with Aldean and knew exactly what needed to happen.
“I looked at Post, and I said, ‘Drink up,’” Brown said he told Malone after landing the ball in the cup. “Jason just went, ‘Oh my God.’”
Watch Brown tell the story below.
Julien Baker and Torres made a stylish stop at The Daily Show this week, suiting up—literally—for a performance of their latest single, “Bottom of a Bottle.”
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The duo, both dressed in custom-designed Nudie-style suits by Union Western, delivered the introspective country ballad alongside a full band, set against a glowing stage backdrop.
The song is a highlight from their upcoming collaborative album, Send a Prayer My Way, due April 18 via Matador Records. Alongside “Bottom of a Bottle,” the album features 11 other tracks, including the previously released “Sugar in the Tank” and “Sylvia.”
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The project has been years in the making, with its roots tracing back to 2016 when Baker and TORRES first played a show together. That night, the idea of making a country album was casually thrown out. Nearly a decade later, that passing comment has turned into a full-fledged record.
In conversation with host Michael Kosta, Baker and Torres—whose real name is Mackenzie Scott—shared how their friendship and Southern roots naturally led to the project.
“Julien and I have been friends for a while and when the pandemic lockdown occurred I texted her, kind of out of the blue, because I’d been thinking about making a country record for while,” Scott explained. “But I didn’t want to do it alone. And Julien was the first person I thought of because she’s from Tennessee. I’m from Georgia. It just made sense.”
The duo also addressed the album being labeled “queer country.” “I’m certainly proud of that,” Scott said. “We’re queer. But if it were up to me it would just be country.”
To support Send a Prayer My Way, Baker and Torres will embark on a North American tour starting April 23 at The National in Richmond, Virginia, and continuing through May 12 at The Admiral in Omaha, Nebraska. They also have a string of festival appearances lined up, including a set at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, in late March and Zootown Music Festival in Missoula, Montana, in July.
Julien Baker is best known as a member of the indie supergroup Boygenius alongside Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Her 2021 solo album, Little Oblivions, debuted at No. 39 on the Billboard 200 and No. 4 on the Top Alternative Albums chart. Torres, an acclaimed singer-songwriter, has received critical praise for her 2021 album Thirstier.
As Carrie Underwood‘s career is about to come full-circle, the onetime American Idol hopeful is looking back to where she started.
In a new episode of the reality show’s Icon to Idol series posted to YouTube on Tuesday — just days ahead of the season 23 premiere, on which Underwood will make her debut as a judge — the country star rewatches her 2005 audition and gets emotional. In the old footage, a much younger version of herself sings Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” for the O.G. panel comprised of Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul, who unanimously push her through to Hollywood.
“I have no idea how that 21-year-old Carrie was able to muster up enough guts to walk into a room and audition in front of Simon, Paula and Randy, and the world,” Underwood says after the footage ends.
“At my audition, I think I was just trying to hold in all my emotions — literally, hold them into my body,” she continues, revealing that she still has her audition number memorized: “It’s tattooed in my brain. I should actually get a tattoo of that somewhere on my body. Because I will always be 14887.”
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A few months after her tryout, Underwood would go on to win the fourth season of Idol and kickstart a long, successful career in country music, complete with four top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 as well as four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200. She’ll soon experience what it’s like to be on the other side of the Idol auditions process once the next season of the show officially premieres Sunday (March 9), taking over Katy Perry’s vacant spot on the panel next to co-judges Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan.
She’ll also be the only judge to know exactly what it’s like to go through the show’s wringer. After rewatching her audition on Idol to Icon, Underwood also looked through the two-decade-old journal she kept while she was a contestant on the show and got choked up.
“I don’t even know if I could tell her what she’s about to experience,” she says in the video, fighting back tears. “Seeing myself, 21 years old, the world ahead of you. Obviously, it’s overwhelming, but you’re gonna do fine, kid. You’re gonna be OK. Just hold on.”
Watch Underwood get emotional after rewatching her Idol audition above.
Antioch, Tenn., native and Billboard 200 chart-topping artist Jelly Roll has some specific artists in mind when it comes to dreaming up his ideal potential Super Bowl Halftime Show.
During an appearance on the podcast Bussin’ With the Boys alongside his friend and fellow singer-songwriter Ernest, Jelly Roll discussed how, if the Super Bowl were to be held in his hometown of Nashville, he would love to see a country music-focused, multi-generational Super Bowl Halftime Show.
“You know what my dream would be?” Jelly Roll said. “When it comes to Nashville, they do a country music Super Bowl. And it’s not even about an artist — like it cuts to Garth [Brooks] on one stage, and he’s doing ‘[Friends in Low Places],’ then it cuts to Reba [McEntire] and then Lainey [Wilson], and then me and then Morgan [Wallen]. It’s like, 18 minutes.”
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“The whole landscape,” adds Ernest.
Notably, country artists have been well-represented in singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl, thanks to performances over the years from Brooks, McEntire, Charley Pride, Chris Stapleton, Mickey Guyton and more. But Super Bowl Halftime Show performances from country artists have been rare. In 1994, the Rockin’ Country Sunday Super Bowl Halftime Show was led by Clint Black, Tanya Tucker, Travis Tritt and The Judds. In 2003, Shania Twain was on the halftime show bill alongside Sting and No Doubt.
During the Jelly Roll/Ernest episode of Bussin’ With the Boys, they also discussed the artists they feel are going to be huge in country music over the next few years, naming artists including Ernest’s Big Loud labelmate Jake Worthington (on Big Loud Texas), Leo33 artist and “I Never Lie” hitmaker Zach Top and newcomer Chandler Walters. (Worthington and Top spearheaded a country music revival at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium recently.)
Asked how important it might be for modern-day country artists to appreciate the history of the genre, Jelly Roll and Ernest noted how they are drawn to artists who respect the genre’s rich canon of enduring songs and artists.
“In the grand scheme of things, I guess it doesn’t matter, but it’s something that matters to me,” Ernest said.
“It matters to me,” Jelly Roll agreed.
“I appreciate and gravitate towards the people it does matter to, and I feel like it is our responsibility to –I like doing covers of old records to keep those songs alive,” Ernest continued. “Jamey Johnson said it, too, he said, ‘As country singers, it is our responsibility to keep the spirit of those before us alive through songs’ — whether it be writing in that spirit, or covering those songs. Those songs are meant to be sung. Merle Haggard died, that doesn’t mean you can’t go cut his songs. The lifespan of a song has no cap on it. It’s gonna outlive all of us, either way.”
“My second Grand Ole Opry performance, I sung [a song by] Waylon [Jennings],” Jelly Roll added. “It was important to me. One, when I did it the first time … I thought this is a once-around-the-sun for me. When they brought me back [for a second Opry performance], I was doubling down, because I believe, like he said, that probably in the grand scheme it don’t matter, but to the community, it matters to some. I just love country music. Always have, so I just naturally … we flock towards the people [who love country music] … Dude, you’ve been out with me. I turn every bar into a honky tonk. As soon as I get into a bar, hook up my phone or show me where the TouchTunes is. I’m fixin’ to put $100 in this thing and run the gauntlet on y’all for the next two hours.”
Ernest added, “We’ll sit on the front porch at [Nashville venue] Losers [Bar & Grill] ’til four in the morning, hooked up to Bluetooth, playing old Hank Williams songs.”
Watch the full episode of Bussin’ With the Boys below:
When programmers gathered for the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville Feb. 19-21, they heard a scintillating version of the national anthem.
Tigirlily Gold, the Academy of Country Music’s reigning new duo/group of the year, delivered it with a fierce confidence, the kind of assurance that — based on the enthusiastic response — impressed a room full of hard-to-impress professionals. Considering that the duo had just released a new single, the timing was probably advantageous.
“We got such great feedback from that, and there were a couple of people who said they had tears in their eyes afterward,” Tigirlily’s Krista Slaubaugh says. “I’m just glad we were able to do a good job and kick off that week really strong, but I definitely don’t think it hurts.”
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That current Tigirlily single is an anthem in its own right, a celebration of small-town America built on casual acoustics and spacious imagery. And, as it did with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Tigirlily sings “Forever From Here” like it means it.
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“This song, for me personally, is the most connected I’ve ever felt to a song,” lead vocalist Kendra Slaubaugh Olson says. “I met my husband in our hometown of Hazen, N.D. We’ve been together for 15 years, married for over five, and when we wrote that song, I think I listened to it 100 times that night. I’m not kidding you — probably 100 times. I just felt so connected and so emotional about it. And just really felt like, for the first time, Jared and I had our song. It was a really beautiful moment.”
The title might have been “Forever From Here,” but the phrase that drove it was “harvest season.” It’s a major reason the song resonated so strongly with her.
“Krista had the title ‘Harvest Season’ in her notes for forever,” Kendra says. “Obviously, being from the Midwest, it’s a huge part of where we grew up. Our grandparents both farmed, and harvest season is just one of the most beautiful times of the year. It’s fall. The air is chilly, everybody’s combining. It’s very fruitful, so we really wanted to paint that picture.”
Krista floated “Harvest Season” a few times during 2024, but it didn’t feel like a natural phrase to end a chorus, and it never quite landed. However, when the duo held a short writing retreat with songwriter-producer Pete Good (“We Don’t Fight Anymore”) at the Santa Barbara, Calif., home of songwriter Shane McAnally (“Body Like a Back Road,” “Coming Home”), “harvest season” found its place. They locked into a breezy guitar foundation as they started the third song of the trip on Dec. 3, and Krista reintroduced the title. McAnally thought it was interesting, but he suggested it belonged in the middle of the chorus instead. He even whipped out a melody to go with it. They talked further about what North Dakota was like and started to shape a direction that paired a rural setting with a relationship.
“You’re painting this big open space in this beautiful scenery and geography,” says Good, who hails from South Dakota. “Somebody said that you can ‘just see forever,’ like, ‘Oh, I can see forever both with my eyes and also with my heart.’ ”
It set the tone for the verses, populated almost entirely by references to a stable, warm relationship and images from nature. “We used geese in a song, which I never thought we would use,” Krista notes.
The pre-chorus looked above the birds — “God turns on the stars” — pulling together multiple elements in the “forever” theme. “The most stars you’ll ever see in your life is looking up at a Midwest sky and just feeling so small compared with everything out there,” Kendra says. “To me, it’s like God painted that picture of the stars in the sky, because there’s no other explanation for that kind of beauty.”
As that pre-chorus eased into the chorus, they encountered the day’s biggest challenge: settling on an opening line for the sing-along section. They sifted through several options, ultimately embracing a phrase that places the adjective in the wrong spot: “I can see a house with the shutters blue.”
“A part of me knew it’s got to be ‘shutters blue,’ ” Krista says. “ ‘Shutters blue’ is weird. It’s just going to catch people.”
A passing mention of a prairie rose in the second verse further enhanced the sense of location, and of personal history. “I did a report on a prairie rose in fourth or fifth grade, and it really stuck with me that that’s the state flower of North Dakota,” Krista says. “So there’s a little bit of nerdiness to the song, which I really love as a songwriter.”
Santa Barbara is quite different from North Dakota, but writing in a room that opened to a large lot helped with the outdoorsy nature of the “Forever” lyric, especially since December falls in the harvest season for some of McAnally’s fruit trees.
“I think I ate about 15 oranges writing that song,” Good says. “I can’t pull oranges off a tree in Nashville, so when I was out there, I just couldn’t stop eating oranges.”
They built a simple work tape with vocal, two guitars and a drum loop, and the Tigirlily team got excited about “Forever” when it heard the results. The act recorded the instrumental tracks on Dec. 16 at Sound Emporium’s Studio A in Nashville. The first couple of run-throughs didn’t fully cut it, so an outdoor feel was captured by setting up a single microphone, campfire-style, with five musicians gathered around it: Drummer Evan Hutchings joined Krista and Sol Philcox-Littlefield on acoustic guitars, Todd Lombardo grabbed a banjo, and keyboardist Alex Wright took over on mandolin.
“That was the DNA of that particular session,” Good notes. “It’s just that breezy, acoustic sound.” Krista joined Good to produce the vocals, and she encouraged Kendra to keep her lead part light.
“I was standing on my tippy toes and smiling as much as I can — this is how I know to make it sound easy,” Kendra says. “That actually sometimes is harder for me to do than to sing a powerful song.” Krista added harmonies later, applying a high note first, then adding a low note beneath Kendra’s lead in key spots, particularly on the chorus and on a scorching “wi-i-i-ld” passage in verse two.
Jenee Fleenor also overdubbed fiddle, taking a solo and threading some choice shimmering notes at the end of the bridge. In the end, the personal tone and catchy chorus of “Forever From Here” helped it beat out a couple of other recordings to become the next single. Monument released “Forever” to country radio via PlayMPE on Feb. 13, and it’s already being embraced by dozens of stations, creating a sense that it could become the duo’s biggest single to date. Tigirlily Gold is cautiously considering what kind of success the recording might harvest.
“If this song goes No. 1,” Kendra says, “I’m definitely painting my shutters blue.”
Fatherhood hasn’t always been an easy journey for Jelly Roll, especially at the start. That’s because the country star was incarcerated when he first welcomed his now-16-year-old daughter, Bailee, with whom he had to fight hard for a relationship once he was released.
In an interview with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett on the trio’s Smartless podcast episode posted Monday (March 3), Jelly opened up about the “very slow” process of building a bond with Bailee after he got out of jail, back when his daughter was only about 2 years old. “Her mother, at the time … rightfully so [because I was] a f–king criminal, wouldn’t let me see her,” recalled the “Save Me” singer.
“So I had to go to court,” he continued. “I had to get supervised visits through the courtroom … I just had to keep going to the court every six months and going, ‘Look, I’m continuing to prove I’m changing.’ Music, being famous, wasn’t even a thought then. I just wanted to be a good dad.”
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Jelly — who is also dad to an eight-year-old son named Noah — now shares full custody of Bailee with his wife, podcaster Bunnie XO. “She’s got one of the highest GPAs at her high school,” he boasted of his firstborn on the podcast. “She’s a dual enrollment kid and is a junior going to college.”
The CMA Award winner ultimately served over a year with seven months of probation for an aggravated robbery he committed when he was 16. Years later, when he was 23, he was incarcerated again for drug dealing. It was during the latter time served that Jelly learned from a guard of his daughter’s birth, something he called “the most honest accountability and self-reflection moment of my life” on the podcast.
Jelly previously opened up about the epiphany in a 2023 interview with Billboard. “I’ve never had nothing in life that urged me in the moment to know that I had to do something different,” he said at the time. “I have to figure this out right now.”
The interview comes about five months after the release of Jelly’s album Beautifully Broken, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The star is currently on a headlining tour in support of the album, after which he’ll embark on a joint stadium trek with Post Malone in April.
Listen to Jelly’s full Smartless interview below.