Get Real with Caroline HobbyGet Real with Caroline Hobby

CAYLEE HAMMACK: Getting Real About How She Learned What True Love Means After Her House Burned Down

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Published Feb 17, 2025, 6:05 AM

Get Real with Caroline Hobby

Are you ready to get unstuck from your fears? Is there a burning desire and passion inside of you dying to get out? Do you know that there is more wai… 
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Caylee Hammack, dubbed the “Dolly Parton reincarnate,” has taken the world by storm with her raw, emotional lyrics and unforgettable voice. In her new album and book Bed of Roses, she opens up about the highs and lows of life, love, and loss. She shares a heart-wrenching story of how a close friends showed up after her house burned down, teaching her the true meaning of love. Plus, find out how former President Jimmy Carter helped shape her confidence as a performer. Get ready to be inspired by Caylee’s powerful journey.

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Adam.

Carrie Lyne, she's a queen and talking and you swim.

She's getting really not afraid to feel.

As episode and so just let it flow.

No one can do we quiet carry Lyne's time for Caroline Kaylee Hammock. Hello, I'm so glad you're here. I'm happy to be here, Caroline. Thank you for having me.

You're like the dog animal whisper too.

I love the critters and I saw that you had critters on a bunch of your podcasts, so I was like, this is gonna be good. Yeah, I want to do this interview please.

When we walked in, I was like, you met the dogs, and I was like, well, do you want to meet her other animal?

And you're like Kirby, yes, yes, I saw the one with Madeline Meurlau. Yes, that one was the one. I was like, what does she have? She has a beardy yeah, and so yeah, I had to cuddle just a little bit before we started the interview.

And I love that you even like relate to being a lizard too.

Yeah. I am a little bit of a lizard. As I was saying in the hallway right before we got in here, I have a couple modes that I go through. I had to explain to my boyfriend because now that I have someone in my life that is around all the time, when normally I was kind of more isolated, reclusive. When I wasn't on the road, I was sleeping, doing laundry, working out and crocheng or you know, doing something random for me. And you're a plant girl too, I feel like plant fanatic.

You just love all creatures and living things. You're like a fairy.

You like a whimsical fairy in the midst of nature, floating around with your beautiful wings, and I just feel like you're from an ether world. Do you ever feel that, like you're just like a fairy princess?

Thank you? Yeah, I think I was actually telling someone the other day. The biggest compliment is when a child is like, are you a prince? Or you know, they say something to you in the way that only a child can compliment you. Yes, and those are the biggest compliments. I'd way rather have children compliment me than anyone our.

Age, amen, because they're being real.

Yeah. So there is a little part of me that loves to kind of dress whimsical. I like whimsy, you know, I like the wayby soobby of gardening. I like being able to appreciate decay and appreciate compost and that part of the cycle of life and death and renewal in a way that it is around my garden. I think that there's many places where you can go see beautiful, manicured gardens, and then there's also gardens for yourself where you can just plant things that you want. I really love perennial gardening. I love secessional gardening. I like companion planning. I love doing Companion planning is actually using the other plants that you plant to help one another. So you plant things that are compliment menory to one another.

They're like a little village.

Yeah, they're a little village. And so it's like, say, you want to plant tomatoes, So tomatoes love to have basil nearby.

They do, and that how good does that go together?

Too? Exactly? And it's nice to plant it right outside your kitchen door because then it's like, oh, we're making pizza. Huh, I'll just grab some tomatoes and basil from my garden.

Why do they love to be next to each other.

I really don't know that. I just know that basil, for some reason helps with the taste of tomatoes. I've learned over the years. Also, I have learned that easy easy one is marigolds. Marigolds helped to plant everywhere. It doesn't have any type of diverse react reaction to any other plant. A big one that I always preach about when it comes to tomatoes and simple things like that that all of us love to eat. And it's easy to kind of get into gardening with. You can plant onions also in your fall time, sometimes in your spring if you want. But you can plant those around the tomatoes and it makes other pest not one to come near it because onions are.

Stinky, but they don't like affect the other things.

And the beautiful thing is also when it comes to planning.

Ruby loves you by the way. I mean, ruby is blown in at your.

Last so good. It's like when children approve of you and like you. Same thing with animals. I could take all the mean comments online in the world if I just had you with me all the time.

People don't give you mean comments.

No, not really. I mean people are nice okay for the most part. But also you know, I think that the bigger you get, the more negativity you get. I remember Laney telling me about some stuff that people would write to her, and I was like, why things that don't even make sense, Insults that don't make sense. And it's always some no offense, but some random older dude online that has like a comic as their profile picture or whatever. It's not normally people that I would sit there and go, well, I need you to like me. What is it If a dog commented something mean, it would wreck me. I'd have to go to a side.

Absolutely no, you're so right.

That's why I'm glad they can't do that.

But what is it like, it's not the critic account it counts, it's the man in the arena.

There's like a big quote. It's like the person who's criticizing who's not in it. I don't really want to hear what you have to say if you're not in the game, Like then step back.

I think was it Ernest Hemingway, I'm misquoting. I think the person. But there's a quote that says the critics are the ones that sit on the hill and wait until the war's over, and then they go down and they kill the victor. And it's just like, oh, ow, yeah, it's one thing I really do love to take is constructive criticism and encouragement from people that have went through things that I've went through. That's why I really feel like it's very important for artists in general to be behind one another creative people in general, specifically women m H. And Yeah. I like to get together with my female compadres in this industry, and I think those are the safest places other than true therapy, to talk about all these things that may feel like first world problems and entitled problems to have. But when you have the load that you have on yourself as an artist and as a creative, it's it's nice to be able to go to others and go I'm tired of getting glammed every day and I've had four hours of sleep and I am living the dream. But it's much harder than I thought this was going to be, and just you know, it's I think it's really nice to get those little stressors off your chest by talking about it in safe spaces. I am a big component of safe spaces. So do you feel like you have a safe space in life? Like? What do you feel like? How did you This is a cool thing I love to ask people how did you build your village, like your people that you go to for anything in life, but that community.

Well, okay, that's a great question. I started off. Thank you for turning the tables on me. Oh sorry, no, I love podcasts because it's really this is coming back to you too. I'll do mine briefly, but then we're going we really want to hear about your village.

Okay.

I'm from Waco, Texas, and I grew up in a great family. Like my parents are great, they had great friends. So I started off with friends of my parents' friends, like the kids who are still my best friends to this day. So I feel like I have like deep friendships. And then when I came to Nashville, it took me a long time to find a village. I was absolutely terrified when I came here. I moved here when I was nineteen, and I was just like super nervous.

Didn't know anyone.

I was moved from my hometown of Waco, Texas to here, and like was overwhelmed. I was also chasing the music industry and all of that, and just like super intimidated, and I didn't have a lot of self worth back then. It's taken me a long time to get my self worth. I've had to like really develop, but I've still like pursued all my dreams despite the fact I did not feel worthy.

But I knew that they were my dreams and I was supposed to do it.

But I always felt like, oh my gosh, if people find out that I'm really a fraud and I'm really not worthy, then it's all going to be uncovered.

Or if they discover that you actually think you're good at something. I was always if someone said something nice about you, I have to put myself down. Oh I have to put myself down.

But see, here's the thing with you that's different. You were born with this voice. So like a lot of people, like myself. I'll use myself as an example. I have a lot of things I'm good at, but like you and your voice are in a.

Whole other stratosphere.

Like you are just like that kind of singer, Like you're like in the Celean dions of the world. Like you have like the voice that is like hand motion, but it can't be replicated. You know, although I do hear a little Dolly Parton in your voice.

Do you hear that.

People love Dolly it's just from being raised older.

But like you have a voice though that like you can't you can't learn to sing like you like, yes, I'm sure you can take lessons and you can learn things and like whatever, but like your tone, your texture, the way it all comes out like that is like a god given gift that you have.

And so were people hard on you about that growing up?

Like?

Were people do they get jealous of that?

No? I do remember one girl in high school when I won the pageant, the school pageant, she I didn't know, you know, I didn't own a BlackBerry. But I went to school the next day and they said, did you see what she wrote? And I guess BlackBerry had kind of like it's on Facebook or whatever you could put statuses and uh, anyways, you can tell I was a flip phone girl. But yeah, so many.

Of those oak like this.

But the thing is I remember her saying, like, you know, I didn't realize it was a talent show. I thought it was a pageant. And no, there's really I don't know as if life was hard on me because of my voice, I think I was harder on myself than I ever really allowed life to be.

Okay, I played that.

I think a lot of the turmoil that I have went through emotionally that has impacted me just as much as true tragedies in my life is because I was too hard on myself, really so very much.

So what are some of the things that you feel like you were too hard on yourself that caused you turmoil.

Well, once people started to acknowledge my voice, you know, I kind of went from the odd kid out to all of a sudden people liked me, you know, and I had something that was interesting. And I just remember for so long as a young girl trying to be whatever I thought people would like so that I could fit in and I could have friends and I could feel that connection that I always felt slightly like I was out on the outside and I couldn't understand it. And the minute that I started singing, I started to get accepted. And I know that sounds so bad, but then I started putting a pressure on myself that this is my personality, If this is what it is that gets people to like me and to listen to me and to hear me, I have to be the best. Then there's no there's no alternative. And then there's also that pressure of I can't mess this up. What if I mess my voice up? And then the one thing that all these people have invested in me and believed in me for, I've lost it. I've ruined it.

Oh my god. So you were stressed out about your voice?

Oh very much so so. Also, I have deafness that runs in my in my dad's side of the family, So I was always scared I would lose my hearing. I just was always panicked about it. Once I realized that I gift, I realized how sacred of a gift it was, and I was terrified to somehow mess it up. But I think a lot of my life I have been terrified to mess up. And at thirty years old, I can finally look back and realize that I I made things so much harder than they ever actually had to be. It gets to be easy. And I didn't realize that when I was younger. I didn't realize that I could forgive myself. I didn't realize that I could mess up and forgive myself. I didn't realize that all the mistakes you make they're great stories. When you get older. It's the stuff you laugh about with your friends, you know, it's the stuff you write songs about and people connect to, and you can reach people that are going through those odd moments too. It's as a kid. I remember the first biography we ever had written up, and there was something in it that I had said in an interview and it definitely didn't come across the way I wanted, but I had said something about I had always wanted a life that someone would write a book about because I loved books. I was just obsessed with books from a young age, and so I wanted something that was exciting and riveting and would make you want to turn the page. And I don't think I really realized what I was signing up for by trying to manifest that and pray to God every night, give me an interesting life, really, give me something fun. Give me was that never let me get bored? Yes, and he did that, Thank you for delivering. But you know it's I hated that because it sounded I said something about like, don't give me a normal life. The older I get, the more I realized that normal lives all are stories that could have books written about it. I mean, it's crazy when people ask, as a songwriter, where you get your inspiration, and I'm like, it comes from people's little stories they tell me a meet and greets. It comes from my daddy talking about his childhood. It comes from my mama talking about getting married at a young age and raising children in a little apartment. It's different things that I, uh, I don't realize. I guess when I was younger that I wish I had, but yeah, I don't know. It's one of those things that I realized I wanted my life to be so so very special and so unique, and I was so worried about it turning out is something great that I didn't actually enjoy some of the moments.

Where do you think that worry came from?

Oh, I don't know. A perfectionist thing of not letting refection writes down. And it's nothing to do with my parents. My parents were great.

Were your parents married, Yes?

My parents steady marriage, great, great family in the same home. You know, my whole childhood, which I really appreciate because my brain, I have to have a place. I have to have a physical place that feels like home, and I have to be able to think of that in my mind when touring gets hard or I'm gone for a long time, and I feel homesick, and I can't quite figure out why. I think. I don't know. I just was so very hard on myself and I thought that that would make me better, and maybe it did. You know, there was a push too. I wanted to know everything. And then I remember one day having like a true, a full blown panic attack, going one day, I'll know everything, and that was such an ignorant and I've thought, oh, then you get older. I think I had just started radio tour. I was four months in. I was like twenty two, twenty three, something like that, I think, And I just remember going to all these different places that right before I had signed i'd actually said in the interview or in the meeting with Universal with Mike Dungan, I said, you know, I've never been farther westn Texas. And then all of a sudden, I'm hitting every single major city in a six to nine month span, and I'm seeing all these places I never thought i'd ever get to see. I've only ever seen a movie's and I started going one day, if I keep doing this, nowhere will ever be new. And I am a very big person that I love learning things. It's my favorite thing to do. I absolutely love learning new crafts, learning new skills. That's why I'm restoring my house by hand. I love learning different techniques, and I love going back to the old fashioned, analog manual way of doing things. And so yeah, I just sorry, I'm really disjointed in a conversation, but this is so interesting. I remember having that naive fear of one day nothing will be new anymore. But then I realized, as I got older, I've only seen these cities through a plane window, a car window, or radio, you know, building window, And then I started realizing there's so much that I'll never actually get to know. Then that was kind of scary.

Mine blew up.

But yes, yes, but yeah, it is wonderful to live in a world that there's constantly something that you can learn and you can dive into. And yeah, sorry, so are you like an access service person?

Do you like to do stuff?

Oh? Very funny? Okay, I was actually thinking about asking you about your love languages. Okay, weird, Okay, sorry, I love this. I'm very much an acts of service person.

Because you're a doer.

Even saw like your Halloween costume that you made, you were going to like Ashley McBride Halloween party, and you like whipped together this full blown life on your house on your head with like chairs and the like.

Because what was the theme.

Of her theme was Halla Queen and she was like, so it has to say queen and the title or something royalty, you know, And I said, well, we just did the Lindyville Project, so you know, I'll be the Queen of the double white trailer because that was Dennis Lindy's, one of Dennis Lindy's biggest hits. And so I had polyester curtains on a curtain rod across my shoulders like the Carol Burnett skit of Gone with the Wind. And then I took a wig from the Just Friends music video that I haven't been able to wear since, and I just toughed it up, got the whole old hair extensions, jushed them up until they were just literally rat nests, stuck them in there high hide. But then I I went to Michael's and I got popsicle sticks and cedar stainer and you know.

But you're like a detailed person. It's like love details. Oh okay, see I hate details.

I love that you love details because like I'm looking at your videos and I'm seeing you like put together flower arrangements. I'm watching you in the garden. I'm seeing you build a Halloween costume. Your songs, like your songs that your new album that's coming out, Betta Roses. Every song on there is like such an intricate story, like it's so it's not just like a plug and play song at all, which love love all types of music, but yours are like it's a journey, like each song like we're in a world, like you are a detail, intricate, like you're in the world. Whatever you're doing, you're taking us in the world with you. And I really like admire that because that's that's You're like a full experience person.

Very much so. Maya Angelo has a great speech about it online, but she says, wherever she is, she's one hundred percent there. When she is there on stage, she's one hundred percent there. When she goes outside and she goes onto the curb and she calls a taxi, she's one hundred percent in that taxi. And I think that that's why it's so hard for me to document things. I really struggle. I can document it sometimes, but I find myself. If I videotape everything that I experience, I don't get to really experience it.

And that's the world we're living in these days, which I feel like is causing so much confliction with people, you know, because it's like you have to post it, but then it's like you're not you're missing out on actually living, or you're doing things for the post not for actually living. You know, how do you balance that because you have a very amazing social media page.

I don't. I don't balance it, no kidding. I have a great team around me.

Do you have boundaries with it?

Yes, to a certain degree. I don't really go through my feed. I reach out to friends directly, you know. When I want to chat and hang out, I post, I read comments. I try to go through dms, and then I look at funny animal memes because I've realized if if I'm not on the road, it doesn't matter. It can be my best friend. But they're playing a cool show. My brain, there's this little ten percent part that goes, you're not working. Look all your friends are working, You're not doing anything. You're not working, and I have just one day off or something, you know, But you're like I I'm not working, am I?

And then what does that do in your head? What's the spiral?

Self worth is only connected to my work?

Oh right?

Fortunately, you know, so I have had to. I think COVID really put that in perspective. How so it taught me that my self worth cannot rely just within my work. I you know, the Lady Gaga quote of your music won't roll over one day in bed and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore. You know, it's something along those lines. And I was very bad about putting off any type of relationships, anything that would ever distract me from music. I have done that for a very long time, and cut myself off from situations where I can grow within myself by getting to know someone and them getting to know me, just so that I could put music at the very top spot in my life.

It's a real thing, though. It's a real thing with artists.

Yeah, and I think you got to to a certain degree. There's sometimes there where I do think it's good when artists can insulate and isolate, as long as you're not in a bad headspace, you know. I think insulating and isolating for me is is good. We have this thing I'm doing one of those What's in a Bag thing for CMT and they were like, pick five things that you need on the road, and I was like that it goes into a small bag, this big. I have five hundred things I need on the road. That's why my backpack is like forty five pounds. But I was kind of looking through it and trying to figure out what is it that I really need more so than anything, and it's sound isolating headphones. I have to be able to have quiet to create. And I also if I want to stop creating, I have to have sound. Okay, so I watch a lot of stuff, I won't even listen to it, but if I need my brain to stop for a minute, I have to have sound. It's like, my it's a good problem to have when you're a songwriter, not a great problem to have when you're just trying to be a human on a day off. But it's if something is not going in the background, if a song is not playing, if something is not created or running through my brain, my brain takes silence as a need and an urge to create, and we have to create something. And if I'm trying to stay focused on just doing something else and not getting, you know, into a writing vortex. I have to have something randomly playing in the background. Interesting, interesting. Yeah, the little boys in my brain want to make sounds. They like sounds. We love saying.

You're a very creative person.

I'm I'm grateful that I get to be because it's a blessing. I mean, we get to think about it. What else could me and you be doing right.

Now, just sitting here chatting about what you've come up with in your head.

It's just that you've turned into reality.

I mean that's why I love doing this, because like I love getting to peek in, but I've been able to make this into like a job to peek into people's brains. You know, that's so creative, Like how cool just to have a conversation just to hear what you've dreamed up and how it's materialized in this world, isn't it?

And what you've learned from it.

It's just such a blessing. And I think that's why I knew that at a young age that this is not something you mess around with. And I was really hard on myself for that of this is something special. Not everyone gets to do what makes them the happiest every single day and make a living doing that. And yeah, it's the coolest thing with like making this new record, bet of Roses, being able to tell these different stories that from eighteen to thirty, trying to find myself in this world. I went through a lonely time as well when I moved to Nashville, and I like to remind people that community and village is gathered and gained through.

Years, years, years ago.

Village, you'reing it out.

I feel that's how it's taken me years.

Like I used to have a lot bigger of a village, and like the older I get, the more people fall off. Because to really be in your village, you have to weather some serious.

Storms, you know. So you weathered those storms on this album.

Yes, And a lot of it is about trying to find myself and find people, really trying to find my person. There was always an an undercurrent of a goal within myself that I just wanted my person.

Are you a hopeless romantic?

Oh God? Yes, That's why I write love songs and breakup songs so much. I fall hard, you know, and I have fallen hard for a lot of the wrong people, but they were the right people for the right amount of time. That's good and it's a blessing because I think that I had to go through all that to be able to write stuff that would connect and help other people. I used to tell people that if I could know that one of my songs helped someone through one of the darkest periods of their lives, then I need to be able to take that home and go to bed knowing God did my best. It's not about the awards, because every year there's new awards. Every year there is a group of people that block vote on somebody to win some award, and it's always an honor to get your name called. It's an honor to get to go to the awards, you know. And the biggest thing for me that I've had to hold on to is when a girl comes up to you and they tell you something about their personal life that they left a bad relationship because of this song and it helped them start a new somewhere or whatever it is. Those are the moments that, truly I can't tell you what they do. In my dark moments, they helped me get through to know that. That's why any pain that I've ever experienced was actually had a purpose, and I think for me, I desperately cling to I need to find some type of purpose, if not a reason, I need to find purpose within the bad parts of my life. And as a songwriter that is that's a wonderful thing that we get to be able to use as kind of our conduit of hardship.

When did you realize that the pain wasn't just pain, that there was a purpose to it, because that's like an awakening moment.

I feel like that takes a long time to get to.

Oh yeah, I U. When I was sixteen, I had had a scare where the doctor said it was stage two cancer and we're going to have to get this tumor out. I had lost feeling in my life for my hips down and it would come and go, and when the nerve failure stuff started happening, they realized that they needed to get it out as soon as possible. And I remember going into that surgery angry at God. I was so mad, and my dad said, you cannot go under being mad at God, and I prayed and I finally said, you know what, I don't know why you would do this to me, but I'm here and I'm too tired and I'm too weak to actually fight you anymore. And I was like, so, whatever you're supposed to do, and whatever this is supposed to be, then I'll go through it, but make it make sense. And so when I woke up and the funniest thing is one of the doctors their name was Lazarus.

No way, it screwed me up.

I woke up and I was like, oh no.

Because what was Lazarus in the Bible.

Was he he died and Jesus came and you know it was the whole story of Jesus doesn't come too late. Okay, he was sick, he passed away, and I believe it was I don't know how many days after, but anyway, so you're like, hopefully this is my Preacher does not watch this, but you're like, hopefully this is not a side, but it is.

A nice Well.

I got up and I remember my doctor, doctor Munson at Emory Medical in Atlanta. God bless that man. I remember him hugging me and telling me we're gonna fix this, We're gonna make you better, and that's what I needed. And I woke up and I remember being in such intense pain and I could feel my feet and I knew this was good pain. This meant my legs worked. This meant that I was going to be back to normal again. And anyways, uh, after that it came back. They had three pathologists look at it and they said, there's no cancer in this. We were so sorry that we went through this scare. You know, there was no cancer in the toil cancer and so it was a wake up call, though I truly feel it was a wake up call into empathy. It taught me a lot of empathy. When your dad has to come pick you up to get you to the bathroom to just pee, and you realize how much you took a body that worked for granted, because it's always worked for you. That really opened up my eyes to empathy. But also I started writing songs and throughout that I kind of took it as God's voice, going anything could happen any day, So if you're going to do something, you need to do it now. Because when I was younger, I always thought, I was like, I want to be a doctor, and I'll do music on the side. I'll just do it on the side. And then I realized, you know what, there's one thing that people hear me, and they actually listen when I do it, and it's singing. And also it's something that makes me happy and it makes other people happy for me to do that, And so I started leaning into it and then going through a house fire in twenty seventeen or what was that. Yeah, I was on a writer's retreat when my house burned down. It was an electrical fire. They said it started you in nash Board. No, I living in Nashville.

Yes, your house was in Nashville, Yes, in Bellevue area.

So they said that it started behind my headboard. And the fire chief. I mean, I just I was so upset and I was like, maybe if I've been there, Maybe if I've been there, I could have stopped it. And he's like, there's been times where people are in buildings like this when this happens and we find bodies. And they said, we are grateful that you were not here and my dog was safe and.

Your dog was safe. How'd your dog get up?

My dog was not there. My best friend Thomas Vincham was keeping her and he had texted me the day before and said, hey, I may drop her off, you know, at the house today, And so I called him first, and I was like, I was on this writer's retreating Florida and I'll never forget. He answers, and I go, is she with you? Is she with you? And he goes, yeah, she's sitting right beside me. And I go the house is on fire.

And he's silent for.

A minute, and he goes, I'll put my pants on, I'll be there. And he had been my roommate for a few months right before his fiance at the time, Alex had moved down from Indianapolis and he needed a place to stay, so he had the key, and I thought, I was like, just keep a key in case anything ever happens and I need someone to go by the house. So I had a wonderful group of people around me. And I think at that point in my life, I was going through a lot of depression.

You were, yes, what do you think you were depressed about everything? As someone was that when I was all crumbling, just like trying to be the best with the voice, trying to do this career and then just like realizing it's a freaking brutal, brutal game.

Yeah, it's never feeling worthy for the things I've been given.

Oh man, So wow.

And I remember though it was the most beautiful thing.

So you didn't feel worthy of your voice.

That's why you felt so much pressure to always keep it perfect and keep it yes, make sure it was like you didn't want to lose it. There's so much pressure around it because you didn't feel worthy of it.

Wow.

So with all of that, I realized how many people loved me, oh man, And people came out of the woodwork to be there for me, and I had seven friends. It took three days to go through the entire house. And there were seven things that I asked for when the house burned, and I said, God, if you can just give me these seven things, I can start over. And every single one of those seven things somehow made it. What were we? One of them was the blanket that was the biggest one, that was the catalyst that actually wrote about and forged in the fire. There was a blanket that I had found in my dad's well shop, in this old hope chest up top, and it was scraps of dresses that my grandmother had had, and it was a quilt that she made, and so I had brought it home and I'd had it on my bed well when I walked into the house and I look up. The walls were still up. The windows were all blown out. It was the oddest thing, but everything inside was just burnt or collapsed in the top floor burned and collapsed into the second one. So when I pull up and I see walls, I'm like, it's not too bad. And Thomas slipped at me and he goes, it is bad. And we walked in and my bed springs were melted into my ceiling fan. And there was a pie safe my mom had given me from an old lady in my hometown, and it was holding the beam up. I still have that pie safe and it has a burnt hole in the top of the pie safe. A pie safe was It used to be an open faced chesterboro that like chester drawers or whatever you call it, but it's it would open up and you had a chicken wire or maybe a piece of glass, but it was where you could keep pies safe and insects wouldn't come in, you know, critters wouldn't get to it, but you'd let your pies cool and you'd keep them in there. So I have, you know, little kitchen stuff in them. Anyway, when I got upstairs and We're walking in the area that there was still floor and I could still walk. I just finally was hit with this anger after just sobbing. It's going through it, and I just started kicking things. I don't realize until you go through it. But a fire, it's like it hollows out the top and it just everything is now black soot, but feed of it, you know, on the ground, and I just started kicking it all up, and I saw a flash of color and I reached down and I had remembered in my attic area across from my bedroom, I had all my painting supplies. I loved painting, and i'd paint for commissions for random little people. It wasn't anything big, but it helped pay the bills, and I loved painting just for me. And so I had remembered the night before it had been kind of chilly and I couldn't sleep, and I'd taken that quilt and I went into that other room and I'd wrapped around me as I was painting. And so when I saw the bed springs melted into the ceiling, I knew I'd lost the quilt, and that was one big thing. I was like, God, I can't give that back to my parents. And I found it, and three washes later, it was fine.

Oh man, that was your grandma's dresses in this quilt.

So that this little jacket that my dad gave my mom six months into them dating. It was just little things like that that all my other clothes had melted, My polyester clothes had melted into like a ball around that jacket. And I had to cut it open, but it was safe. It was like a geode.

Yeah.

I cut it open and found my jacket inside, and the coolest thing that I was upset about the most of the time, really, but I look back and I realized, I was, like, you're giving me a clean slate. A lot of the artwork that I'd done since I was little, that I had brought with me burnt. It all burned up. But every single new canvas that I had just bought at this cell at the paint supply company, every single one made it. Every single nice golden paint tube that I had it made it. The entire plastic drawer that had all my paint supplies, everything burnt except my brushes and my paints. The last one, it's like it stopped melting. In the last one way, and so all my tools to create and the canvases were fine. And I realized I was like, okay, God, you're giving me a clean slate. I have to start over.

Did you need a clean slate?

I think I needed a reminder that people loved me.

Were you feeling?

I think I needed a reminder of what was important. And it was the people, not anything to do with anything I've ever bought or the things that these people have passed down. It was my grandmother, not the quilt. That's just my memory connections to her. But anyways, through that I wrote Forge in the Fire, and through that time, my entire personal life started falling apart.

Was that relationship?

Was that?

What were you in a serious relationship that went bad?

Oh? No, No, that was just you know, I'm trying to rebuild my living room. Couch is two dining room chairs that made it. And it's you know, just buying socks after a while gets expensive when you don't have enough renters and insurance to cover what you lost. Little things cost so much money to replace, the everyday stuff, and so you're just rebuilding your entire life. Yes, and I had so many angels that came along along the way that helped me. But I got a new guitar. Universal Publishing gave me a guitar that I could I could play in my rounds and such, and I just started writing this record, this first record that I put out if it wasn't for you, And all of a sudden, I find my manager and I remember Mary Hilliard. The second time we met. I told her, I said, I have nothing to lose, so I guess I'll work with you. I was like, there's nothing that can be worse or less, so I guess we can only go up from here. And she was like, I thought it'd take a lot more convincing, and I was like, what do I have to lose? You know? So the thing is, I really stepped into that part of my life, only really focusing on professional side. I made these songs me and a friend of mine co produced on mikey Reeves I love him dearly. We did these songs on a five hundred dollars demo budget sometimes and then that song Family Tree went to radio and it just kind of started the whole projectile of the career. And I got signed at Capitol Records, and you know, life started to make itself make right again. You know, things started to work out, and it just really put into perspective every little thing, how insignificant. Every piece of clothing is, every piece of furniture and hand me down in the grand scheme, it's really just the people that you get to call. And Yeah, the lessons that I learned through that were significant, and that entire time, I'm trying to find love and I'm finding it a few months at a time and it's not really love after all. And through the confusing myriad of relationships and friendships and the less since that I've learned throughout them, these records came to be and I talk about it on stage sometimes where it's like all of us go through they may not be similar situations, but similar heartbreaks. Yeah, the way that something can wreck you. There's been somebody in the world that has felt the exact same desolation from another situation. And I like to tell people on stage that as a songwriter, for three minutes and thirty seconds at a time, we get to make you feel a little less alone in whatever you have went through. And one of the coolest little moments I think of when I think of a heartbreak that really hurt me. That then later I've noticed people have found help in it and comfort in it. I love this so like you're the best is great, but I think that what was I saying.

People have found a heartbreak healing and the heartbreak the three minutes.

Oh, the silver lining of it is this moment in small time hypocrite. As we were writing it, I said, I want it to be seven years. You know, for seven years I waited for you because I said, there's something about seven years. They say that every cell in your body replenishes and it's renewed. And I said, I have to tell myself that from that one really big heartbreak that in seven years, there will not be one part of me that you made an impact on. There's not one part of me that you talk.

Seven years is the number.

So I put seven years in there for me. And I can't tell you how many women and men have had seven year relationships. It's that seven year itch, I guess, but seven year relationships in small towns or whatever that have held them back from going after whatever it is they've always dreamed of. And yeah, I'm so grateful when those coincidences happen. When say, if there's just one moment in this podcast that as I ramble and talk your ear off, somebody had one little moment of either clarity or reassurance that they aren't alone. Then that's exactly why we're meant to ramble.

And it's so true.

Like when you're talking about the tragedy like the fire, Like what a moment to lose everything but then realize what's worth everything? You know, it's crazy, like really to be stripped of everything, yeah, but then only to realize, oh my gosh, what does matter? It really is people and your connections and your village. Is that when you really started building your village and realizing that you had one.

That's when I solidified my village. I think I started really building people around me and just kind of figuring out. Also, it's hard in our in our industry. I feel like that you have friends and then you have work friends, and it's trying to defer and she ate that and be a good friend and also a good work friend as well. I always I think something I always worry with is sometimes I feel as if the busier I get, the more I let friends fall through the cracks, Like my I don't know the more friends I make. The harder it is sometimes to keep up, but it's a really good problem to have, you know. I think that the village stuff. It took probably three years into Nashville before I really had somebody. I remember it started with one person. Started with my best friend Emily. She just kind of showed up and she's from North California. I'm from South Georgia, and somehow we just connected on so many different things. And it was the first time in my life that I met someone outside of a family member and I thought we could be related. You're It's like I'm talking to another sister or something. So I kind of ran people through that radar, run people through my gut, you know. I when I take people in, I try to go does this resonate with me? Can I be fulheartedly myself? Do I feel that they are as well? And if it passes that test. I like making friends. It's just hard to keep up with it when you're on the road. Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Well, I feel like I've realized when I was younger in Nashville and I was out all the time, always on the scene, and I'm always wanted everyone to like love me, that was my whole thing. I needed to make sure everyone loved me so I could feel worthy, because like, if you don't love me, then I feel like there's something wrong with me, because my whole job is to make sure that you approve of me so that I can feel validated. So then I can like be okay, because okay, you like me, like not even not even romantically, just like people in general accept me.

And so I've had so many friends.

Because I would go above and beyond to like and I'm such an empathetic person.

I can read people very well.

I can feel when someone's energy's off, when someone's upset, when someone I'm really good at reading people to the point where I would kind of use it as like a tool to like figure out what someone needed, and then I could like be that for you so then you could love me. And it was genuine I would be like genuinely wanting to make you feel better but also to make you love me. Yeah, And it took its toll on me, Like after a while, I finally realized I was like burning out and that I.

Couldn't keep this up.

And I was just trying so hard to like always be what everyone needed me to be so that they would love me and accept me. And finally, I talk about this a lot, but like I hired a life coach, I had a daughter, and when I did that, I realized, like, I can't give people all of me if it's not a genuine relationship, you know, like I can't give you everything I have just to make sure you like me. When now I have this little human that like I don't need to be running myself ragging and you know, like giving myself away to people who don't give a crap when I need to be fully whole and present for her.

So that's when I really did some deep inner work.

I've been doing therapy like my whole life, but that's when I was really like, I've got to get this shit together, Like I've got to figure why don't figure out why don't feel worthy and why I feel like I have to make sure everyone loves me so.

I can feel worthy. And then I realized it was a high functioning codependent and I needed the whole world to love me so I could feel great.

And then I slowly won by one stopped just like stopped giving myself away to people, and I realized I actually have a lot less friends than I thought I had because I was keeping them all up, you know. And I also don't want to have all those friends because I don't have time for them. And also I can love people and be kind, but I don't have to like put everybody in my nest.

You know.

It's like I can like love people and like be so happy to see people, but it's like I don't have to like let everybody have a best friend's status or try to get there with somebody. And I used to try to get to like best friend status with everyone because I just needed everyone to love me. And then that now I'm just like Okay, So now with my village, I've gone through so many things, like people have gotten divorces, people have like just totally changed course, and it's like, Okay, I feel like now it's like these people who I've lived life with for ten plus years, and we have truly weathered the storms and we've continued to regroup and come back to each other and like want to be in each other's life and want to have the hard conversations and want to do the work. Like that's how I know that we're gonna make it. And it's not that someone can't new come in, but it's like you have to have somebody who's really I don't have time for, like just a flighty fair weather friend like I need and I'm sure you're the same way I need roots. I need to know this is like worth investing in because like there's no time.

Yeah, and you.

Can't spread yourself that then I'm really bad about I call it a shell silversteining and shape shifting myself. I want to be that missing piece.

Oh see it, that's it.

Let me be that thing you're you're missing, whether it's that person that you convent to about that thing that no one else will listen to, and a friend, whether it's the healer and the helper and almost the mother in a relationship. It's things like that that I was like, just let me help you, let me be of service, let me be of help.

Love me, love me, love me, love me.

I remember one day Mikey Reeves, we're outside of the Blackbird Studios and he goes, I don't remember how it came to be, but I'll never forget when he looked at me and he goes, it's okay, you want to be everyone's favorite. But that's okay out. Oh. It's like when a kid points out one of your flaws or like something that you're nervous about. No one would ever say something, and then they say something.

You're like, oh man, you just called me out.

So for your co producer to say that, I realized was like, oh goodness, I do do that. And I think that if I'm not someone's favorite, even down to this is something I saw myself when I was younger. If the stage hands weren't didn't seem to be impressed by me, down to someone I'm never I may never see this guy again. We just met and we're only working together on this gig for a few hours. I still want him to think I'm I'm a great you know, I'm one of the good ones. And I realized, I was like, what does that come from? It is a it is an acceptance yearning that I want, but not just acceptance. I want it really. I think it boils down to I want to make people happy, and with you though yeah, yeah, but it's I want to make you happy. Yes?

Is it so then you love me? Or is it just so?

Yeah? There? There definitely is a rooted something in there, you know, in the Vanda, and.

You also want to use your gift to make people happy.

I like I like making people smile. It makes me feel good and my One of my favorite things in the world is to feel things. And I know that sounds crazy, but sometimes I want to watch a sad movie and I want to just mourn and I want to be that character and I want to feel everything, because what a beautiful, sacred thing it is to experience the highs and lows of life. There's so many people I know that have passed on at young age is and they'll never get to So sometimes I want to watch this sad movie and I want to cry. Sometimes I cry about things that make me happy. I cry when I pray all the time because I'm just especially when I'm praying about my friends. And I don't know why that is. Like my friends and my family are the ones that make me tier ay when i'm praying, because it's just so nice to have people you want to pray for, you know, it just feels so good. But as someone who made herself lonely in my life a lot of it, but desperately wanted acceptance and wanted to be loved, I think I'm having to retrain young me on how to view acceptance, and I don't know. I think she's I still have a lot of learning to do. I think with younger me.

What do you want to tell? What do you want younger me to know?

Now?

At your age, right now, with all the work you've done on yourself, If you could go back in, I'm gonna cry, not.

Even this is not even yep.

If you could go back into her and give her a big old hug and tell her all the things that you wish you would have known, and that you're so proud of her for, and that she doesn't need to worry about.

What would you tell.

Her it's gonna be okay?

And what would you tell her stop trying to do?

Oh? Not? Every day is the last day. You have a lot more time than you actually think. I remember the kid not thinking I could make it past eighteen.

You thought you're gonna die young Yeah. Why, I don't know.

I just I was like, it'll never work out past that.

So then when the cancer is never half.

Twenty one and then I got to twenty five, and then I got the twenty seven club and I didn't die because that was the number. As a musician, they always make you worry about And now I'm at thirty and I'm like, there is life after this. I don't know why, but my brain was not able to compute life after a certain year.

Maybe because you just weren't supposed to see farther ahead been a few years.

Probably so you're such a deep soul.

Sorry, I know we loved a very emotional music video last night. What was it for my song No I Ain't? But it's just me being emotional for the entire video and I'm just sitting on a bedsotional sad. Just said, don't kidding when I wrote No I Ain't, it's on this bed of roses. But I wanted to create a mantra because there is something I love when movies or books that shaped me as a child. I somehow find something that resembles it in the Bible, and something that I've found in the Bible in a few different places. It speaks of your mouth guarded, because it is not what you put in your mouth, It is what comes out of your mouth that defollows you. Words have power, and I Labyrinth was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and David Bowie. SA's words have power, Sarah, And it just something about that I have talked badly to myself for so many years, self talk that I really wonder like I had to have poisoned myself along the way with just the things I would say to myself. What could I have grown if I had never done that and I'd only poured love into it? You know what if I had tilled that in versus sowing those seeds of mistrust within myself, doubt within myself for no reason, no reason at all, just doubt. You know. It's I think some of the hardest things is when you have feelings like that but you can't really find where it comes from. It just is the self worth that I think. I honestly think a lot of people, specifically women in my life, as far as the friendships that you know, I have deep connections with, it's usually the women that have a thing with our self worth. We connect it to our work and we struggle with it. And I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's this world. I'm sure that it's probably you know, I love the word myriad a myriad of things, but I wish I could go back and tell her you don't have to be so hard on yourself to be worth something. You're just worth it. I remember one of my girlfriends telling me when she was getting into sorry, I'm talking about God a lot.

I love God, Okay, No, I mean we need God everywhere.

Gloria Gaynor told me one time. I said, let's write a gospel song, and she goes, let's write about God without ever using his name. Okay, because it will bring more people in, yes, than push people away, because people that know God will know you're speaking of him just by speaking of love. And she goes, but people that may be turned away by the word. Let's figure out how to write a song that is about God and about his love and mercy but never says his name. And I was like, oh, my goodness, that's such a wonderful way to look at it. If you want to be able to speak of the love and the mercy you have within your life from that but not ostracize others. That's something I struggle with is being a spiritual person, someone that sometimes doubts religious organizations and sees how there is man made fault that happens in that and takes away the spiritual and the holiness and the sacredness of those places.

I struggle with that too, Yes, but.

I am very spiritual same and I do believe. Now, oh God, I can't. I shouldn't get into religious stuff. I have moments. I have a little section of my Bible that's just questions, and I have this like weird thing that I'll ask God. I'm like, can I just ask you these questions one day? I just want to know why did this happen? This doesn't seem fair to me. Why why? And I just write when I have questions like that, I just write it in the back of my Bible and I have it. And that Bible actually is one of the things that made it through the fire. So it's like this big now because the water damage like made But it's kind of cool now because when I go back and I read my book, I have to peel the pages apart, and so I know if I haven't read a section since the fire, because I'm like, ooh, new pages. It's almost like when you're playing a video game and a little area is unlocked. I'm like, oh, now we're in Hosea.

I'm amazing.

Uh sorry, I'm rambling that way to religion.

But I love that you write questions to God.

Yeah. I think that that's something I've struggled with some of my atheist friends. You know, if I bring up questions and stuff, They're like, well, aren't you not supposed to doubt God? And I said, I think He made us inquisitive creatures for a reason. Yeah, because the more I ask and the more questions I have, the more I go to Him for things, and I don't know, the more I seek it. But what I was saying with worthiness, the reason I went into religion, sorry, is because one of my friends told me that she'd always wanted to know God. She wanted that connection, but she goes, I just don't feel as if I'm worthy. I'm just if something is so beautiful and wonderful and powerful and great, I'm not beautiful enough on the inside for that to love me. And the coolest thing is, I feel like when these moments happen where you don't know how to handle the moment. I do think that when you go into prayer and you can manifest, I think manifesting is just an audible prayer that you do with your eyes open. I started praying and I said, just help me figure out a way that I can be a safe space spiritually for my friend, but not push it. How do you tell someone that they're beautiful enough to have any love in the world but they won't get it. How many times if someone said something to you and you're like, uh huh, and it's not you don't even allow it. Your brain doesn't allow it at that time to actually sink in that kindness. And I went to McKay's, the used bookshop that I love on the west side of Nashville, and there are two free book bends in the front, and there was these two books on and it said beautiful Bibble Stories and they both matched and it was just like the abridged versions of short summaries of Bible stories from back when we were kids. And so I gave it to her and we started kind of diving into faith and diving into God and the lessons that we can learn through it together going through Bible studies and then relating it back to the Bible. But I think that there's different villages. Sorry, I keep going back to villages, But I think it's really important because I think it's two young women that are now I mean, how long have you been in Nashville itself?

Twenty years?

Twenty years? It's like now I'm at ten years. So I'm like anyone that is twenty or less and you're a woman in a big city or somewhere new. It takes time to build your village, and there's going to be different facets of your village. Like for me, I mean my friend that now is very spiritual and I mean more spiritual than me, are connections and doing Bible studies. It helps and it heals me. Then I have my musical friends that inspire me. Then I have I call them my wise sages. I have a group of older friends that have just taken me under their wings, and they're the people I go to when I just need life advice. I have people in different realms of my life that it's not utilitarian friends, because it's not just that. But I have friends. I have places that I can seek solace that I know someone will get me. And I think that if you can just find one person that gets you in a facet where you can truly be all of yourself and truly vulnerable in it, hold on to it and be that for that person and that is the first step towards building your village. You build them one by one as they come. Yes. And also one thing I've had to accept is sometimes friendships pass on.

They run their course.

They run their course, and that's completely okay. When I was younger, I used to be offended by that, or yeah, I would have a weird feeling, you know, if I into the friendship. But you know, but I had to start running people through a barometer of if my gas tank from E to F, from empty to full. If E is grief and F is joy, where is my tank when I leave hanging with them? Is there more grief or more joy? I talk about days off are I have to feel my well? I think everyone has a well inside them And even Rick Rubin talks about it in his book. He calls it the vessel. And you have to fill the vessel in order to give from the vessel. And yeah, I think that you have to find stuff and things that feel your well. And when you leave those friendships, is your well fuller or full or is it just a little emptier? And then you need to remind, like remind yourself though that sometimes like friendships are given takes, so sometimes you will have to give more. You may have to be more for that person than they are for you in that hang. But if it's a consistent thing, yeah, that you leave heavier than you were when you walked in. It's okay to let people go so that the right people can come in. My dad always told me, he goes if you're dating the wrong man. When mister Wright comes along, that's you're not going to have a chance at him because you're wasting your time with the wrong person.

That's so true.

Don't allow the wrong people to stay in your life.

That is so true. And it is so hard to sounds brutal, but it's not.

I mean, it was so much love. I still pray for those people. Yeah. No, there's no one in my life that I hold anger. Yeah, right now, and that is so beautiful.

But knowing when to let people go and knowing that they are not adding to your life, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them, It just means that it is time to move on and to open that space up again. You're so right, because if it's filled, else can come in.

Yeah. And the same thing for them. They may not even notice it yet, but one day when the right. It's like in a relationship. I mean, it was hard for me to get emotional the other night because that song was a broken heart mantra, like I was saying, words have power. I wanted to create a song that when a woman is trying to choose themselves and love themselves more than they love someone who doesn't actually love them, that they can sing it to themselves. And it's just I don't know what to tell you, honey, I'm putting barbar around my boundaries. There's no more late nights. Are you up still? Like I'm not coming over, I ain't coming over, and the versus like you know, i'll watch your dog, I'll get stoned with you any day, but I ain't coming over tonight. And having to put that boundary down. I think boundaries really hard thing to do when you're a giver, when you want to be a giver. I think a lot of people want to be a giver until the world takes too much. But yeah, sorry, I'm rambling. I love podcast. It's just so funny because I normally doing the series XM Show and doing radio segments things like that, I have to do soundbites that there are thirty seconds I start going into all this and I'm just going into like past trauma and like bring me back to the fire.

That's my favorite.

Tell me, though, why this album Better Roses is so special to you? Tell me what you love about it.

It's it's just an entire accumulation of all the lessons that I've learned. It's the love I've experienced, it's the loss that I've experienced. It is me from eighteen and thirty finding myself. And I think that there has been so many times where I've wanted a song that I can go out to, and then there's been even more times that I've needed a song that I can lay and listen and bed and cry to. And I put a bunch of those on there. I try to put one or two love songs, but a lot of it is really learning to love yourself in the process of letting go.

So are all these songs deeply personal, too.

Oh deeply personal. The only one that is an outside cut is because uh, a friend of mine wrote it and my cousin, who was a country lover, he was a writer as well, passed away. He had MS and I got the call that he had passed away when I was in me and my friend's garage. We were throwing pottery.

And you're throwing pottery, you're so quick.

No, I made all my dishes and stuff, throwing it like against walls.

No, so you have to throw it down onto the plate. There's a really cute place that does pottery. You should get a girls screw.

Yes you go, yes, yes, I've been wanting to do pottery.

Honestly, it's a really cool place to Neil Town's actually was the one that introduced me to it.

Okay, so you're throwing pottery.

Yeah, so we were throwing pottery. I got the call from my dad. We have a rule in the family, but if someone calls twice, that means you need to answer right now. So he called, I have my hands muddy. He calls again. I go, okay, I need to answer right now, and he said the Matthew would die. And I realized it was right before CMA Fest and I had a full weekend then going into Brothers Osbourne shows, and so I was told like, look, you can't skip this, like this is a fan. There's too much going on. You can't go home for the funeral. And so I'd accepted it but I felt like I was doing a disservice to them or something. And Mia said, do you need to go? You know, I came back in crying and she goes, do you need to go? I said, I can't go home, like I'm just gonna go back to my house in Nashville and sit alone. Now, I was like, play me some demos. We always play each other demos that we've liked, songs we've written recently, and she played one called Mamas Don't let your Babies grow up to Love Cowboys.

I love that one. Yeah, I put your spin on it.

Yeah, so that one. She wrote that one with two different friends and it's based off that wayling Jenny's. It was just so cool and I just I was sitting there and the sun was shining. It was a hot day, and I just remember sitting there thinking Matthew would love this song. And for the first time ever, my brain said, Okay, this is an outside cut. And my team was like, are you sure you want to do an outside cut because you've always written all your own stuff, You've produced the original stuff. And I was like, no, I'm suppose to put this one out so it'll be cool to have my very first outside cut on a record. But I still love it like it's one of my babies. So that's nice.

It fit right in. It's meant to be.

And this podcast will air by the time your book has released as well.

Ah okay, I didn't know.

Yeah, I know, and I know we're saving it to the end because we're already in an hour. So tell me though about the book, because this is so amazing. You're such like a mystical creature with all this going on, and so it makes so much sense that you would write it like a romance novel to accompany the album Better Roses.

Yeah, it felt like the right move. It just did.

Do you wrote the whole novel with you would co edart.

It with Carolyn Brown? Oh my gosh, tell me about it. Incredible too. It was so cool to like as a kid my oh sorry me as a kid. My mom always told me like, you wouldn't get a toy everywhere you'd go, but if you want to buy a book, you can buy a book if you're going to read it. And I was obsessed with books. I love words. I'm obsessed with words. I look like a path. How many words I have written on windows and like mirrors in my house. But yeah, writing a book was something. When I was thirteen, I wrote, I got like page seventy three, I think, And then at fifteen I wrote another book and it was like page sixty five and I gave up. But I always wanted to create. I like creating a universe. I get. I love having a place that you can go into. And as a child that used to sneak my mother and my aunt Punkin's romance novels. Aunt Punkin, Aunt Punkin. Uncle Thurman said her head looked like a pumpkin when she was born, and she just was Punkin to them. But God bless her, but I love her. She's like on my second mama, oy, if your name's a Punkin, you gotta be awesome. Yeah, pu In Kate i In Punkin, Okay. But yeah, so I read all their romance novels and stuff. I would sneak them, and I don't know, I just I know this sounds really weird, but as a kid, I love to take a pen and I would edit their romance novels, like there would be typos or something and I'd be like, mmmm, that should be that there, and I'd write it, but I loved that was so weird of me now that I look back, But it's pretty cool that now, as I was writing this book, it felt like younger me was stepping in. That was a big healing moment. She finally got to use her imagination. She got to write the book that she wanted to write. She tried twice and she didn't get to And now, at thirty years old, I get to write a book. I get to write a happily ever after. And that's what I wanted. I wanted a comfort book. I didn't want the first book. We also had two and a half months to get it done, so I was non stop writing. I was doing eight ten hours a day and not leaving my house. I look like a horder. I mean, things would come in and I just sit it on the ground and I'd sit down in my one spot and keep going. So it came out. I mean, what's the concept of it, the whole concept. It's a small town romance. It is about some It's about a girl trying to follow her intuition and find herself. I always loved romance novels where the girl gets placed in a situation where she has she never makes the really bad decision, you know. I hate when the protagonist does something You're like, I would never do that, you know, But I love it whenever they create them in they like kind of get them stuck in a place or scenario and they have to figure their way through it. She is getting over a heartbreak that sort of resembles the one that Small Town Hypocrite and Stuff was about, and then she finds herself in Homestead and there's a little mystery at the very end, but mostly it is a small town romance. It is a burgeoning love that blossoms between two of the characters, and she learned some lessons throughout the way.

And each chapter is a song title, right.

Yes, every single song is a chapter and something based off of it. So it was cool. I got to put so many Easter Eggs in it. Yeah, I love Easter eggs. That's the details. Like as a as a kid, I would play video games just to find the Easter eggs. I didn't really care about the mission. You want to find the end. I want to find every single jewel on every single level. I want to open every single chest in the game and figure it out. So, you know, music videos I love putting stuff in the backgrounds. I love somehow connecting them to one another to tell a different story outside of just that video.

You do create universes.

I want to you do. Thank you.

What's the book called.

Clever? But yeah, I wondered. I was like, should we name it something different? And they were like, no, same name. And I want to try to do it so that people will listen to the album and listen, you know, listen to the book and read the book.

This is exciting.

Yeah, and this is all coming out February.

But no coming out so okay, yeah, how long it's coming out March or February fourteen, Chine Day. So that's the love that love song of the record. And then I felt like the slow dancing song of the whole album needed to be on Valentine's Day. March seventh. Is the actual album that of Roses and the book, the e book and audiobook. We have a print version coming later.

Oh my gosh. Okay, Hayley, so tell us anything else we need to know.

There's I could talk to you for one hundred more hours, Like literally I could too.

You're so fascinating.

Union where I'm a little more caffeinated and focused. This was the best.

You're so fascinating, Like you're such like a just like a mystical fairy, imaginative creature, just creating these worlds, sharing with us, and it's so it's so cool to get a peek in your brain. I love how multifaceted you are. I love your depth. I love how you feel so much.

And you expressed yourself through everything, through your hair, through your clothes, through your music.

You're so detailed, intricate, oriented, it's amazing, Like it's amazing to see how you express yourself.

And then your voice.

I mean, okay, before we wrap up, though, have you gotten to a place through your voice where you're not scared of this gift anymore?

Because it is it is such a voice.

I'll talk about that in therapy. No, there's always a fear of losing it or somehow messing it up or whatever. But I've come to find myself outside of just my voice, like getting to write this book even I just realized. I told my boyfriend, I was like, this won't be the last book I write, and he said, why did you say it's so honestly, and I was like, because I want more than two and a half months to write an entire book. But you know, it was just so cool to create in a different way. And I have collected journals from two thousand. It was from the fire. I got a typewriter after that, and every day I would just type pages and pages of things I was going through, things I was thinking, went through the record deal, went through everything up to today, and I have a fire safe full of it actually, and one day I want to put that out, but I feel like I need to get a little bit more going before I do that. But I know that it won't be the last book I write, and it won't be the last album I make. So it's just been to find different facets I can create outside of just restoring my house and writing songs. I love that.

Okay, what do people need to know? Where can they find you?

But you yeah, you can find me everywhere, follow me everywhere, just don't follow me home all the social media's also, if anyone reaches out to you and it is not me, for my blue check, it is not me. Okay, weird people in the world, but also Sirius XM. I have a show on their own Prime Country and it plays every Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday if you wanted to tune in? Do you love it? Really? Help me?

Do you love that?

I do like it?

That's so fun.

It is sometimes it's hard because I start trying to tell the same stories every week. I'm on show sixty, so twelve twelve segments every week.

Howpen do you go into film it record it?

I do it every week. Okay, yep, So it's really fun. It's taught me a lot. But what's so funny is this is my first podcast in a really, really long time, and I realized how jointed I'm a lily patter in conversations. So we're just two little frogs in the sea life and we jump on this lily pad and we talk about self worth, and then I go into childhood, and then we hop back into the fire, and then we hop to bearded dragons, and then I promise though by the end of it, we will find our way back to the first lily pad. It just yeah, I feel that.

I love that.

Okay, so serious acent what's the show called just Kaylee hammick Show?

Okay, Kaylee hammock Show. Social media is Kaylee?

I try to be clever and then I was like, no, keep it simple.

You're clever enough in just all the things. So I think just.

Keeping the complicate things a lot, just no.

Not complicate. It's amazing.

So I think keeping the finding is easy and then the whole world opens up. Yeah yeah, okay, so Kaylee Hammick across the Board, Yeah okay. And new album coming out Better Roses Book, coming Out Better Roses Single coming out February seventeenth, fourteenth on Valentine's Day. All right, I always wrap up with one question, which is leave your light, and it's open ended.

What do you want people to know? Drop some inspiration.

If you're lonely right now, you won't be lonely for long and one day you will find the place that you will shine your brightest. You just have to remember that. I love that.

Haley Hammock Randel so much for coming on. This was amazing. I loved every single second of it. You're so fascinating, Caroline.

I've seen a bunch of your different interviews. I like to watch them versus listen. You just have a wonderful light about you.

You have a.

Glow that comes from inward and it's yeah, it's really nice to officially get to meet you, so thank you. It means a lot.

Hey back at you. This is awesome. Thank you so much, Kaylee

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Get Real with Caroline Hobby

Are you ready to get unstuck from your fears? Is there a burning desire and passion inside of you dy… 
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