Lainey Wilson is less than a week away from the release of Whirlwind, her third studio album. The 14-track record, co-written entirely by Wilson, is a glimpse at her life over the last couple of years, both with her meteoric rise in country music, and in her life behind the scenes, and her relationship with her longtime boyfriend, Devlin “Duck” Hodges.
“I share a lot of my life with the world,” Wilson explains to Newsweek. “I’m in a happy, healthy relationship, and I caught myself writing a few love songs, and finally found me a man worth writing about. So I wanted to show that. I wanted to show that I do have that side of me too.”
Wilson’s sophomore Bell Bottom Country album was released in 2022. That record, which included three No.1 singles (“Heart Like A Truck,” “Watermelon Moonshine” and “Wildflowers and Wild Horses“), was part of what propelled Wilson to one of the biggest country music superstars of this generation. In the last couple of years, Wilson has won too many awards to list, sold-out tour dates, been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, and more.
“Writing and recording this record just brought me a lot of peace during a time of my life that was constantly changing and spinning around and around, like a whirlwind,” Wilson says. “So it made me feel grounded and it made me feel at home. And that’s how I hope people feel when they hear it.”
Part of Wilson’s worldwide appeal is her ability to bare her soul in her music. It’s a gift that Wilson admits is also a double-edged sword.
“I’ll be honest. At times, it’s like a blessing and a curse, because you just keep reliving it and reliving it and reliving it and reliving it, even if you’re in a very happy, healthy relationship,” the 32-year-old explains. “If I’m writing a sad song, I am going to put myself right back there to where I felt like my world was falling apart. And I’m the kind of songwriter, well, I will probably feel that way the rest of the day.
“Whether you have to put yourself back in that place when you were 16 and you were going through it with a guy that you thought that you were going to spend the rest of your life with, or … my daddy was sick a few years ago. And those feelings right there. It’s those feelings that you never want to revisit again but if you need to connect to a time when your heart was breaking, you can’t help but think about those real moments.”
Courtesy of the CMA
Wilson is currently enjoying a Top 15 hit with “Hang Tight Honey,” the debut single from Whirlwind. It’s an entire project that the Louisiana native is mostly ready for the world to hear.
“Somebody actually explained it to me the other day, they said [an album is] like your four-year-old kid who is about to go to preschool,” Wilson says. “There’s a time where you’re like: ‘Man, I can’t wait for them to go to school.’ And the closer it gets to actually sending them off to school, you start getting a little anxious. And that’s kind of where I’m at right now.”
Wilson recently released “Good Horses,” her collaboration with Miranda Lambert from Whirlwind . The record will be released on August 23. Wilson is currently headlining her Country’s Coll Again Tour. Find all of Wilson’s music and tour dates at LaineyWilson.com.
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