When the members of Pistol Annies conjure a song they know they want to record as a trio and not as solo artists, it comes with … well, a certain kind of feeling.
“We call it ‘the crotch twitch,’ if we’re being honest,” says Angaleena Presley, sitting in a Music Row office while she sports a Halloween-themed maternity shirt. “Holler Annie” Presley is one-third of the country-singer supergroup, the other two-thirds being “Lone Star Annie” Miranda Lambert and “Hippie Annie” Ashley Monroe. Lambert, who’s next to Presley on the couch, and Monroe, who’s curled up in a nearby chair, are both wearing camouflage, though they swear it wasn’t coordinated.
“It’s like a deep sensation,” adds Monroe. Or, as Lambert deadpans, “like knowing when your dog has to poop.”
Over the past few years, the Annies have seen breakups, divorces and childbirth. (Monroe’s son was born in 2017, and Presley is expecting her second child in January.) Since their 2013 sophomore LP Annie Up, they’ve released solo records that are six of this decade’s best: Monroe’s The Blade and Sparrow; Lambert’s The Weight of These Wings and Platinum; and Presley’s American Middle Class and Wrangled. But after all that, they started twitchin’.
“We lived a lot of life,” says Monroe. “Then we all looked up. Every time we look up from our solo careers, we start gravitating towards each other.”
Written mostly in intense bursts at Lambert’s farm, the Pistol Annies’ forthcoming album Interstate Gospel sets an extraordinarily high bar not just for country music, or “women in country,” but for songwriters across the board. The record — due Nov. 2 via RCA Records Nashville — is full of hard realities and rude awakenings. “Best Years of My Life” peels back the Instagram-worthy perfection we all too often strive to project, getting honest about marriage and motherhood. In “Sugar Daddy,” sexuality doesn’t have to be sacrificed for intellect, and there’s power in pleasure. “Commissary” tackles the inevitable truths — and harsher penalties — that come with addiction.
Part of the magic of the Annies is that the material doesn’t originate from a meeting between strangers on Music Row, as country co-writes so often do. These are friends a decade strong, sharing their experiences and passing along, but never lecturing on, life’s lessons. It’s not product — it’s processing.
“When a fan hears the record and goes, ‘Man, that really helped me,’ that’s all we ever want in life,” says Lambert.
“We’re not trying to be perfect,” adds Presley. “Ever.”
Perfect or not, the sheer amount of talent contained here is staggering. They’re The Highwaymen for a new generation, given the sheer talent combined in one unit. The Annies are three of the finest living songwriters with three of the finest voices — each has her own perspective, but they’re all tuned the to same wavelength, bent on telling the truth, at whatever cost.
The Annies officially released the single “Got My Name Changed Back” to country radio earlier this week. The cut is quite possibly the most enjoyable shit-kicking song about divorce ever written: “I don’t let a man get the best of me,” sings Lambert, her inflection full of piss, vinegar and a glorious measure of freedom. If radio stations play the song nearly as much as they disseminate gossip about Lambert’s personal life, the song will go to No. 1. The frustrating reality is that 180 consecutive seconds of Luke Bryan coughing would stand a better chance of getting airplay.
“The other day we were visiting a station and our manager asked, ‘Are you going to play the songs?’ ” Lambert says. “And that person responded, ‘Well, they’re out there!’ We were like, ‘Um, is that a no?’ ”
However the apple falls, the terrific Interstate Gospel couldn’t feel more urgent and timely. Its characters are not pastiches of the female experience — they’re full, unretouched pictures of what it means to exist in a world with as much hope as heartbreak. They ache just like a woman, and break like one too. These are feminists who can still ask for a little sugar, daddy.
The Scene sat down with the trio two nights before they headlined the Ryman to talk about the new record, Spanx and the power of song.
So I’ve heard two different things about how this album began: One was with a text message from Miranda, and one was with Jesus. Which is true?
Miranda Lambert: Both. Jesus sent us a text message.
Ashley Monroe: He talks to us in new ways.
Lambert: We started our first song via text, but we were already talking about writing anyway. “When I Was His Wife” got it rolling. I sat down and wrote part by myself and said, “This is Annies.” You know right away. I sent it to them, and within 10 minutes they sent back verses. I made a worktape, and that was Song 1.
What does that writing mode look like?
Monroe: Sometimes one of us has an idea, and sometimes none of us have anything. We wake up and drink a lot of coffee, and wait. When we go in with a mission to write, it’s full-on.
Angaleena Presley: Ashley always has a melody up her sleeve. She’s a melody … I can’t think of the word.
Lambert: Wizard?
Presley: Yes! And [Lambert] will just be talking, and we’ll go, “That’s our song!”
Lambert: I speak Walmart and write country songs, so it works. But [Presley] will have a nugget of an idea, and it’s just something brilliant.
Part of what draws people to the Annies is how you represent a complete picture of what it means to be human, and to be a woman. Flaws, sass, sexuality, humor, hurt. It’s all there.
Lambert: I think all of us have lived part of all of these stories, or our sisters have, so we feel their joy, pain and everything in between. We find our own selves in our characters as much as we hope other people do. We want to be every woman that is glorified on this record, and we have been every woman that isn’t.
Do you feel a need to paint a complete picture of who women are, since modern country music doesn’t always live up to that task?
Lambert: We don’t have a choice. We just are all of it, so we aren’t afraid to talk about it.
Monroe: [Presley] said once: “We aren’t on a soapbox, we’re doing dishes.”
Lambert: I encourage other girls to say it like it is. And there are some doing it anyway. But there are some probably holding back. We want to encourage them to tell their truths, even if they are ugly.
Like on “Sugar Daddy,” women can both submit and take charge. It was great to see you come out swinging with that at the recent women-only CMT Artists of the Year.
Lambert: It’s a women’s event, and the woman in this song has all the power. And it’s so fun. It’s perfect for the moment.
Presley: When it came time to pick a dress [for the event] they said, “Do you want to go flowy?” And I said, ‘Hell no, I’m showing it off.’ ” Here I am, pregnant, singing “Sugar Daddy” with a dress that is practically painted on me, so suck it! The whole event was a showcase of badassery. It was undeniable.
Lambert: It didn’t feel preachy. It felt like everyone was really proud of each other.
We all know the challenges facing women in country radio these days, but “Got My Name Changed Back” is officially the first single, right?
Lambert: We hope!
Monroe: It would be cool if they like it. We won’t be surprised if they don’t.
Presley: Divorce is the worst thing you can ever do. It’s hell on earth. This is something in the middle of that hell. To not take it so seriously for just a minute.
Country music, and your version of it, does that so well: making light of a bad situation. Flipping things on their heads.
Lambert: If you have ever gone through the process of changing your name back, it is a pain in the ass. But the whole point of [the song] is about new chapters: something closing, something opening.
Presley: A feel-good divorce song!
“Stop Drop and Roll One” came from Miranda just saying that phrase in conversation, and spinning it into a song. Are you always clocking ideas to the memory bank?
Presley: We are all really observant. We all watch people, hear people, remember things. I am a sponge to the point I can’t really watch the news, or look at social media. I feel so much.
Angaleena, you have a great line in that song about not knowing where your bra is. Where did it go?
Presley: Several different places. Vegas maybe? One time we woke up in Mexico and my bra was floating in the pool.
Monroe: And [the line before that], “Get this thing off of me,” sounds like something you should say about Spanx.
Lambert: We have all thrown Spanx in trash cans at one point or another. At some point, it’s just done. We love them, though.
Presley: One time I dislocated my shoulder and they had to put [the Spanx] on and take the Spanx off of me. I was like, “Look away!” The whole purpose of Spanx is to make you look smooth and pretty, but if a man saw you put one on, there is not going to be any sex after that.
That’s got to be the first country lyric about Spanx. You have another line that really caught my attention in “Best Years of My Life”: “I got the hankering for intellectual emptiness.” Where do you find that emptiness?
Presley: It’s something that shuts your brain off. A moment you can turn on Real Housewives and turn your brain into jelly.
Lambert: Also just nothing. Sometimes silence makes you hear more. There is so much noise everywhere. I used to get energy from noise. Now I get energy from silence.
Monroe: Oh yes. Last night [my husband] had a different TV on in every room, talking to me about fantasy football. I said, “Mute that TV, and I’m going into the bedroom.” I just sat there in silence until I went to sleep.
Presley: I asked my husband the other day, “How is your fantasy football league going?” And he went, “I can’t believe you just asked me that! Thank you so much!” And then he was like, “Blah blah blah …”
Lambert: I got physically angry one time about it. I just got rage. It’s fucking fake!
Presley: I shut my brain off with Facebook sometimes. I have a personal page and it’s all people from my hometown and … Lawdy!
Lambert: I only have a private Facebook, and it’s to creep on my ex-boyfriends’ new wives.
This is all hilarious, but also so real. You aren’t afraid to admit to all the shit us regular people do: wear Spanx, stalk on Facebook. Like “Best Years of My Life.” Admitting it’s not all rosy.
Monroe: It helps to laugh. That song came to me when I was wrapping Christmas presents. Fast-forward, we were talking about [Lambert’s] friend that lives in her hometown who we all love, who is a mom of four.
Lambert: Five actually. We texted her a night we were writing, and she said, “Write a song about an overworked mom, because it’s really hard.”
Monroe: It’s saying, “It’s OK to feel this way.”
Lambert: It gives permission to feel. Saying it gives ourselves permission.
That song made me think of the Instagram mom bloggers who always portray motherhood as being 100 percent perfect all the time. You know they’re struggling too, but they never show it.
Lambert: It’s their highlights. It’s fake.
Presley: What’s really going on behind all that perfection? It’s such a temple of doom to me. Mom world is the worst. There is so much mom-guilt, anyway, in every minute of every day: “Am I doing this right?” You have someone’s life in your hands.
Monroe: Everything is different than you thought it would be.
Lambert: We’ve known each other for over a decade. If someone said, “This is what is going to happen to you,” we never would’ve believed it. But the biggest blessings come from that. Stop trying to make the plan happen.
Life takes strange twists and turns. Like an interstate, no?
Lambert: I’m thankful to be in a free part of my life. I had times when I was really settled. This is one phase where I don’t have to be. For the art’s sake, too. Go out and meet people, listen to them talk, gather it all up for us.
Presley: I live vicariously through [Lambert]. I was laid up in a sickbed, and she was in a Jeep mudding in Arkansas with random rednecks.
Lambert: A new level of red!
Presley: Miranda is a planner, though. She’s planned a couple parties for me and Ashley, and they are the greatest parties you could ever dream of. She thinks of everything.
Lambert: They say I always know they are hungry before they do.
Monroe: Her food timing is impeccable.
Presley: [Lambert] is the Betty Crocker. Betty Rocker.
Lambert: With a side of rage!
Presley: Between all of us, there isn’t one “woman thing” that we don’t do.
That’s what makes your music relatable. And not for women only. This is a human experience.
Lambert: For my whole life, we got Redbook and it was addressed to my dad. One day I said, “Dad, is this for mom?” And he said, “No, I gotta know the enemy!” And I thought, that is really intelligent. I don’t know if he was bullshitting or not, but as a dude you might want to give yourself some insight on how to navigate that shit-show.
Songs can be sung from a woman’s experience and mean just as much to men. We don’t say John Prine songs are for men only because they’re written by one.
From Left: Miranda Lambert, Angaleena Presley and Ashley Monroe
Lambert: It’s just about good songs. I don’t care who sings them. What color, gender. I just want it to be something that makes you feel something. Or talks about something that is worth something. A topic that is important enough to be discussed. I don’t have a hankering for intellectual emptiness when it comes to country music. … I don’t care what everyone else is doing. I want to be better than I was yesterday. I’m not going to focus on music that sucks. I’m just going to go listen to John Prine and say, “Oh God, I have forever to get there.” It’s more about getting better than knowing who you are better than. There is music for everybody. Just go find what you like. Where I get squirrely is when there is only one thing.
Monroe: I don’t even look at charts. I’m never on them! I do think there should be balance. But we are just fans of good songs.
Lambert: It’s not up to us. We delivered. It’s up to them, whoever ‘they’ are. So suck it.
You also deliver a strong version of what friendship can be. So often we are fed a narrative of women in competition.
Lambert: I’m glad that’s seen. We are not put together in any capacity. I think we are fortunate because girlfriend groups around the world are doing this, getting together and drinking wine and talking about the best and worst things in their lives in any moment. We happen to be three that are songwriters. We are the people we call when things are good and bad. A group of people who will call you on your shit and hold you when you are sad and celebrate with you in the best moments of your life. And we get to write about that.
Monroe: We want to come together as one. And we normally agree.
Are there times you don’t?
Lambert: Oh yeah.
Monroe: Friendships are relationships, too, and they go through ups and downs. You don’t have to be friends conditionally. It’s fun to show an unconditional friendship.
Lambert: It’s a lot easier to break up with a boy than break up with a friend.
Please don’t ever break up!
Monroe: Never. We’re too deep.
Good. I hope you keep doing this into your 80s.
Monroe: I hope so too.
Lambert: Man, think about what we are going to have lived in our 80s.
Presley: We’ll be the Pistol Grannies.
