ISSUE #44: Getting Country Curious with Lola Kirke

Sam Hunt, Singing Songs and Signin' Boobs (Or Don't)

Credit: Alexa King

A few weeks ago, when we gathered with Lola Kirke in the Don’t Rock the Inbox Zoom room to celebrate the release of her new EP, Country Curious, she said something that hasn’t left my mind since. “I wouldn’t go to country music to hear people breaking the rules,” Kirke told us. “I want to hear people struggling to follow them.”

I haven’t heard anyone describe country music this well in a long time - the way it’s a genre whose best moments are constantly in battle with domesticity and expectations, and it’s best singers are the ones who put on full display a life trying to break or bend to fit within these rigid walls. This is, in part, why the women of country music sing with so much dynamism: there are so many more boxes to break out of, so many moral codes, so many niceties of society thrust upon us. It’s all part of what drew Kirke to country music after a career as an actress: it’s hard to be a woman in country music, but damn if there aren’t a whole lot of stories to tell, and ways to tell them.

Kirke just gets it. And, like, me, she’s not supposed to - because she grew up in New York, she’s Jewish, had other jobs before this one. She doesn’t tick any of the godforsaken “authenticity” boxes that the white dude in leather and denim is tracking in the corner. But on her new Elle King-produced EP, Country Curious, I heard a deeper understanding of what country music does better than any handful of bros currently climbing the Billboard charts - vulnerability, storytelling and also a heavy dose of humor. Kirke never takes herself too seriously, thank god (she calls this album “feminist bro-country” after all). She doesn’t pretend to be anything else other than a NYC girl who fell in love with country music (and some country boys) and now wants to use it to tell her own story. And isn’t being exactly who you are the definition of authenticity, if it’s worth having one?

Country Curious is a funny, twangy and confessional collection, featuring appearances from First Aid Kid and Rosanne Cash (who lent Kirke June Carter Cash’s dress to wear for her Grand Ole Opry debut). To celebrate the release, we chatted with Kirke about all things country and beyond, from line dancing to her favorite Bros (Natalie’s Sam Hunt hive, assemble) to Beyoncé. And that one time she pretended to be a secret agent.

- Marissa

This interview has been edited and condensed, but subscribers can listen to the whole thing in podcast form here.

Marissa: We’re all former New Yorkers who get the same annoying questions about our ownership over country music: having to constantly defend why we love it, or in your case why you make it. Do you have a go-to explanation you drop on people?

Lola: It's shifting? Honestly even in the last 24 hours, the ideas about who can make country in a viable way have shifted (we’re talking about this right after Beyoncé just dropped). I guess if you would have asked me a year ago, I would have said something to the effect of how I think that country music has really, really great roles for women a lot of the time. There's so much room for dynamism within the female character, and I think that women in country are really tough and tender at the same time.

Marissa: There are so many interesting roles from a storytelling sense, or an artistic approach, that you can take on as a woman in country music. And the polar opposite is kind of true for men. We only ask or care if they are one kind of thing.

Lola: I do think that men's ability to cry in country music is just wonderful. They’re always so sad!

Marissa: I don't know why that made me think of Conway Twitty. Because I usually think of Conway Twitty as being more slutty than sad.

Lola: He’s slutty cause he’s sad, like most people.

Marissa: Was it love at first sight, when you moved to Nashville from New York?

Lola: I never thought I could live in a small city before, not because I wouldn't want to, but because I started my career as an actress. So I thought I had to live in New York or LA, and I've accepted that about my life. But I've always loved the south, and country music. I did feel this sense that there just had to be somewhere else other than these two ridiculous places. Turns out there is Nashville as well.

Natalie: you come from a world of acting, so do you feel a connection between your process acting and your process as a musician?

Lola: Of course I do. I’m not always available to it, but I do think that I aim to bring more of that creativity that I have when I’m performing in a role to when I'm performing live. But I have found some really amazing ways to feel present and grow beyond what I ever thought I could be like singing. I think there was so long where I felt like I was just so bad at it that I was just like, this going to take all the effort I have to not suck. And now I feel more confident and excited and just more able to enjoy myself while I'm playing.

But I also do feel that I have cultivated a Lola that is a little different from the other. That feels really weird to say out loud, but she's a slightly different version of myself.

Marissa: I mean, Beyoncé has an alter ego on stage: Sasha Fierce.

Lola: Ha, well, there was one tour in particular when we were opening for First Aid Kit and it felt appropriate to create this alter ego band for our band, which was that we were undercover secret agents protecting First Aid Kit from some external threat. That helped me perform every night because those were really big rooms, and they were all sold out. And they were all really quiet British crowds that really want to listen. So I was an undercover cop who moonlit as a country superstar, and that’s how I made it through that tour.

Marissa: Amazing. You mentioned the idea of having fun and enjoying what you’re doing, which seems like such an obvious thing. Even good, sad country has a sense of humor, and one of the first things I noticed about your music is how you really get that interplay.

Lola: I make so many jokes. 99% of them are terrible, but you hope that that 1% can land into in your song in a way that's fun. I'm sure I use humor in my work the same way I use it in my life to probably deflect something deeper and torturously sad. And I think humor helps land some of those sadder things, too.

Marissa: I think that's why some of the best, saddest country, songwriters are also the funniest.

Lola: We have to survive somehow. And people are very serious right now.

Natalie: In the spirit of taking yourself more seriously, how would you say that your songwriting process has evolved?

Lola: It evolves so constantly, because I'm writing all the time, and I'm writing with such amazing people because I do a lot of co-writing. I have been challenging myself to write more self-reflective songs. I am curious about just deepening the craft of songwriting which sounds silly, but is not silly. I just am learning so much. I feel like I've been school being [in Nashville] sometimes. And I liked school. I mean, I didn't really go that much, but I liked it when I did go.

Natalie: Do you have a musical bucket list?

Lola: Well, I didn't really think it was possible to for me to actually play music and for anyone to like my music. When I first started, everyone left the party when I took the acoustic guitar out. No one wanted to be there for that. And then I learned banjo, which had an even worse effect. I feel so happy and safe and have such a great time when I play and sing, and no one else seemed to enjoy it. But you have to keep on going. Now, I feel like I’m not that bad. I’m actually kind of good at this, and that is crazy to admit. I think that with that acceptance, a long bucket list will follow. For now, it’s literally like “play the Opry” which I am about to do, in June Carter’s dress. I don’t even know if I should shave my armpits for this, which would be a good country song.

Marissa: Indeed! How was it working with Elle King on Country Curious?

Lola: I think she did a great job and I loved working with her. Elle and I have been friends since for 20 years. The first time I saw her wheeling an oversized suitcase up a large hill at our summer camp and yelling at her mom and I was like, “that's my friend.” I’ve been so fortunate to go out on tour with her, and her fans are wild. One woman took a poop outside or inside her show, or somewhere in the vicinity because she got kicked out in Salt Lake, and then she tried to get me to sign her boobs at the merch table.

Marissa: Have you signed a boob before?

Lola: I have and I felt weird about it. I tried to learn from that mistake.

Marissa: I feel like Elle is like another artist who is subjected to having to constantly defend her country cred.

Lola: It’s just it's very exhausting. She's such a perfect fit. Not to change the subject, but Lana Del Rey is putting out a country album, Kacey is going back to country, I’d be shocked if Taylor doesn’t. And Beyoncé. It’s becoming a mood, and I’ve been in the mood for a really long time. So I am a little annoyed because people have made fun of me. But maybe it will make it more normal to listen to country music, which might make me less alienated. Though I always like to alienate myself through my musical choices.

Natalie: Were you country when country wasn’t cool?

Lola: Oh yeah, I mean we went to high school in New York City! It's gonna be an interesting time. It’s like when everyone started dressing nineties and they were just dressing like an imitation of Brandy Melville and not an imitation of, like, Delia’s. They had no connection to what they were referring to. And I always like to think that great style is excellent reference, so it's confusing when excellent reference just becomes style and no one knows what it's referring to. So I hope they'll listen to Barbara Mandrell and George Jones. I wonder what music newer audiences that are listening to are going towards. And you know what? It does look great. I mean, cowboy boots are beautiful, and the only appropriate dress shoe for a man.

Natalie: I do think we're kind of at the zenith of what I feel like has been actually happening since post Old Town Road, with western wear as an aesthetic.

Lola: I definitely feel a little defensive of it. It’s a divisive genre. I don't know if you had this Marissa. But in New York the answer to “what kind of music do you listen to” was “everything but country.”

Marissa: Oh yeah, and that still exists. People say that and all I hear is that they're talking about class. They're not talking about music.

Lola: And politics. When I first moved to Nashville, the questions that were asked of me all the time showed how much of a stigma there is around the South and what a Southern person is like.

Marissa: That is a good transition to talk about your idea of this EP being “feminist bro country.” Talk about what you mean by that.

Lola: I really am interested in a contemporary country sound, and saw the way that good songwriting can really shine.  There is an emphasis on the song that still exists in country music and sometimes that reveals itself in a bad cringy song and sometimes it’s in a good one, but I found myself enjoying bro country.

Natalie: What’s your favorite bro country song?

Lola: I like “Dirt” by Florida Georgia Line, I like Sam Hunt, I like Ernest. I like Jelly Roll. I like contemporary country music now, and I guess that kind of surprised me. So I thought, let’s try it. I don't know what I want to do next. On my best days, I'm able to see myself as not just any one thing, but a whole person who experiments with different things.