rookie of the month

“Ain’t About You” singer HunterGirl had a “pinch me” moment recently as she was preparing for this week’s CMA Fest, where she’ll perform at the Chevy Vibes stage on Friday (June 7) and appear on the CMA Closeup stage on Saturday (June 8).

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“I had rehearsals with a band and I was thinking back to being 14 years old and playing shows — little Hunter would lose her mind thinking about all these cool things that are happening right now,” HunterGirl said in conversation with Billboard at the BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville offices.

Those “cool things” include not only being runner-up during the 20th season of American Idol two years ago, being announced as part of this year’s CMT’s Next Women of Country class in January and making her Grand Ole Opry debut in March, but also gearing up for the release of her major label debut EP, Tennessee Girl, out Friday (June 7) on 19 Recordings/BBRMG/BMG Nashville.

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Born Hunter Wolkonowski, HunterGirl grew up 90 minutes south of Nashville, in Winchester, Tennessee. She earned her stage name by being the only girl named Hunter in her elementary class. Inspired equally by the confessional songwriting of Dolly Parton and the fierceness of P!nk, HunterGirl made her way to Nashville soon after graduating high school, studying at nearby Middle Tennessee State University, while playing the downtown Nashville bars. She won a Nashville Songwriters Association International contest — and then came her career-expanding time on American Idol in 2022. HunterGirl grew up listening to Luke Bryan’s 2013 Crash My Party album, so her stint on American Idol nearly a decade later was full circle, with HunterGirl performing for and being mentored by Bryan himself.

“He’s always told me, ‘Just keep writing songs and always stay true to yourself,’” HunterGirl says of Bryan. “He’s just been such a champion for me since I was on the show and I’m very grateful to have him in my corner.” She will also open shows for Bryan this summer.

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Her EP includes “Ain’t About You,” which made HunterGirl the first female country artist in over three decades to write her debut radio single by herself.

“Ain’t About You” – which reached No. 53 on Hot Country Songs — detailed the deflating feeling familiar to so many aspiring Nashville hitmakers who watch as friends and fellow artists reach career milestones and framed the now 26-year-old as a clear-eyed purveyor of emotional depth.

“It was the most honest and vulnerable I’d ever been in a song,” she says. “I wrote it in my bedroom and never thought anyone would hear it. That song and people’s reception to it changed my songwriting because I realized people needed to hear the not-so-pretty parts of your life, the really hard things I was scared to say. After that it made choosing [songs for] the EP so much easier, because I’m like, ‘I’m just going to be myself and hopefully, it touches somebody else out there.’”

The six-song EP weaves in what HunterGirl calls “blue jean jacket songs” and “leather jacket songs.” She explains: “The blue jean jacket songs feel like me sitting in my bedroom and talking about my story, and the leather jacket songs are the ones that make me feel like I can take on the world and feel powerful. So the EP shows different sides of my personality.”

“Bad Boy,” an up-tempo rocker with lyrics that gush over a tattooed, cigarette-smoking guitar player, is a decidedly “leather jacket song,” HunterGirl says.

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“I wanted to write a song about my terrible taste in men,” says HunterGirl, who wrote the song with writer-producer Lindsay Rimes and Greg Bates. “I was out after a show and a guy pulled up on a motorcycle, and later I just started singing the lyric, ‘I got it bad for a bad boy.’ I took the idea to them and we just got in the studio and had fun.”

Billboard spoke with HunterGirl, our Country Rookie of the Month for June, about her new EP, songwriting, her passion for supporting the military and more.

“Ain’t About You” was a solo write for you. Why is songwriting such an important aspect of your artistry?

I write every single day. It’s just unloading my day in my diary or in my notes app. I feel like I need to write my songs just because I’ve gone through different circumstances, and I feel like I can talk about them with my audience. I feel like whenever I’m writing a song, it just lets me sit with everybody else and say, “Hey, this is me as a person.”

Do you have a favorite lyric on the EP?

I love the line in “Pretty Much” that says, “Who decided what pretty was?” Even as a young girl, I just worried about how I looked — “Am I wearing the right outfit?” — or when your friend takes a picture and you’re scared to look at it. I’m finally getting to a phase in my life where I’m like “I just want to be myself, say the things I want to say, and be who I want to be — and if you don’t like it, that’s okay.”

A standout on the EP is “Clockworks,” which you wrote with Rimes and JoyBeth Taylor. What do you recall about writing that song?

JoyBeth brought up the title and idea for “Clockworks,” and I thought, “Oh my gosh, that’s my grandpa.” We were just talking about all those moments I wish I could live again. I feel like things move so quickly and I forget to live in the moment sometimes. Whenever I sing that song in my set, it’s a reminder to live in the here and now. I dedicate that song to my grandpa and I just feel like everyone should take that trip, or make that call and tell people you love them while you can.

You come from a family of military veterans. How does that influence your work with military-focused organizations?

Yeah, my grandpa, my great-grandpa, six of my great-uncles, all of them. I grew up around military people. I started working with veterans when I was 17, and I started writing with organizations like Operation Song, Freedom Sings, and A Soldier’s Child. A lot of times, when we write these songs and record them, and then the families hear them, it is the first time the families are hearing about some of the things they went through.

In 2020, I started a female veterans class on Zoom, and it became a community of support. I think when veterans come home, they can feel lost, and that’s what my grandpa and others in my family have felt. Giving back to veterans is important to me, because I’ve seen how much it can change a person to write a song.

When did you first realize you had musical talent?

I started singing at three years old, singing with my grandpa in church. I wrote my first song at nine and some of my first performances were talent shows and county fairs. I played parking lots and car shows, I played them all. Even though they didn’t have any musical background [my parents?] just told me if I wanted to do this, I had to work hard. My family worked multiple jobs, so I saw how hard they worked and that was built into me as a kid.

Did you take guitar lessons or were you in bands in school?

I learned piano by ear first, then I wanted to learn bass because I wanted to be in a band and they needed a bass player, so I sang lead and played bass. Then I learned guitar so I could write on guitar. I want to get back into playing bass. My bass is still at home, and I think my mom is going to bring it up during CMA Fest.

You moved to Nashville and studied music business at Middle Tennessee State University. How do you feel like that prepared you for your career?

I feel like I learned a lot about music and who I am as a person. The songwriting program is great there, and [Grammy-nominated songwriter and MTSU associate professor] Odie Blackmon is amazing, and [MTSU dean of the College of Media and Entertainment] Beverly Keel has been such a champion for me, and for all women. I think I punched the passport for every bar on [Nashville’s Lower] Broadway, going to school while playing shows seven days a week.

I put my classes super early, at like 7 a.m., and then would go to Broadway, play eight to 12 hours, and then drive back to Murfreesboro [Tennessee] to do it all again. I don’t know what kind of coffee I was drinking back then. I remember sometimes someone would say, “Play something that you wrote.” Playing covers for eight hours, then you get to sing your own song? God bless people like that.

What was the first song you fell in love with?

I remember hearing Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” for the first time, just sitting there watching with my dad and Pa. They loved Dolly. I remember thinking, “I hope I can write a song like that one day.” You feel every word she’s singing, and she says such complex things in the most simple way. It feels like you are talking to your best friend.

What was the first concert you went to?

I went to the Southern Ground Festival here in Nashville, with Zac Brown Band. It was so fun and I got to see Willie Nelson perform, so it was incredible.

Who would you most love to collaborate with in the future?

I would love to collaborate with Dolly or Reba McEntire at some point and on the other side of the spectrum, P!nk, definitely.

Tucker Wetmore has earned massive breakthrough success over the past few months with a pair of hits — “Wine Into Whiskey” and “Wind Up Missin’ You”— that have accelerated the 24-year-old’s status at the forefront of country music’s crop of newcomers.

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In December, Wetmore teased the moody heartbreaker “Wine Into Whiskey” on TikTok and the video snippet surged, earning over 6.5 million views to date. He officially released the song in February, and by early March, the song had made its debut on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 — later reaching a peak of No. 16 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart in April, and earning 63.4 million total official on-demand U.S. streams to date, according to Luminate. In late March, he followed that breakout hit with the romantic “Wind Up Missin’ You” — which eclipsed its predecessor on the Hot Country Songs chart, reaching No. 11, and has earned 47.9 million official on-demand U.S. streams to date.

“Wine Into Whiskey” had a darker feel, a more sad-ish vibe. I wanted to follow that with something that showed the other side of me,” Wetmore tells Billboard. “I go straight out of the gate with two different sides of the spectrum. From there, I’m not really in a box from here on out. It was a good roadmap.”

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Seated in an office at artist development/publishing company Back Blocks Music, Wetmore is excited about another newly achieved target — his new GMC Denali truck. “That’s been a goal of mine for years now — I wanted to treat myself to getting a truck,” he says.

That vision-setting has aided Wetmore in reaching career milestones at warp speed. He recently signed with WME for booking and has attained his enviable run of success as an independent artist — though he’s fast closing in on a label deal, which he hopes to announce in the coming weeks. In the process, he’s charging through the tally of goals he set for himself just a few years ago.

“I gave myself three years to get a publishing deal; I knocked that out in one year,” Wetmore recounts. “I gave myself five years to get a record deal. I gave myself four years to get on my first tour and knocked that out in three. I was just very goal-oriented.”

Growing up in Kalama, Washington, Wetmore says music has been a constant in his life (he began playing piano at 11 and took up guitar soon after). However, through college, he devoted himself to a variety of sports — including football, track, pole vaulting and basketball. During his senior year in high school, he earned four state championships, in football, pole vaulting, Mens 4×1 and men’s track team. He went on to play football at Montana Technological University, where he majored in business and information technology.

When a sports injury sidelined him, he shifted his laser focus to music. He moved to Nashville in the fall of 2020, as the world was still deep in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. He released cover songs on TikTok, but it was one of his original songs, “I Think It’s You,” which prompted Back Blocks founder Rakiyah Marshall to reach out.

“I only had like seven original songs by that point, and she DM’d me and asked to set up a meeting,” he recalls. “In that first meeting, she was like, ‘What are your goals?’ I said, ‘I want to sell out stadiums and I don’t want to be put in a box.’ I’m too ADHD to be like, ‘This is one sound for one person.’”

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With the success of “Wine Into Whiskey” and “Wind Up Missin’ You,” he’s already taking his first steps toward both goals. Wetmore has opened shows for Kameron Marlowe’s The Strangers Tour, and will open shows for Chris Young and Jason Aldean this summer, before joining Luke Bryan’s Farm Tour later this year. Between shows, he’s writing songs and working on his debut album, which is expected later this year — while his new single, the 808s-driven “What Would You Do?,” comes out May 24.

Billboard’s Country Rookie of the Month for May, Wetmore spoke with us about songwriting, the influence of Jerry Lee Lewis, and why he’s not afraid to share his music in a raw state on social media.

You wrote “Wine into Whiskey” and “Wind Up Missin’ You” in the same week, but “Wine” became your first breakout song. What is the story behind writing “Wine into Whiskey”?

It was the day after my birthday, and I was hanging out with [‘Wine into Whiskey co-writer] Jacob Hackworth that weekend. We showed up at a writing session with [songwriter] Justin Ebach that day and were tossing ideas around, but nothing stuck. Then, Justin pipes up and says, ‘Sorry guys, I’m hungover right now.’ Me and Jacob started laughing and were like, ‘Oh, thank God, because we are, too. We do not feel good at all.’

Then a few minutes later, Ebach told us about the idea of ‘Wine into Whiskey.’ We loved it, and it just kind of poured out onto the paper. There was something special in the room that day, for sure.

You’re not shy about sharing bits of songs in their unfinished state on social media. Why has that been important to you?

It’s an art. You can show polished-off versions of everything all day long, but then people don’t connect as well because they think everything you do is perfect. Not everything we do is perfect. We have steps and we have processes for everything. Showing them the first stages is important. The vocals on the master of “Wine into Whiskey” are the day-of writing vocals. When we wrote it, I was like, “Hey, there’s magic in it. It’s special.”

I do get some comments — like, on “Wine into Whiskey,” we originally had some snaps on it. Some people liked it, but it sounded tacky to me. If someone likes that version, they can go listen to it.

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Your family is musical — what are some of your memories of growing up around music?

I come from a Samoan family on my dad’s side, and they’re all very musical. If you’ve ever hung out with a bunch of Samoans, it’s lots of love and everyone singing. My grandpa was a pastor — and growing up around church, if one person starts singing ‘Amazing Grace’ in the kitchen, the next thing you know, you’ve got a 12-voice choir harmonizing. My love for music just stemmed from watching my family.

When did you discover your own musical inclinations?

My mom tells me stories all the time that she remembers me being three or four years old and harmonizing to 3 Doors Down songs with my uncle. When I took up piano, I played by ear. I would watch YouTube videos and learn Elton John and Billy Joel — or even classical, like Beethoven.

Then I found Jerry Lee Lewis. I fell in love with his boogie-woogie type of bluesy piano playing. I remember going to the music teacher in high school and showing him a video of a guy playing a Jerry Lee Lewis song. He taught me a C-blues scale. I took that and ran with it and just learned a lot by listening.

You have been out on the road opening shows for Kameron Marlowe’s Strangers Tour. What has having his support meant to you?

Kameron is one of the best people I’ve ever met my life, hands down. He’s such a solid dude, and I couldn’t think of a better intro tour than Kameron Marlowe. Back when I was learning cover songs, I learned Kameron’s “Giving You Up.” He truly believed in me before any of this — we had teased ‘Wine Into Whiskey’ when I got the call from his team asking me to come out on the road with them. Rakiyah was like, “Well, we can’t tour without any music.” So we were like, “Let’s go!”

What are your must haves on tour?

Jack Daniel’s. We take a shot of Jack before every show. We do a prayer, then we do the shot and talk about what our goals for the show are — what do we want to be better tonight than last night?

What is a song you’ve been listening to a lot lately?

“Easy on the Eyes” by Texas Hill.

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Who would you love to collaborate with?

It depends on the song, truly. I think collaborating with Alan Jackson, one of my favorites, would be super cool.

What is your “Desert Island” album?

Exodus by Bob Marley and the Wailers.

How would you describe your upcoming album?

I’ve been working on songs for three or four years. The project is going to be all over the place when it comes to ideas—some cool country-type stuff, some that are more of an 808s-type of vibe. And there’s one song I’m definitely playing a little piano on, too. “Wine Into Whiskey” did what it did, and it was really cool, but I don’t want it to just be a moment; I want to use the momentum to build something great.

On Georgia native Peytan Porter’s six-song, sophomore EP Grown, out Friday (March 1), she sheds light on a creative revival, the culmination of dismantling — then rebuilding — her sound to reveal her true self.

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“This past six to 12 months has been just reclaiming my entire life and setting myself on a really good direction,” she tells Billboard.

Porter’s music career gained traction not long after her 2020 graduation from Nashville’s Lipscomb University, where she studied public relations. A year later, she signed a publishing deal with Jody Williams Songs and Warner Chappell Nashville and saw her song “Therapy” go viral on TikTok. She followed with her pop-country debut 2022 EP In My Head. But while her debut only showcased one dimension of her musical abilities, Porter says Grown feels more akin to who she is. The album is lush with introspective lyrics and gauzy, Laurel Canyon vibes.

Porter name-checks the modern sounds of folk-rocker Foy Vance and the blues-influenced Chris Stapleton, as well as more classic influences, including Fleetwood Mac and Linda Ronstadt’s 1977 album Simple Dreams.

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“There’s just a kind of drifter, free nomad energy that comes with that whole timeframe,” Porter says of the 1960s and 1970s scene that birthed music from Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, the Mamas and the Papas and more. “I was doing a lot of digging into that whole era and was inspired by how touring fueled the music itself. It felt like they hashed things out on the road and brought it into the studio. I wanted my music to sound like it does live and I can’t do that if I’m using track and synthetic sounds. This record feels like I’m stepping into my own.”

Porter, who is managed by Red Light Management, and repped by CAA for booking, will get the chance to showcase her new music this year at festivals including Tortuga Music Festival and Gulf Coast Jam. Beginning in June, she will also open shows for Tim McGraw on his Standing Room Only tour.

Billboard spoke with Porter, Billboard’s March Country Rookie of the Month, about the stories behind the songs on her new project and her journey toward her newfound sound.

What was the catalyst for creating your new album?

When my first record came out, I felt kind of lost. A lot of exciting things had happened fast, and doors were opening. I was trying to keep up and didn’t have the capacity to stop and create a direction for myself — it felt like I was going with whatever was popping up. When the project came out, it felt like a finish line of sorts, and for the first time I had space to pause and be like, ‘Is this the direction I want to go for the next 20 to 50 years?’ And I felt a resounding ‘No.’ There were so many parts of myself that I wasn’t showing, and that didn’t feel authentic. I’m not a good enough actress to have kept up the gig that long.

How did you take the time to recalibrate, creatively?

I spent a lot of time alone in the woods. I went on a dating hiatus. I tried to just be alone and figure out my style, independent of the people around me. I started making decisions and not asking for opinions. I cut my bangs, moved into a sketchy apartment and started decorating it with candles and weird mushroom decorations, gaudy gold and jewel tones. I figured out how to stop apologizing for what I like, and that bled into the music. Luckily, my team supported me. And I had turned 25, so it was like my quarter-life crisis. A perfect storm.

The title track of the album touches on the apartment and some of the rougher moments that come with figuring things out on your own. Are there any particular moments that inspired that song?

I wrote this after I moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Nashville. It maybe wasn’t the smartest decision I had made. I had an outside-facing unit, ground level. I remember it was New Year’s Eve and I’m in my bed journaling and I hear gunshots right outside of my window. I crawl out of bed and am sitting on the floor and praying for protection. I grabbed my guitar and just started capturing what was going on around me.

That moment was so far from what everyone back home was doing — my sister was expecting a baby, my best friend was planning a wedding — and I was going through this artistic shift. I remember thinking, “This is what you wanted.” I wrote like half of the song and brought it to Steve Moakler and Mark Trussell, to finish it together.

“God’s Hotel” has a more bluesy vibe and a message of self-acceptance. What feel were you going for on this?

On the road, we close with “God’s Hotel,” and then go into “Lean on Me,” and I wanted this communal kind of feel. When I go to a live show, I feel that. Finding a place where we all belong is important to me, because it’s a journey we all take of figuring out who we are, and then finding people who will let us be that.

You reunited with Greg Bates, whom you also worked with on In My Head. How did the process of working on this album compare with your first project?

I was much more hands-on sonically, with this record. I came in with playlists and vision for sounds and different instrumentations. He trusted me to know what I wanted. He pulled in players like [steel guitar player] Dan Dugmore, who played with Linda Ronstadt. He was intentional with the people he brought in and the sounds we used.

You recorded this album live, all the musicians in the studio together. How did that impact the feel of the EP?

We wanted to capture the live concert feeling. That meant not bringing in a blueprint of stems from a demo and working from it, but rather creating it in the moment. We played it all together and I got to sing with them on every take. There was this energy of it being a live shared experience, that I feel got captured. We did come back and tweak a few things after the fact, but I wanted it to feel like we were doing something together.

This time in the studio, I had a lot more opinions. I came in and saged the studio, and got it ready to be the kind of energy I wanted. It was the first time I felt like I had a voice in a space like that. It can be daunting with a mainly male presence in a room like that — to be a female artist, and come in and have a vision — but they gave me space to follow that vision.

“Run the Radio” is about a breakup, but also reclaiming freedom. What’s the story behind this song?

I was on a balcony on vacation, writing songs, and thought about this guy I had recently been involved with, who had lived in a van. I thought the experience was worth at least putting in a song. I thought, “I didn’t like any of his music” — and then I thought, “I didn’t like any of my exes’ music.” When I dated an athlete, I listened to hip-hop and R&B. I dated a mountain guy who was into obscure folk. The guy with the van liked EDM and house music. I realized I was trying to cater myself to him.

That’s when I had this idea of, “I run the radio now.” I only listen to what I like. The song came out so beautifully. The more I appreciate my own instincts and styles, the more I want to offer that feeling of freedom, strength, and just pure joy to people.

You signed with Jody Williams Songs and Warner Chappell Nashville in 2021. How have they championed this self-discovery season?

He’s the best person and guru. I remember saying, “Jody, I think I’ll just cut my bangs.” It’s like when you go through a break-up and you want to cut off all your hair — that happened creatively. And he goes, “Maybe start with a trim.” That’s the most Jody response — don’t blow up your life, but just start somewhere. And they have seen me through this crazy journey. They signed me to write songs, and then three months later I have a song take off as an artist. They have rolled with the punches and trusted me to know what I want for myself.

As an artist and a songwriter, how do you balance the demands of both roles?

It is a vast difference. Some days I’m making graphics at 1:00 a.m. and I have a [writing session] at 11:00 a.m. and a coffee meeting, and I’m doing all the artist things that people don’t realize we have to do. Then having to figure out what I get to put out as an artist and what songs I’m in love with as a writer. It’s a juggle; You want to honor the craft and that’s always hard in a commercial setting. But I love that I have the option of doing both; I think there is a time and place for both and I think country music, especially, kind of honors the people who can toe the line between commercial and craft.

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