In her new music video for the track “Moth,” which Variety is premiering in conjunction with the release of her new album, Ashley Monroe is drawn to a campfire like a moth to the friend group. Which is to say, the video is meant to hark back to more carefree, communal times in which, as a youth, you feel like you’ve discovered your tribe, even as, in adulthood, you may wonder whether these experiences are still possible.
The answer to that is yes, they are — at least if you’re a part of the Nashville singer-songwriter community and as beloved and sociable as Monroe. The “Moth” video includes some of her closest friends and compatriots, like Lukas Nelson and Angaleena Presley. And that community spirit is a reflection of her new album, too — “Tennessee Lightning,” which includes as guests and/or writing collaborators such friends as T Bone Burnett, Marty Stuart, Shelby Lynne, Vince Gill and Karen Fairchild.
“I’ve been thinking that I’ve used up all my asks, so I’m gonna have to make some new friends so I can ask more talented friends for favors,” she jokes. “But I kind of wanted the album to be a reflection of my favorite people, so the video does that, too.”
That desire to celebrate her strong community doesn’t mean “Tennessee Lightning” isn’t intensely personal most of all. In a Q&A with Variety, Monroe talks about the ways the album is or isn’t impacted by her bout with lymphoma four years ago, which knocked her out of the music loop for a while. There are no cancer songs, per se, on the record, because basically, she says, “Cancer has taken enough from me. It took my father; it took two years of my life. I don’t want to give it my music.” But this is not the music of avoidance: Monroe’s real life and experiences are deeply ingrained in every track… even the sad Leonard Cohen cover.
You have 17 songs on this new album. It has been a few years since you since you had a full-length release, and a few years even longer ago than that where you were doing more acoustically oriented music. So did that contribute to wanting to give people a good amount of new music at this time?
How many years has it been — four years, I guess, since the last record? A lot happened: COVID happened, and then there was cancer. When I came out on the other side of the cancer deal, it’s like getting off of some crazy ride and you just kind o look up at the ride like, “What? What just happened?” I’ve never even thought of it that way before now. But I just kind of just stood there and looked back, and I was feeling inspired. I wasn’t inspired when I was going through chemo; I just didn’t hear music. But in getting healthy again, that rush of inspiration that I’ve leaned on my whole life was there, and I just thought, “I’m just gonna look back and reflect on my life, as it is, and what it was.”
I was writing some songs during this time, but also remembering songs that I had written a long time ago that I had never recorded, or songs (by outside writers) I’d heard recently that I just wanted to sing. My gosh, we cut so many songs, like probably 30, and magical ones too. I didn’t really care until the end of it, and I thought, “Well, I don’t wanna make people sit there for any longer of a record. People are in a hurry. Our attention spans have dwindled.” But I also was like, “Well, if I like a song and I want it on there, what’s it gonna hurt? At this point in my life and career, if somebody doesn’t want to hear something, they can skip or turn it off.” If it felt like it fit the story that I was seeing in my mind, then I was like, “Put it on there.” I was trying not to overthink, and instead of overthinking, just opening my heart up.
There are some songs that are just me playing guitar and singing. There’s some where it’s completely acoustic, where Marty Stuart and Shelby Lynne is the complete band. So I didn’t have any restrictions on either side of any genre. These are the songs I’ve written or that I love that I’m drawn to and that fit the story. I’m not on a label or anything now. It felt like I could make the rules.
The last album, in 2021, was obviously in a very different vein for you, going more electronic, with more pop or even hip-hop influences. With this, it feels like you’ve come back around to more acoustic sounds, without necessarily swinging all the way back to where you started.
Exactly. You know, I went back to East Tennessee. Gena Johnson and I packed up my car, loaded it down, just her and I, and rented this cabin in east Tennessee that kind of backs up to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and it was stunning. I wanted to go put my feet in the grass. I mean, anyone can say whatever about genres or whatever, but you just can’t deny, man, I’m from east Tennessee. You can hear it in my voice if I’m singing anything. And that’s the deepest part of my soul, that Appalachian spirit. So, all day, I would sit on the porch rocking, and we would sing at night.
I’d recorded the vocal for “I’m Gonna Run” up there because I actually wrote that song in 2004 on a writing trip into the Smoky Mountains. I also wrote “Satisfied,” which was my very first record ever, on that writing trip, and “Used” on that writing trip. So I was circling back to these old ghosts in a way of these things that are still haunting me that I just want to sing and put out into the world.
But also, I feel like if you don’t grow, you die. And you know this about me and my work — I always wear what I’m feeling and what I’m going through or things I’m listening to on my sleeve, because I like being a vessel for those kinds of things to move through me. So I didn’t really put any limitations on, but I did want real strings and real drums and real instruments, because it was the sound I was feeling for these songs.
Ashley Monroe
Erika Rock
I was wondering who coined the title. Because in looking back at an interview I did with Shelby Lynne last year, we talked about you, and she said, “Oh my God, she’s a monster. I call her Tennessee Lightning because she’s just a spark, man. And she’s just as country as I am from over there in east Tennessee. We hit it off crazy bcause she’s funny as hell and she laughs at me, and we have that same kind dark ass sense of humor.” So did the title “Tennessee Lightning” come from her?
I didn’t know she said that. It was her. We wrote a song together once called “Are You Mad at Me, Tennessee?” But she does call me that. First off, Shelby is one of my greatest muses. I’ve held her in a different regard all my life, and another example of an artist who can do different things. Just ’cause she could sing country, that isn’t all she did. After Waylon Payne introduced us, we’re just like sisters, truly. I went over one day to write with her and Jedd Hughes, and she always opens up her notebook and gets her pencil and hits it, and she said, “I wrote something down. Tennessee Lightning.” So we wrote a song with that title, which, let me tell you, is an amazing song and it’s gonna haunt me that we didn’t put it on. I’ll probably just end up recording it, me and her, and just putting it out (separately), honestly.
But I knew that’s what I wanted the album to be called… I’d been thinking about, what does that mean? It’s almost like a flash of everything all at once, where everything else just kind of goes away for a little bit. And that’s the best I can find the words for what it means to me, but I do feel like that about this record — just like a flash, or a flashback, in a way.
Let’s talk about “Moth,” the new single, and the video, which has your friends Angeleena Presley and Lukas Nelson in there. The song seems like a bittersweet, push/pull kind of song.
So the song I wrote with Connie Harrington Carter and Jessi Alexander a couple years ago, at Connie’s lake house, for her writing retreat. It was a magical time. I had a little loop thing with that melody and little… I call ’em my “sick beats,” but I always have little things that can just inspire, that you can just kind of hear it and start singing something other than just playing the same chord on the guitar.
I’ve always been a fan of that bittersweet feeling in songs. I long for it, actually. That’s what I’m seeking out all the time when I’m listening to music, when I’m not listening to hip-hop. Writing this, I think that instantly I felt that feeling that kind of makes your chin quiver, a little bit. And in my mind, the more I was listening to the song, the more I was seeing that high school bonfire phase… that camaraderie that, the older you get, you look back on it and you’re like, those are great memories; those were great friends… kind of like your root system in a way. In the video, even when they cut to me petting the dog, even that in a way… so many things can apply to the feeling of “you must be worth the pain.”
Where I’m at right now is an old house here in Nashville where Lukas Nelson lives across the hall, and Meg McCree and Ben Chapman live downstairs, and then another writer, Channing Wilson, has the other (apartment). Angaleena used to rent this apartment with me. I got the house together and was like, “Hey, you’ll be in my video,” because I wanted it to just feel like friends hanging out and just kind of like the golden days of our past, where you’re with your buddies. So it worked out that everybody was near here and in town to do it.
It’s lovely that you’ve built a community even in that house where you work.
It feels like the ‘70s when you come in here. Lukas actually filmed his “CBS Sunday Morning” (segment) over there. If you pulled in, you’d be like, what is happening? It’s not fancy, but it’s got a vibe.
I’ve said this record’s like a patchwork quilt of all the pieces and parts of my life, and it’s also a lot of friends on the record, people I’ve known a long time. T Bone Burnett, I asked him to play; Marty plays; and Brittney Spencer, Butch Walker, Brendan Benson, Shelby, Karen Fairchild, Armand Hutton, Carter… All of this to say, I’ve been thinking that I’ve used up all my asks, so I’m gonna have to make some new friends so I can ask more talented friends for favors. But I kind of wanted it to be a reflection of my favorite people, so the video does that, too. Even though they’re on the record, they’re in my world.
To ask about some of the featured billing on the album… T Bone and Marty both get featured billing for prominent guitar parts, and it’s nice that that can deserve as much feature credit as a guest vocal.
I’ve known T Bone for a long time. I did a thing that he did with Jack White, “American Epic,” and then me and the Pistol Annies did a song with T Bone for the “Hunger Games” soundtrack and for a Chieftains song we recorded. I’d been over at his house not too long ago to write and I just love him. So when we were putting the finishing touches on the record, I’m like, lemme just ask if he’ll come play. He’s like, “Yeah, don’t worry.” He was warming up a little bit and was messing with his pedal and stuff, and he started playing that opening lick, and Gena’s so good about just always recording, because there’s just always magic if you’re just in it and not worrying about having to push record. When he started playing that, I’m like, ugh! — I love that as being the intro to the whole record. It’s like a movie scene.
In 2021, you had what we have to know was an anxious time, with lymphoma and then recovery. But this isn’t an anxious album, through and through, by any means. You like sad songs, and there’s a few on this album, mostly on the back end, but it doesn’t feel like that’s the main tenor of the album. There are a lot of joyful and/or sensual songs. So is that kind of a reaction in any way to stuff that was going on in 2021 — sort of a rebound for you, the fact that there is some happiness with this album?
Well, first off, I was (sequencing) the album in my mind as kind of like chronological chapters. And the first part was kind of in the beginning, like having the song “I’m Gonna Run” from 2004, and then “Risen Road” reflecting where I’m from. Then the next chapter in my mind was young love and innocence. “Hot Rod Pipe Dream” is like this ‘50s movie theme with bliss, young love, fire — that chapter that we all have. Then after that, in my mind, was the grief chapter. I had a lot more sad songs, but I didn’t wanna bog everybody down all the way. But that chapter is where it’s like ear-ringing grief, and we all have that. And then the end part was in my mind reflective of what I’ve learned and looking back. “Moon Child” definitely reminds me of Dalton, my son. And then “Jesus, Hold My Hand” is really the whole point to me anyway. So there are those kind of grand finale reflections. But yeah, that’s kind of why the sad ones are at the end.
Someone asked me the other day about, “Why you don’t sing about cancer?” And I’m like, oh my gosh, cancer has taken enough from me. It took my father; it took two years of my life. I don’t want to give it my music. But I’ll tell you where I felt the emotion of all that come up was when I was singing “Jesus, hold my hand.” I couldn’t even get through the second verse. I thought we weren’t gonna be able to record it, because I lost my cool. But it was a comfort that I was reminded of, a peace that can live underneath it all. That’s what I think the tears were for me. All that is to say that there’s always pockets of it in there. But then I also think maybe I wasn’t ready all the way to go back into some doom, gloom, heavy crap after just coming out of the doom, gloom, heavy crap.
Let’s talk about some of the covers. You’ve got a few great ones on here, from Jeff Lynne and Leonard Cohen. What made you pick Cohen’s “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”?
I’m a fan of Leonard Cohen but I would never claim to know a ton of facts or anything like that; I’ve always just known of the main songs and respected them and dug in here and there. But some things, it just has to line up with what you’re going through for you to go, “I get this.” That’s what happened with the song. I was just going through something in my life … and this song came on something I was listening to and it just grabbed me and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I need to listen to this again, dig into this.” Then there was like a couple weeks where I wouldn’t listen to anything else. I’d get in the car and I’d put it on and play it over and over and over. I went into Gena’s one day and got my little nylon string guitar and started playing it. And she’s so good about capturing it, if there’s a muse moving through, and recording it. And that’s one take, just me playing and singing one time. I never punched anything. I went back over and added those harmonies I was hearing that day, but (otherwise) I never touched it again and never added anything else to it. And I love that because I feel like you can tell I was feeling it. I mean, I listen to that one a lot when I turn on the record, because I still feel it.
And then (Lynne’s) “Blown Away,” sometimes I’ll think of somebody and I’ll go, okay, I’m going to deep dive. I’m gonna go to the first record they ever made and I’m just gonna go through every song. The other day, I did it with Johnny Rodriguez. So that day I was doing Jeff Lynne, and when “Blown Away” came on, I had to pull over, it took my breath so away. So again, I just went and started playing on the piano at Gena’s and we just captured it, and then I had Brendan Benson sing and play that 12-string on it.
That is a good reminder to go back and listen to that 1991 Jeff Lynne solo record.
I’ll get in the car every morning so excited about what I can find that will stir me up. I mean, it’s like a drug, really. I just think that I always wanna keep learning about music and finding things new and old that just floor me. But I do like going back and digging through old stuff. Because I don’t want my stuff to be forgotten. I want people to dig and find mine, 20 years from now.
“Jesus, Hold My Hand,” would you consider that a favorite hymn?
I used to sing that song when I was little, when I would be scared, like if I’d have to go to the doctor and get a finger prick, or if it was storming really bad. As a child, I would always comfort myself with it, but I hadn’t sang it in a long, long time. I was over at Gena’s one day and we were overdubbing organ, and I picked up this old guitar she had and just started singing it. Again, she went and got the mics all around me in the room I was in, which wasn’t even the main studio part. I needed to be reminded of that comfort, I guess, that I felt in that song. And to me, there’s something about any hymn that says “a friend,” like “what a friend we have in Jesus,” or “holding my hand”… Something about those really gets me, because it’s such a simple gesture, but I feel those deep.
I felt that feeling, recently. I mean, at my lowest chemo time… I was already super anemic when I started; that’s how they found the cancer. Then, oh boy, I had to have blood infusions almost every time for a little while. But it was like the third chemo, and I had been washing my hair and some of it was coming out. Didn’t lose all of it, but the fringes were coming out. I felt terrible. I was shaking. I had a burning-up fever, and I remember getting out of the shower and going into my closet and getting on my knees, and I saw the word surrender in my head, clear as day. I would go down saying that I saw it. And I saw that this is too big for me to manhandle, so I’m gonna have to turn it over, because I’m down. This sucked, officially. And I sat there on my knees, soaking wet hair, and just surrendered. I just was like, okay, I can’t do it anymore. I can’t carry it. And so I was feeling that feeling too when I was singing that hymn. I think the second verse, why it kept getting me choked up, was “Let me travel in the light divine that I may see the blessed way.” That line got me. Just to stay in the light… I know what that feels like. Not to get too religious… I’m not religious, but I am spiritual. And that’s why that I think that got to me extra, that feeling of knowing what it feels like to have my hand held recently.
To switch over from the depth of this album to an incredibly more trivial note: People probably always want to ask you if there’s going to be another Pistol Annies album.
Yeah, I hope so. Because we have so many songs that we have from over the past probably five years or so that I love. So I always have hope because I feel like it’s just a magic that we, ourselves, can’t deny. Me and An (Angaleena Presley) have been writing a lot while Miranda’s been keeping the road fires burning. And we all are on a text thread all the time, so I hope so. It’s one of those things I just have to wait and see.
To talk about your stylistic career arc: You have been beloved by people who love traditional country, as a queen or princess or the traditional-leaning stuff, which is a very good badge of pride. But that is not the sum total of your interests and influences, so I wonder if you felt like that was a trap at all by the time you broke away from anything close to that with the 2021 album, even though this new album comes closer to what your original fans might expect. It feels like you’ve navigated that in an interesting way.
Well, I mean, I’ll look at artists I love, like Emmylou (Harris) — she can make “Roses in the Snow” and “Wrecking Ball,” and nobody can say she’s not what she is. You know, I don’t feel like I’ve ever been trapped. My next record is gonna be the honky-tonk-iest one ever! I love honky-tonk songs and I’m like, okay, here we go. But that’s all to say, I don’t feel like anybody has to be just one thing forever, and I feel just because it doesn’t fit some mold that we can put a name on doesn’t mean that it isn’t country or it isn’t good.
Also with the country thing, it’s like minus the Grammy nominations for country album — I got a nomination and the Annies, and thank God for that — when it comes to the CMAs or other things… I don’t want to say I’m looked over, because that sounds negative, but I’ve never really gotten in with those things anyway. So why would I keep myself from just being artistically free and kind of going with the flow a little bit?
Also, when I was on major labels, they let me do exactly what I wanted. I was so lucky, especially at Warner Brothers. I’m just so thankful for those records and that was what I was wanting to do and where I was stylistically. I think it’s okay to have to not have to walk a straight line your whole artistic life, and all my favorite artists are very versatile and able to do more than one thing, and I respect that personally. I don’t ever think about it too much, because I’m from east Tennessee and I’m country, so if someone says I’m not, it’s not gonna hurt my feelings. You know, when I was little, I’d listen to Patsy Cline and Mariah Carey back to back. I’ve never listened to just one thing. I’d listen to Black Crowes and then Jim Reeves, back to back. That’s just always how I’ve been, so that’s why I don’t really think about it too hard, I guess — because sometimes I can’t tell what’s what. That’s probably the real truth. I’ve never sat around and thought, “What is this?” I’m just like, “Oh, I feel this.”
Ashley Monroe
Erika Rock