Since her stunning 2016 debut ‘Midwest Farmer’s Daughter’, Margo Price has been on a journey to push herself. It’s one that’s seen her explore genres beyond her vivid, old-school country sound – from the classic rock of ‘That’s How Rumors Get Started’ to the psychedelia of ‘Strays’ – become the first female artist to join the board of directors of Farm Aid and even quit drinking alcohol. But throughout all this, the Nashville-based star has never shied away from her outspokenness and progressive views.
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“I came from a town that didn’t have very much diversity and everybody was the same and nobody stepped outside the box,” she tells NME over a Zoom call weeks before the release of her new album, ‘Hard Headed Woman’. “But my mum, she just was always telling me that women can do all the same things that men can do and no matter what your skin colour, no matter your background, people are all people. And so I owe a lot to my mum.”
This journey has come full circle for Price on ‘Hard Headed Woman’, where she’s returning to the classic country sound that first garnered her acclaim all those years ago. At the same time, the record also “plants a flag that says, ‘I am defiant and I’m going to do things my way’, as I always have”, she says. “[The title is] just timely, especially with the way women’s rights are being swept out from under our feet currently.”
Not that Price has ever really tried to appease the sensibilities of the Nashville machine, politically or otherwise. As she admits to NME: “Awards and fitting into the mainstream country music world, that doesn’t interest me as much as following my art and standing up for all the things that are going on, from gun violence to everything that’s going on in Gaza and with Palestine.
“And if we all weren’t so divided right now, then we could focus on who the problem is. And the problem is the government. The right, the left, we’ve got two choices, and they both suck. We are losing our democracy, and they really want us to be silent about so many things, and we just have to use our voice and speak while we still can.”
Now that you’re returning to that classic country sound again, how would you say your process of getting back here has been like?
Margo Price: “I always go back to this study where there are all these children, they’re five years old, and [the adults] give them paints, canvas and everything. The kids are painting, they’re loving it and having so much fun. Just enjoying painting. And then, the adults start giving the kids a gold star for the paintings. They are painting, still. Then, the adults take away the gold stars, and they don’t give them a gold star for it anymore. And then the children stop painting.
“When you start thinking about awards and you start thinking about, ‘I have all these people that are my employees now’, ‘I have to worry about feeding everybody’ and ‘What does my audience want?’ For me, I had to stay in love with the process of making songs. I needed to go explore those other places, and now I feel like I’ve fallen back in love with the storytelling part. Just having a guitar, being able to sing and have the song hold up on its own, and not needing a crazy synth and a bunch of drum pads.
“I’m glad I can still do it and write songs organically, and people really are hungry for that. I’m frustrated at what is going on with the music industry, and I’m fearful for the future of songwriters. The rise of Americana artists over the past decade shows that people still do want songs written by humans with real hearts. We need to care about artists. Not just musicians, but writers and painters and graphic designers. AI should be doing the stuff that we don’t wanna do.”
Given the landscape that we are in right now, what do you think needs to happen to protect creatives such as yourself?
“Obviously, we need a new administration all across the government. We need to have limits for where AI can pull from. I just heard the other day that the company WeTransfer [had changed its terms of service in relation to AI]. I used it so much during the pandemic, and that was where I was sharing all of my albums. That was me making ‘Strays’, and so many of my records were sent through there. I immediately cancelled my subscription.
“That’s where people can do something immediately to stop the abuse of power, to go over to Apple Music and get off Spotify. You can get your Spotify playlist, because I had a million playlists that I needed, and you can get them transferred over. There’s just the little things we can do every day. I’m at the mercy of a lot of these companies because they hold a lot of power. [The number of] Spotify listeners, that goes into bookings and bigger picture stuff. And the playlisting and all of that. It’s huge.
“At the end of the day, the artists are working really hard, and there’s a lot of people profiting off of us. It is heartbreaking sometimes to make a record, sign 2,000 vinyl, put all these albums out, and then you have streaming corporations that are giving money to war efforts. And it’s a pyramid scheme where we’re all paying the biggest artist in the industry, and anyone who is not the biggest artist in the industry is going to be getting fed peanuts.”
That’s a perfect time to segue to one of my favourite songs from the album, which is ‘Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down’.
“So perfect, like, don’t let the corporations get you down, don’t let the fascists get you down. It’s real, you can put anything in there. They’re all just stealing so much from us, whether it’s just time spent on social media apps.
“My husband [singer-songwriter Jeremy Ivey] and I wrote the song for a movie that never happened – and maybe someday it will still – but our friend was writing this film, and he asked me to write some songs for it. Jeremy and I were on tour and wrote that song together, and then Rodney Crowell helped us really shape it.
“And Rodney is such a legend; everybody has covered his songs. Willie Nelson just did a whole album of Rodney Crowell songs [‘Oh What A Beautiful World’] and I’ve been ripping off his style for years. It was amazing to just get to sit down with somebody that I admire so much and really make that song what it is.”
I read that you were inspired not just by The Handmaid’s Tale, but also that moment with Kris Kristofferson and Sinead O’Connor, when he showed her compassion and support after being booed at Madison Square Garden.
“I love Sinead O’Connor so much. Her work and her voice was just so important, and it was so punk rock. She was very deeply misunderstood. I just love that sentiment of, there are gonna be people out there that don’t like me or don’t get the music, that don’t understand why I say the things that I say. The idea of brushing off your shoulder and moving on and accepting that not everybody is going to understand it – but that’s not why I do it.”
Has there been a specific moment in your career where you had to say that phrase to yourself?
“Many times. In my early days, when I was getting rejected by labels, I didn’t have a phrase like that. I didn’t have a mantra like that, and I would just destroy myself with drinking too much or partying too much just because it hurt. But now I feel I’m in this place where I’m really mentally stronger.”
Do you hope that others will take this song, this phrase and give it a new life like you have?
“I hope so. When you have a mantra like that, when you have something that you can say meditatively over in your head, it really helps me get through my day. I hope people can tattoo it on themselves just like I did. My friend Ian Blair made [the music video for ‘Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down’] and it starts with me getting a tattoo.”
Oh, I thought it was just for the cameras!
“Right? No, they really tattooed me. It was pretty fun.” [Laughs]
Since you are bringing ‘Hard Headed Woman’ into the world during a very divisive time, what kind of impact do you hope it’ll have?
“I hope it can be the soundtrack for the revolution. I hope that we will not go one more step backwards, and we’ll just keep moving onwards. And, especially for little girls out there, I hope they get to see somebody speaking her mind and speaking her truth and [see that] they can do the same.”
Margo Price’s new album ‘Hard Headed Woman’ is out now via Loma Vista