‘To hell and back’: Kacey Musgraves will showcase her growth as a singer-songwriter in AAC concert

To see how drastically a musician’s life can change from one album to the next, consider Kacey Musgraves.

In 2019, the veteran East Texas singer-songwriter was on top of the world. She’d finally broken free of the constraints of country music and won the album-of-the-year Grammy — the music industry’s top prize — for Golden Hour, a joyous album of love songs inspired by her 2017 marriage to singer Ruston Kelly.

But the honeymoon ended, her marriage unraveled, COVID-19 hit and, by late 2020, she and Kelly divorced.

“I’ve been to hell and back/Golden Hour faded black,” she sings on “What Doesn’t Kill Me,” one of the more optimistic songs on the mostly downcast Star-Crossed, her fifth studio album, released in September.

It’s a breakup album in the grand tradition of Joni Mitchell’s Blue and PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me. Musgraves is a master of nuance, which means there are a variety of subtle emotions bubbling through the lyrics. But she can also be point-blank and, at times, brutal. Let’s hope Kelly never hears “Breadwinner.”

We recently caught up with the 33-year-old Musgraves by phone between dates of her Star-Crossed tour, which includes a Feb. 14 concert at American Airlines Center. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Most fans know you grew up in East Texas in a tiny town called Golden, and then moved to Austin after high school before you moved to Nashville. But a lot of people don’t realize you have roots in Dallas-Fort Worth, too.

Well, from about age 11, every Sunday my sister and I would get dressed up in our Western wear and go to Fort Worth and sing with a children’s group called the Buckaroos, strolling the Stockyards and singing old Western standards to all the Stockyards visitors. And they didn’t really care! They were like “Oh … OK. Bye!” [laughs]. Later on, I would sing at Johnnie High’s Country Music Revue in Arlington, like, all the time. That was a big one for me.

Fast forwarding to more recent times, can you describe what it was like going from the high of Golden Hour to the difficult times that followed?

Well, you know, this chapter taught me a lot about duality. You can have it all in one area, and you can be really struggling in another. What you see on somebody’s social media, or how you might imagine their lives to be … it may not be accurate. I’m not the first person to get a divorce, and I’m definitely not the last.

I got closer with my friends, some really beautiful songs came out of it, and I think going through what I went through made me a better lover, and a better, kinder version of myself. I’m kinder to myself. I learned a lot about what I want, and what I don’t want.

Please tell me if it’s too personal, but are there examples of things you learned you wanted or didn’t want?

We might be here all day if I really get into this. But I’ve learned that chaos shouldn’t stem from inside of your closest personal relationships. The world is already so chaotic, and I definitely lead a chaotic life as far as what my lifestyle is like, and my job. But I think the space your relationship should hold for you should be a place of calm and comfort and stability.

We all get excitement from different areas of life, and when you’re younger, you can trick yourself to find stimulation from an up-and-down relationship. But that can be really exhausting, you know?

Star-Crossed is such an eclectic album, with flourishes of new wave and electro-pop and folk and dance music. What are your thoughts about the country music purists who say you’ve turned your back on country, or that by exploring pop music you’re somehow no longer authentic?

I could have made [an album like] Golden Hour again, but I definitely wouldn’t respect myself as a creator for doing that, and I think true music fans wouldn’t respect that either, you know? The real mark of something authentic is something that feels like a risk, instead of making the same thing over and over.

Star-Crossed is just a huge patchwork quilt of all these influences that I am inspired by … late ‘90s/early 2000s pop like the Avalanches, and then bands like America, the Eagles and Neil Young. I was also listening to a lot of Vivaldi and the Johns Hopkins Psilocybin Playlist, which is wonderful. One minute it’s classical Spanish guitar, and the next it’s Peruvian shaman chants, and India.Arie, and “Gracias a la Vida,” the song in Spanish that I made the bookend of Star-Crossed.

You seem to have a real affinity for Latin music. When you played in Deep Ellum in 2019, you covered a Selena song (“Como La Flor”).

I have a huge respect for that culture. The language is beautiful, but when you translate it into English, the poeticism is largely lost. I studied with a tutor for a handful of years, and I’m inspired to maybe try to learn and create a song in Spanish at some point.

I love Selena. She’s definitely one of my favorite artists in the sense that she took something very traditional and blended it with something very modern. She took mariachi and made it something that young people love. I always love when two worlds collide. I can relate a lot to that, with loving country and Western music and figuring out where it fits into my world, in the modern sense.

For years, you’ve been writing songs about characters who happen to smoke pot, including on the new album. Do you think singing about that topic makes it harder for you to get radio airplay, especially from corporate-minded radio programmers?

Oh, well. To each their own. But I think we can all take a cue from Willie Nelson … if you mentioned pot in your songs, you’ll probably be just fine.

Does weed help your creativity? Does it help you deal with stress?

To be honest, I don’t really partake in marijuana much anymore. There was a time when it really did serve me well. But I think maybe as I’ve gotten busier, as I’ve gotten older, I find it to be a little bit more anxiety-inducing than I would like. There’s a time and place for it. But I just try to be mindful that I’m not using anything as a crutch, or that I’m not a slave to anything, and that can be caffeine or whatever.

What would you like to try in the future, career-wise, that you haven’t done yet?

I really love producing, and I think that goes back to the days where I was super-young and on a shoestring budget, having to create my own demos and then try to hone in on a sound, you know? I found a lot of joy in expressing myself that way, so I think it would be really fulfilling and rewarding to produce an artist that has really great songs and to be able to cohesively work with them. I think that would be really fun.

After months of lockdowns, you’re finally out on the road playing arenas. How is this tour different than previous tours?

I’ve worked my way up from tiny clubs to decent-sized theaters to bigger theaters and to amphitheaters, you know? And I’ve loved what every step has felt and looked like. It’s cool to see the growth.

It does feel good to be creating and emoting again, and this tour is genuinely beautiful. It’s something I’m really proud of. While I might be in a happier place now than when I wrote these songs, these stories really deserve this moment, and I’m happy to see them come to fruition.

But stepping into an arena, after a couple of years of not doing it … I would be lying if I said that there wasn’t some anxiety attached to that and some self-doubt, like, “Am I good enough for this? Can we pull this off?” You worked so hard to see a vision come to fruition, but you almost kill yourself doing it. It’s definitely not easy. And I think a lot of people may not realize the amount of work that goes into a show like this, especially when you’re out of practice.

What’s the biggest misconception about you or your music?

One thing that people would probably be surprised about me is that I’m actually pretty shy. Once again, in terms of duality, you can be a performer and step on stage in front of 4,000 people and be comfortable with it. But you can also be an introvert, you know? And as I get older, I feel like I am more introverted.

A large part of me struggles with that. [As a touring musician] you’re physically uprooting yourself mentally and emotionally, routinely, to basically, like, peddle your music, which is a crazy thought. What gives me the most pride and happiness is the creation and the writing, the shaping the vision. Touring may not be in my forever future.

I don’t know. I’m just going to roll with the flow and hopefully have the confidence and self-awareness to do whatever makes me feel the most fulfilled and comfortable, regardless of people’s expectations.