will speak of again. In short: It rocks.
It also, Lambert realized after the
fact, hearkens back to those early
days she was recalling. “Because he’s
supportive, my husband had ‘Mess
With My Head’ on in his car the day
it came out,” she says. They were lis-
tening to a “Miranda Lambert
Radio” station on a streaming ser-
vice and the new tune was followed
by her 2005 hit “Kerosene.” “I was
like, ‘This isn’t really that different at
all.’ It’s still the same rock vibe with
my country ass on top of it.” Which
makes sense since Lambert says, “I
went after this record with the same
excitement and hunger and open-
ness as I did my first record.”
That refreshed enthusiasm
stemmed from a mixture of factors,
including her newlywed status, her
seasoning as a live performer, and
her simply wanting to rock again
following the reflective singer-
songwriter tone of Weight of These
Wings. “A lot of it came from what I
was missing live, thinking about
‘What do I want to do up there?’ ”
she says. “A lot of that early stuff, I
was so young and so fiery. I wanted
to go back to that energy.”
What she has no interest in
returning to is the celebrity-
industrial gossip machine—which
placed Lambert in its crosshairs dur-
ing her marriage to, and divorce
from, Shelton—and the time-rich
slaves to said machine who enjoy
trolling her social media feeds.
She has fun with them, the tab-
loids, and her own foibles in the
zippy new ditty “Pretty Bitchin’ ”:
“Well, I’m a pretty hot mess/But
hell, I guess/I’m pretty sure it’s a
family tradition/I got a pretty good
time in the checkout line/With all
the free press I’ve been gettin’.”
That bit about family tradition
prompts the question as to whether
her mother may have ever dumped
a salad on someone—as Lambert
got ink for doing recently—to which
Lambert laughs and says, “My mom
was a Golden Gloves boxer, pretty
sure. She was there when I dumped
the salad.” And her part in the ker-
fuffle? “She was getting my
hamburger to go, because she knew
we were about to have to leave.”
The occasional overturned-
vegetable incident aside, Lambert is
happy. But she doesn’t want that to
worry her fans. “People say, ‘Oh no,
you got married. Are you going to
write all happy songs?’ I can’t write
all happy songs because the fiery me
is the part that built this whole
thing. I’ve got to keep that close.”
Ultimately, though, Lambert is
learning, as many people do, that
the older you get, the less what
other people think matters to you.
She puts it succinctly: “I wouldn’t
go back to the days where I did give
a f--- to save my life.” �The Grammy-winning
Texan is balancing dates
on this trek with her own
distaff GIRL world tour as
well as her duties in the
buzzy group the High-
women with Brandi Carlile,
Amanda Shires, and fre-
quent Lambert co-writer
Natalie Hemby.“I feel like I step back in
time and am seeing one
of the greatest rock stars
of all time when I watch
her,” Lambert says of
the “Ex’s & Oh’s” singer,
who recently toured with
Heart. King also copped
a CMA award for “Different
for Girls,” her duet with
Dierks Bentley, in 2016.Chris Staple ton, Garth
Brooks, Willie Nelson,
and, of course, Lambert
are among those singing
the praises of this Grammy-
nominated Arkansas
native, whose 2018 album
Girl Going Nowhere landed
on many year-end best-
of lists, including EW’s.THE ALL-FEMALE UNDERCARD FOR THE
ROADSIDE BARS & PINK GUITARS
TOUR IS CHOCK-FULL OF BADASS
SINGER-SONGWRITERS. MEET THE
QUEENS OF MIRANDA’S WINNING HAND
MIRANDA’S
WILD CARDS
MAREN
MORRIS
ELLE
KING
ASHLEY
MCBRYDE
“Tenille and Caylee are
relatively new,” Lambert
says of the youngest
openers on her tour. “The
fire in their eyes gives me
fire in my eyes. I’m excited
about it. I want to always
remember that, because
sometimes you get tired.”CAYLEE
HAMMACK
Already heralded in her
native Canada, Townes
recently won four Cana-
dian Country Music Asso-
ciation awards, including
Single of the Year for her
hit “Somebody’s Daugh-
ter.” She was also named
one of CMT’s Next Woman
of Country for 2019.