Interview: Kacey Musgraves on her new album, 'Middle of Nowhere'

pianist Maniacs. Each episode will speak with a special guest, listen to musical gems, play music inspired games, and answer questions from our listeners.

The first episode drops March 4th. Listen on the NPR app.

Hey everybody, it's Anne Powers from NPR Music. We're dropping into your feed on a Saturday with a special episode and exclusive interview with one of the biggest names in country music, Casey Musgraves. This week Casey Musgraves announced her sixth album, middle of nowhere, which will be out on May 1st. She had defined a space beyond country music with albums like The Grammy-winning Golden Hour, but now Musgraves is ready to two step again. The new album reflects a

renewed interest in traditional country, and the time she's been spending at the Texas Mexico border. She's not down with reporter Julie Height for her first interview about the project, and they started by chatting about the first single, dry spell. It's a cowboy shuffle that employs classic country double-antendres and shows Musgraves at her country comedian best. . Just so note, this conversation includes some

profanity. Now here's reporter Julie Height talking with Casey Musgraves. Listening to dry spell on the one hand, it sounds like something that could have come out of just a really wild and unguarded group text. But on the other hand, it is incredibly well crafted as a song. So, what

kind of writing and recording session did that come out of? I've just typically always kind of been

in relationships. I enjoy relationships. I love love, you know what I mean? And so this was the first longest period in my adult life where I, yeah, I was on my own and had gone through a breakup, and I was just kind of getting some taking stock of my relationships, kind of what I want in my

“life. How did I get here? Why do I keep picking the same type of person over and over again?”

And really learning how to lean into being alone, being fine with that? And I started like really, really loving my singledum, and it was a long time without any intimacy or closeness

with anyone else, longest period of my life. And I had always feared that I think like before I

experienced it, you know, just being like having this notion that I needed someone to be happy, which I found to be completely untrue. And I wrote the title down dry spell, and it was really fun to be back in the room with so many of my old collaborators and friends, Shane, Josh, Osborne, Luke Laird, you know, and nobody does humor better than those guys. And ultimately,

“I think I was, and you, well, thanks. I was craving humor again, like I think that that was a”

big part of like earlier albums, and then I maybe purposefully steered away from that, just so I didn't paint myself into some sort of like bumper sticker lane. Absolutely. Yeah, and then like, you know, life happens, there's a divorce album, and then golden hours, it's own thing, deeper wells, pretty introspective, kind of like calm and therapeutic, and then, now we're here. I mean, I really can't think of many or maybe even any other examples of ever-hearing an artist working

in country songwriting lineage. I mean, male or female or any gender, you know, writing about this notion of well-thirstyness. I mean, how about you? Could you think of anything else that you were-

“No, I mean, I don't think so. I think a lot of songs people are trying to convince you of how sexy they”

are, and I'm telling you how I haven't not been getting any, you know, even the chickens are getting late, and I'm not, you know, you look over on a table beside you, and it's too flies going out and you're like, "Great, must be nice." You know, like, awesome. Listening to Dry Spell made me think of when you released Mary Go Round. It is what it is. Follow your arrow. These songs where you're conveying sentiments in this really kind of low-key matter-of-fact way that sounds completely

natural coming from you, but songs, you know, ideas and those songs that land in this kind of

have had a knack for doing that. I mean, that is a hallmark. It's one of the hallmarks of your work,

and I wonder what you think it is about your voice as a writer and a vocalist that has kind of made that a thing. I don't know, I find the human condition pretty hilarious, you know, I feel like the universe has a pretty killer sense of humor, and so I just find a lot of humor in the everyday, and also, you know, one of my whole time favorite writers did it best, John Prime, you know, also, I can be quite introspective and maybe like, head-a-ear, whatever, but I really love

anchoring something with that, you know, and I also feel like we need to laugh more in this

“modern crazy time, you know? That's true. The bringing forth the absurdity, but I think”

it wouldn't land the way that it does. It wouldn't be as successful as funny if you didn't deliver it,

the way that you do. And that seems really essential too, because they always say that,

you know, timing is so important in the world of comedy, delivery is so important, you know? So I feel like that is also part of that hallmark for you, because the, you know, just how cool you are laying it out there. Well, it started because I knew, like, I'm not a, I'm not a, like a textbook like singer, like, you know, finger on the ear, like finger waving in the air, I'm all right, I carry salt, like I just don't really, I don't consider myself that type of

vocalist, so I like to rely more on the subtleties of things, and I, I love her strength and art,

“and I think it's hard to do, especially like in production, I think a lot of people love to, like,”

well, I don't want to say a lot of people, I don't, everyone's different, but, you know, loading up a track with as much as possible, I just don't feel inspired by that. I love her there to be room to breathe, think, and like, some, some negative space, like, in there, you know, and I think with the delivery of the lyrics or, you know, the melody or whatever, there has to be that same sort of approach to that. Like, I'm not convincing anyone of anything,

it's there if you want it, and it's fine if you don't, you know? I also wondered what, you know, what might be appealing about kind of returning your focus to, to a small-town setting when you can bring all of this accumulated insight to it, because it may be back to the song Deeper Well and talking about, you know, appreciating what you were, what was instilled in you growing up, but needing to wander, find why to, to take in so many other things. So now you're returning

to contemplating the setting with all of this, all of the such that you've taken in.

“Yeah, I think it's a little bit of that, but it's also just finding myself being totally okay”

in this proverbial sense of a middle of nowhere, you know what I mean? And that can apply to many different things. It can be how you feel relationally or emotionally, it can be, you know, someone in between jobs, it can be, yeah, between relationships or even, yeah, geographically speaking, I do come from the quote "middle of nowhere" and like actually the title track for the record, the general concept of it came from, you know, being in this very singular period, you know,

exploring a lot of my roots again, like my, you know, where I'm from in Texas, you know, spending time there more and getting back into horseback riding and all these things, and it was on a little trip to my hometown, or I just was like simply literally just wandering around the town. There's like

not much there, and I had noticed this sign that someone had put up there, that had never noticed

before, and it just says "Golden Texas" somewhere in the middle of nowhere. And I loved that it was a bit self-deprecating, but also kind of confident in the sense that it's like, we know what we are, and we own it, and it was just, it made an impression on me. And then like I was saying, I got really obsessed with the idea of liminal, the concept of liminal space. Liminal spaces are defined as the transitional space in between like a point A and a point B, typically not designed to actually

hang out in, and if we're speaking about a physical space, they're usually filled with people. We're talking like airport terminals, or like places where you are meant to pass through, and there's an eariness to them, and an nostalgia, a little bit. They can be a little anxiety-inducing because they are normally filled with people, and then when they're not, you're like, "Oh, this is odd." This is strange, but I felt, I feel really drawn to those places for some reason, and then they

job or a relationship or whatever, and I just really loved accepting that I was in this literal middle of nowhere, in many senses, and I was just totally fine with that. I found a lot of clarity there, and a lot of like, it's such a fertile breeding ground for anything that's coming next.

“I mean, you were talking about kind of going through a single phase, but I think you deserve”

more credit than just doing like literal reported on, you know, what was going on in your relational life. I mean, one of the, to me, one of the overarching themes of the album is aloneness and isolation, but it's really worlds away from something like, "I'm so lonesome I could cry." I mean, lonesome is not going to hear you, you know, pining for someone or wallowing in heartbreak. It's not lonely. Yeah, because you're, I mean, you are exploring

like wounds of absence, but you're also making all of this green. What's the word? Sovereignty,

and I guess power in that, you know what I mean? And it's powerful to know now that I don't

need anyone to be happy. Because now, whatever I do choose to put back into my life, whether it's

“friends, opportunities, relationships, whatever, it can be because it actually really serves me,”

because now I know I'm freaking good without it. There is this perception that I'm, that I'm sure you've encountered that traditional and country music is simple in execution and simple and sentiment, and that kind of thing. And you have, I mean, leaned probably further into that side of your sensibilities than any time since your Texas 2-bit kid yelling. Yeah, days and and in doing that made music that carries all of this emotional complexity and kind of captures

all of these different kinds of ambiguity and ambivalence. So how did you choose the sonic pallet that would suit the album's perspective? Yeah, I mean, I love traditional country music in the sounds that come along with that and in my sound cliche, but like when I am in a period of sadness or heartbreak, I really do turn to that old school country music, you know, the traditional side of the genre, and it's so comforting because I mean, it's, first of all,

it's all depressing songs about being heartbroken. So you feel very seen. And I, you know, I grew up singing traditional Western swing, yellowing, very, very traditional country music. And so those sounds are very baked into like what feels like home to me. So exploring them doesn't feel like I'm trying on a hat that doesn't fit. It just feels like part of me. And through all my career, I feel like I've, you know, chosen different degrees of how much I pull it

into different projects. It's always there to some degree, but I felt really good this time to like

really to like really lean into it. And for me, it's always about finding the balance, you know, if a lyric is like inherently very going in that direction really hard, maybe the balance is that the track isn't. So it's never too on the nose. In the studio, they call me the axman, it's my nickname because we will like load up a track with all these production elements. And then my favorite thing to do is get in there and just like one by one start muting things to

see where the perfect balance is and what crosses the line a little too much in terms of like taste or space, I guess. And so I love the eraser tool. It's almost like I can feel the balance like in my body, like when I'm hearing something, it's like the architecture of the thing is like

“really important to me. I want to, I want to be able to wrap my head around with the process”

actually looked like because you've you've cultivated these two really intimate circles of collaboration. I mean, first writing and recording with Shane Macanelli with Luke Laird. I mean, primarily right, you know, and then more Josh Osmore kind of though that crew a little bit and then and then in the golden hour era moving into working with Daniel Taschen and Ian Fitchwick. And you enlisted both of those teams to right with for all this new material and then you

co-produced and, you know, employed as your primary band, Daniel Taschen and Ian Fitchwick. So how did that, how did that work? How did that help you kind of, you know, nail all the different specialties that you've developed with those collaborators? Yeah, well, both sets of both crews have different strong points, you know, neither is better than the other. They're just they just

bring different things at the table and I was craving like I'll always love what I've done with

some of the bite that I can achieve and some of those rooms with some of those other people, you know, for this thing specifically. And it was just fun. I had the time to just kind of amble, you know, just kind of see what was out there. There was no like pressing deadline or anything. So I was just like, hey, would you guys want to get together and write some like super country shit, you know, like, just even for just for fun, like just see what we can get out. I was like, how

“will these titles have been saving? And, you know, I think it's going to be really tempting for a lot of”

people to say that it's a return for me. And a lot of ways, but I would also like to say, well,

I agree with some of that. I also want to say that I never left that, you know, and so, you know,

it's, I've never taken some stands saying I'm leaving country or like whatever is a huge part of me. I don't think I could shake it if I even wanted to. I revisited the first sit down that we did back in 2013 and the thing that really struck me about it was at that point in time, in that conversation, the publicists that you were working with, were pulling you toward, or really trying to strongly guide you toward talking about your

devotion to the national country, the Nashville-centric, you know, country music industry. Right.

“Right. And I think that there are multiple realities that people might be inflating and I wonder”

for you, how do you think of the difference between identifying with and participating in industry community or, you know, format versus having a connection to musical tradition and living lineage? I mean, moving in Nashville back in 2008, you know, completely changed my life. I think it was the best move I ever made. And I have a deep respect for the community here. I mean,

that has never changed. That being said, I regardless of what community is, I wouldn't want to,

like, be beholden by that either, you know what I mean? So like, while I have always, you know, how to continue to respect and still very, very much do and feel part of it, I, you know, have always just wanted to make sure that the only compass I'm following is the one that feels right to me, whether that makes sense to the rest of the community or not. Yeah, that's the kind, that's exactly kind of unencumbered mentality that that I have picked up on. Well, I can, I've seen, you know,

I've seen people try and pretzel themselves into every ideal of the moving target that can be any industry and it just does not vote well for them. You know, in my, they might get lucky and strike gold in a small period and have a moment with that, but at the end of the day, you know, they don't really have that foundation to fall back on that has really let people know who they are

“because I don't know. And I just don't, I don't like that. And I think I was scared from an early”

age of like getting trapped in that. I was thinking about the geography of how you situate yourself

in your music. I mean, that's always been kind of, you know, one defining facet of it, you know,

beginning with kind of depicting this kind of small town Texas world, you know, but, but challenging simplistic portraits of that, you know, and then, I mean, eventually kind of pulling in elements of Hollywood and with star crossed and then with with deeper well, kind of moving into a different kind of pastoral space. It's giving more Greenwich village kind of urban folk revival, sort of kind of pastoral retreat. So, what is appealing to you about returning your imagination to, you know,

to small town Texas with these 13 songs? Well, for me, Sonically, it's always about exploring the borders of country music. I think this album has a lot to do with borders. And honestly, every album of mine, you know, because country shares fence lines with so many other styles, you know, and I'm really interested in where those two meet and then making something new, you know, like, I love bluegrass and there's, there's a little bit of that. There's like, we're country

kind of meets bluegrass, then, you know, there's your sort of like kind of nostalgic kind of breezy 70s, 80s and 90s country that I love so much. And then, there's also a lane where like country meets things like traditional Mexican music, Nortano, and Zyte, even Zyteco down in La Luziana,

but it does lean a little harder into the country palette, you know what I mean? You mentioned the Western swing and stuff that you, that you came up on. I wonder, how present was Mexican regional music in your Texas upbringing? God, we're neighbors, you know what I mean? And so hearing those sounds, you know, come out of radios whizzing by or just, in my environment, in either like, you know, my small town or in Fort Worth or Dallas, you know?

“Yeah, it's definitely a very real part of Texas culture and, you know, the truth is,”

this Texas would not be Texas without Mexico in many ways, and though I've always been drawn to it,

I've been really fortunate to get to really experience that firsthand. Myself down there, seeing a lot of the, you know, vaquero and, like, rodeo culture and, like, where it comes from, and seeing how far back it goes and seeing, like, the direct influence that it has had as it's worked its way into our Texas Western culture. And I just have a lot of great respect for it. And whenever you really listen to, like, traditional mariachi music and you listen to traditional country, the themes of the same,

the instrumentation is quite largely the same. It's coming from the same heart and the same place, just slightly different regions. And I wanted to really explore like that, that kind ship, you know?

“And I think, like, a lot of people don't know this about me, but I spend half my life living in”

Mexico and I, I, that's where I go to decompress to reconnect with the physical world. I live in my head a lot. And it's just, there's a pace there that feels very down to earth and very simple and very primal and very free and I just, like, really, I really need it. And so, um, I think through Osmosis, not only from just growing up where I did, but just in my adult life and being around that, I think it has, like, just worked its way into the music and, you know, I mean, we can certainly

follow the thread in your work from the version of a Chilean folk song that you that you included and star cross to doing to collaborations with Cucco, Cucco, Cucco, you know, paying tribute to Selena, Houston, Rodio, Mexico City, you know, those, those kinds of things and then incorporating some Tejano textures on, on this album. So definitely, I definitely had, had seen you, seen your interest, your focus on that growing. And I wondered if it was more about, you know,

exploring the history, connecting with the audience, you know, what kinds of dots you were seeking to connect. Right, right, right. It's, it's like, there's such a shared kinship with the subject matter and, like, you know, um, like the songs in the, it's, it's their version,

traditional mariachi music is their version of our traditional country music. Basically,

it's their folkloric country, so to speak. And it's just so passionate and colorful and beautiful and full of emotion. And it's sung with such gusto. I mean, you've got to basically, when you're singing those songs, you've got to sound like you're bleeding out on the ground. And like, it's, it's a challenge for me because it's, I don't sing like that in my own music. Like, I'm, I'm very, it's chill and it's kind of restrained and it's, whatever. So learning some of

those songs has, like, pushed me to tap back into some of that more gutter old, like, singing with a bit more zest and, like, gusto and meaning behind it because if you deliver it to lax,

“it ain't gonna translate. I think in this modern time that we're in, like, I think, like,”

showing, like, I, I really want to go an extra mile to, like, really show the Mexican culture,

like, that I really deeply appreciate that I see it, that it matters and that it's ultimately, like,

in ways that I wasn't even aware of influence to me as a person who I am in the music that I'm right today, you know? I just mentioned a couple of the, the duets that that you've done over time, I mean, Colleen Leone, Cucco, I mean, Zach Bryan, there's, there's so many others that just show how broad your musical interest are kind of across the pop landscape, I mean, Miguel and, and just so many flaming lips. Oh, yeah, and I was like, showing some on. Oh, some like,

the rainbow kitten surprise? Yeah, so, so, you know, all of that over many years kind of demonstrated that you're, you know, kind of moving through engaging with this kind of broad musical landscape, and then on, on this album, I mean, you have, you have a number of different guests, but I think particularly, um, the pairing with, doing another song with Willie Nelson and doing this duet,

in a different way than many of the pairings that you've, that you've done over the last many years.

So, I mean, what does it, what does teaming up with these, these other kind of towering figures of Texas Country music? Yeah, mean for you, right, right here right now where you are? Well, sometimes I feel like country music is very eager to accept people from other genres, partaking in our world, and the same lenience is not shown for people who have started or been rooted in country and are inspired to explore some of those same other genres,

especially if those are just happened to be women. Yeah, that's my observation. On a percent, it can be seen in some sort of like trader light or whatever, and for me, no matter who I'm clubbing with my viewpoint on it is that I'm, I'm bringing people to country. I'm not leaving anything that's bringing it to a wider audience and people that may not have like known about it or known that they would actually like it in the first place.

Willie, I had to have Willie on this song. I know it's not a new thing that I have

“club rated with him, but he's like the patriarch of truth in so many ways, and it was important”

for him to be the narrator on that song for me because that song on certain Texas, while it is about a real town in East Texas, very, very small, I had fun imagining that it's this place where

actually people can never really actually make up their mind. Is everybody uncertain in uncertain

Texas? Is it a town full of folk boys? In this world where accountability is optional, and you just swipe and swipe and swipe to the next option. The song is like an acknowledgement of that very transient behavior, modern dating behavior after kind of what I went through. And I was like the perfect person to help throw a little bit of shade to that is everybody's favorite grandpa, Willie Nelson. Also, favorite grandpa gangster, Willie Nelson.

And then, yeah, the collab with Miranda, there's a whole story there. Well, I mean, I certainly was aware that way back, you know, we're talking a decade and a half ago, roughly. I mean, when you were approaching releasing your first major label album, you know, you'd written a song and she wound up getting to record it on her album. Yeah, so I know that that that was that was the distant, the distant history. Yeah, but it seems interesting. It is distant. There

is no active beef, but it's also, you know, had been years and years and years since we had really even interacted with each other. But yeah, there's a lot of that. You know, it's like it was two singers from two nearby small Texas towns. We take our own different paths, both leading us in Nashville at different times. And then, yeah, like there was all this excitement behind

Mama's working heart for me and it was going to be my first single and I loved the song so much.

And I had been a staff writer for years at that point, like writing for other people and had finally felt like I was collecting songs that felt like me that I didn't want to pitch to anyone else. And then, you know, the song gets pitched to her without my consent or even knowledge. And like, it was a tricky situation because she ended up loving the song and she really wanted it. And I had other co-writers to consider. And I knew I would have to go back to the drawing board.

And ultimately, I'm really glad that I did because it forced me to write merry-go-round, which ended up making way more sense for me anyways aesthetically and lyrics like, to kick my whole thing off versus Mama's working heart and that ended up going number one for her. So really in the end, everyone won because I was able to let go of something. And so that taught

“me a lot about letting go. Like, you have to believe that if there's magic there in the first place”

that you're part of, there's the the opportunity for that magic still exists somewhere else. You just have to spend a little bit of time trying to find it. And so we'd lost touch for three years and wouldn't consider each other friends. And then yeah, I saw her on Instagram or something one day writing one of her horses or something. And I was like, well, we ain't friends, but I guess we have two things in common, horses and divorces. That's for sure. You know,

and I was like, wait, that could be a really funny song. And I was like, wait, what if it's a do-wet with her? What if I got her to rot on? Just like, what if? So I was like, fuck it, I just randomly reached out to her and I was like, hey, have this idea. And if anybody would get it, it would be you. Like, are you around? So I call her and I'm just like, hey, I know we've had our shit over the years, but listen, we've at least got two things in common. I'm not trying to be

“your friend, you know, you got your life I have mine. But I think this would be a pretty”

fucking funny song. And we should write it was Shane. And she was like, hell, yeah, I'm in. Let's do it. So it was very full circle in so many ways. We aired out any of the old past laundry. We, you know,

pairing since you're both veteran Texas country artists in your own lane. Yes. It's really real.

“And I think it could be also like a micro representation of like what I kind of wish that the”

world would do sometimes, it's just fucking sit down and say, look, you're different in this way, poke fun in each other, have a beer and just fucking call it a day. I'm excited that we're going to get, we're about to get a little taste of the visual aesthetic. How are you, how are you fleshing out the way to like embody and present this, this chapter, this body of work? I mean,

I think that it's about taking these very intrinsic things that almost go unnoticed where I'm either

from or like, you know, in my past, those pieces of Texas and I guess country life that often gets overlooked because it's so mundane. It's not trying to convince anyone that it is overly

“country or Western because that's what can make something feel cliche or or over, out overplayed,”

but it's just about finding those little elements that are so mundane that they're so overlooked sometimes. Have you seen the album cover, did we show it to you? No, I don't think no. Well, it's out, it's projected on the wall out here, but my sister took those photos in Dallas one day, and haters are going to say that that bull is AI, but it's definitely not. We had my friend Evan bring a bull from his ranch and we just rode around Dallas and like would quickly like get out and

like try to block off our own traffic with some cones and like just take like we'd had no

“garments or anything and like at one point the police came up and they were like, do y'all need any”

help? We were like literally in downtown Dallas, we found this big white wall and we were like, no, we're good and they were like, alright, they just like let us do our thing. Oh and one other thing is you know, during this kind of single open air kind of time period, I wound up in Austin one night and you know, I went out to like a super-divy dance hall and there was a live country band playing and it was just really, it was really nice to see so many different kinds of people

having the best time in decked out in their westernwear and it was like hot Latino couples, it was like hot black cowboys, it was like older white cowboys dancing with like younger, younger cowgirl, like and everybody was having such a good time dancing with each other and I was like damn, American needs a two-step together like American needs to be on the dance floor, it's really of it's a great equalizer and it's where you're kind of your difference is sort of melt away

and the one goal is to connect the music and have fun and move your body and it made me really inspired to infuse some of that Texas dance hall feeling and rhythms into the record. That was reporter Julie Height, chatting with Casey Musgraves about her upcoming album middle of nowhere, which is out May 1st. Thanks for joining us for this special Saturday episode. It was produced by Noah Caldwell and edited by Jacob Gans. I'm Anne Powers, till next time.

From WQXR and Carnegie Hall comes classical music happy-out. A new podcast posted by me, pianist Maniacs. Each episode will speak with a special guest, listen to musical gems, play music

inspired games and answer questions from our listeners. The first episode drops March 4th.

Listen on the NPR app.