AmericanaFest 2026: Talking With She Returns From War

When Hunter Park was 15, her mom took her to the Grand Ole Opry to see Crystal Gayle. Those few moments of watching Gayle perform, standing on the sacred circle of staging preserved from the show’s days at the Ryman, changed Park’s life. 

“She wanted to come to Nashville [in the way] you take your kid on a spring break to Disney World,” Park tells the Scene. “She wanted to eat barbecue. She wanted to listen to Patsy Cline. Then I kind of threw her for a loop by being like: ‘All right, this is the rest of my life. I want to give myself to this thing, which is country music.’ And I really have. I mean, it’s all I have.”

Park describes her mom as eccentric, larger than life and eerily similar to Parker Posey in Season 3 of The White Lotus — “If you’ve seen that, you’ve met my mother,” she says. She was incredibly supportive of her daughter’s dreams.

“For the next two years, during the summertime, my mom would let me stay at the Holiday Inn on West End by myself,” says Park. “I’m sure there’s some legal loophole there. I was posting on Craigslist saying I want to be a singer-songwriter. This is incredibly dangerous, by the way. I met [some] people who are scam artists, but at the same time I met some of the most talented women that I know.” 

Among those women were two who became her vocal coaches. One is Shelby Rollins, who currently serves as live vocal performance director for Megan Moroney. The other is Leigh Nash, the singer-songwriter who rose to fame as lead singer of Sixpence None the Richer.

“I’m so extremely proud of both of those women for keeping tolerable of my bullshit,” Park says. “They’re the ones who really taught me how to start this project.”

That project is She Returns From War. Park chose a stage name (which is also the name of Lee Collins’ 2013 dark fantasy novel) to better represent her musical mission. 

“The name keeps me going, because I feel like every day is kind of like you’re fighting a battle,” she says. “I don’t go by my own individual name because I want people to know that I’m standing with them with the songs I’m singing. We’re all in this together. It’s a unifying thing, even though it’s one woman’s journey.” 

Park grew up in Charleston, S.C., with her aforementioned mom — “It was a little Grey Gardens,” she quips — and released her debut album Oh, What a Love in 2015. Over time, she built on the country-folk framework of that album and added more elements. She released two more records: 2018’s more rocking Mirrored Moon Dance Hall, featuring her fan-favorite song “Swamp Witch,” and 2023’s Ruthless, which has more dance-pop elements. 

Then Park made the move to Nashville in 2024. She’d spent several years building a community of like-minded artists, including honky-tonk queen Kristina Murray, country-pop singer-songwriter Fancy Hagood, and Meredith Watson, founder of The Nashville School of Traditional Country Music. In her writing, Park draws on her experiences as a trans woman growing up in the South. 

“I wanted to paint this big world,” she explains. “When I was growing up, I wanted people to really understand that the complexity of transness is flying closer to God in a way. There’s not something inherently evil about it. You’re just literally being yourself and being in your own body.”

Park is set to take the stage during the Queer Roots party at The Lipstick Lounge on Thursday, Sept. 17 (the event runs noon to 7 p.m., but set times haven’t been announced as of this writing), and Sept. 18 in Centennial Park, as part of free concert series Musicians Corner’s annual partnership with AmericanaFest. She’s also gearing up to release her fourth album Dinner Music, slated for 2027.

“Nashville wanted a country record out of me and I said, ‘I will give you the golden standard,’” says Park, who describes the album as a “classic-sounding country record that you can put on when you’re making dinner.”

“I think the art of nourishing your person or being in this world that you create for yourselves at home is one of the only virtues that we fucking have left,” she adds. 

In addition to Dinner Music, Park says she’s working on two other records, noting, “I’m on a bit of a roll right now.” One is an acoustic-forward album called Blue Opaline, and the other is an as-yet-untitled pop-country project in the vein of Shania Twain. 

“I have specific goals that I want in the realm of country music,” Park says. “I have this big, deep-seated desire to be in the stream of history when it comes to country music as a whole.”

Along the way, Park is writing and singing her own anthems. Case in point: the rousing “Dramatic Entrance.”

“I wrote [‘Dramatic Entrance’] about being confident and in a world that’s so sticky right now. How people are being told to perceive people is so silly. Everyone is so conditioned to watch 15-second videos that tell you that trans people are terrorists. Everyone’s so conditioned to not think outside of their little box that makes them feel safe. Maybe they’ll put me out for being outspoken about that, or maybe they won’t because I think I’m coy. But I think people have gotten really lazy at developing their own … attitude towards making the world what they need it to be. I think ‘Dramatic Entrance’ is the anthem for the person who knows what they’re doing, but knows what they’re up against.”

AmericanaFest Preview 2026

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