The wait is over for new music from Lainey Wilson, who is celebrating the release of her newest project, Whirlwind, available now. Just as the title suggests, the Louisiana-native is giving fans a journey through her Whirlwind life with 14 tracks full of fun, funk, and of course, her signature Bell Bottom Country style.

“I think this is truly the best stuff that we've ever done,” Wilson told Audacy’s Katie Neal during her appearance on the Superstar Power Hour. “I feel like I've just got to go so many places and meet so many different types of people that I have a different view of the world.”

The album covers it all from songs about cowboys to upbeat love songs and powerful Country ballads, and according to Wilson the best way to enjoy the Whirlwind journey is by listening exactly the way she did for the first time.

“For me, the first time I listened to it, top to bottom, was in my truck, just riding up and down the road,” she shared. ”I feel like for me, that's a good place for me to take my mind out of everything else and just focus on the road and focus on the songs.”

Listening to her songs through the speakers is a lifelong dream come true for Lainey, and while eternally grateful, the 32-year-old says her Whirlwind life is far from perfect. With the demands of the music industry, being in the public eye and balancing her own personal life, the ACM and CMA Entertainer of the Year shares the beautiful chaos can often feel more like a tornado, but she still chooses to embrace very moment.

“It is still chaotic, AF [as f***],” Lainey said of her daily schedule. “Every day I get up, I'm just like, ‘attitude of gratitude, because this stuff right here are all the things that you worked for,’” she reflected. “I would have just given so much to have opportunities like this. And so I'm so thankful.”

Lainey shared she she’s never far from good advice as her fellow Country pals have no problems keeping her in check during when the going gets tough. One of those pals is her “Go Home With You” duet partner, Keith Urban. “Keith Urban told me this one time… I think i was tired from a [tour] run or something and he said, ‘Remember, no whining on the yacht,’ and I was like, ‘But, Keith!!’”

Another familiar face and big-time supporter for Lainey is her boyfriend, Devlin “Duck” Hodges, who she says understands her in a unique way as he had the opportunity to live out his own dreams and a professional football player.

“I will tell you, the reason I know I found the right one is because for years, I mean, since he was five years old, he was trying to play football. And he did whatever it took to end up walking on with the Steelers,” she shared. “I know how hard he worked for that, and he knows how hard I worked for this and so, it’s crazy because when we first met, he was comin’ off of football and I was goin’ in to better things and we learned how to deal with all of it.”

She continued, “We just know how much we’ve had to sacrifice to do it and so he would never, in a million years ever make me feel bad about saying yes to things because we know that we're going to one day, we're going to have the time.”

Lainey’s love for Duck can be felt throughout a number of tracks on the album, including the lead single, “Hang Tight Honey,” in addition to “Counting Chickens,” a playful ode to falling head over heels that pokes fun at Duck’s name. “One chicken, two chickens, three chickens, oh shoot, I think that’s a Duck,” she recites at the end of the song.

“When I tell people, his name is Duck, they're like, ‘Doug?’ I'm like, ‘No, like, quack, quack,’ and they're like, ‘Oh.’ I'm like, ‘Yeah, as soon as you thought I couldn't get any more redneck, I did,’” she laughed.

“I don't think I'm ever going to be the love songwriter that's like mushy-gushy,” she said, referring to the playful nature of the tune. “Like, I am in a happy, healthy relationship with somebody who has got his own thing going on and he's my biggest cheerleader. But we have our own lives and we live them. And then we come together and it's even better.“

In addition to the fun-loving songs on her album, there’s also a good dose of deep Country storytelling, especially noticeable on the final track, “Whiskey Colored Crayon.”

“I just wanted to end on that note of like, ‘This is why I fell in love with Country music.' It's the storytelling aspect of all of it,” she shared. “[The title] came from a word exercise that [songwriter] Josh Kear did. He writes random list of things — like, he might write a list of things that he hates and write a list of things that he loves — and ‘whiskey’ and ‘colored crayon’ ended up being two of the things on the list of like, hundreds of things that he wrote and he just paired it and that’s how he came up with ‘Whiskey Colored Crayon,’ and then we developed the storyline around it.”

The song is one Lainey feels is important to share with her fan base to ensure her commitment to not only keep the storytelling side of Country alive but also reminding listeners  they are not alone when they walk through struggles.

“I think there's so many things that happen behind closed doors that people are scared to talk about or admit,” she said. “And the truth is, we all have issues. We all have problems. So let's not act like we don’t.”

In the same breath, Lainey shares beauty can arise from life’s struggles in her new duet, “Nosedive,” with Post Malone on his new album, F-1 Trillion, available now. “Sometimes the picture, it ain’t perfect, but there’s still learnin’ in the hurtin’” she sings in the duet.

While that particular song was written by fellow Country star, Luke Combs alongside Post and more, Wilson got her own time to spend with the icon in studio and ended up writing a tune cut by Dolly Parton and Post Malone titled, “Have The Heart.”

“You can tell a lot about somebody just from sitting around and watching how they treat people. I'm not even playing, we wrote for like 12, 13 hours through the night and even people coming in to like change the trash or whatever — he treated them just like he would treat the CEO,” Lainey said of her time with Post in studio. “Speaking to them and making them feel welcome. I had not spent time with him before then and I was just like, ‘You deserve all the good in the world because you are good in the world.’”

She added, “We wrote a song together that night that Dolly Parton ended up cutting,” before concluding with how well the Pop artist knows his Country music. “He knows his Country music,” she stated. “I could be like ‘hey, who's that who sings that song back in 1951 about blah blah blah?’ I’m telling you, he would know it.”

Post also knows what an amazing friend and artistic collaborator Lainey is, and wasn’t afraid to give her a spotlight during his Grand Ole Opry debut last week where he welcomed Wilson to the circle to perform, “Nosedive” for the first time.

“She is honestly one of then most stunning people I have ever met in my entire life,” he told the Opry crowd of Wilson. “Her heart is bigger than her hat and her writing ability is out of control. She is a hell of a singer and just, so talented.”

We couldn’t agree more and believe Whirlwind is proof of it all. Give it a listen wherever you buy music and hear more from Lainey by checking out her entire conversation with Audacy’s Katie Neal above.

Words by Monica Rivera Interview by Katie Neal