Following the release of her 2021 record "Star-Crossed," Kacey Musgraves joins The Current's Jill Riley in conversation about pulling from multiple genres in her sound, the nonlinear stages of grief that followed her divorce and how they came through on the record, and her upcoming appearance on Sesame Street.

Interview Transcript

Edited for clarity and length.

JILL RILEY: You're listening to The Current. I'm Jill Riley, and I'm really excited for my next guest. Very excited to talk to Kacey Musgraves, who has a brand new album called Star-Crossed. Kacey, how are you?

KACEY MUSGRAVES: I'm doing well. It's good to talk to you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, of course. Well, the new record Star-Crossed, it is out now. I know you're coming to St. Paul, really kicking off your tour it looks like--here in St. Paul at the Xcel Energy Center. So that's great, you must be really looking forward to it, to getting out.

I am--I mean, I'll be honest, not in January. I'm not a cold weather person. But it's gonna be really fun. I'm in the midst of designing the tour right now and putting all the finishing touches on everything. And I really do have to say, I'm going to be very proud of it. It's going to be really stunning. And I think that everyone, I'm going to make sure everyone leaves having had an amazing time.

Yeah, people are really hungry for a great show. I think your fans are gonna be so excited to be there. So Kacey, I want to talk about your new record because that's what we're here to do. But I was looking at some of the previews for the new season of Sesame Street. I grew up with it, but I also have a six year old son now. So I'm always trying to get him more into Sesame Street. But I couldn't help but notice that you're going to be back on this season.

I'm so excited. I'm a huge fan of Sesame Street, and it's honestly one of those bucket list things. Sesame Street has influenced generations of people and I've loved how they've always infused music and learning together. It was so fun, and honestly really kind of trippy to get to see behind the curtain of childhood a little bit. It kind of made me a little bit emotional, you know? But everyone was super welcoming. It was such a classy, fun environment. I got to sing a song, do a little skit, meet all the characters, I like totally fangirled over Oscar the Grouch. I was like, "You're so relatable. I'm a stan." It was really fun. So yeah, that's coming up really soon. I think it airs early December. So I'm excited for people to see that.

Yeah, we'll look forward to it. Kacey, I have to say, I really enjoyed listening to the album, as a whole, as a body of work--a collection of songs. Because what you did with the record, I think you so beautifully told a story. I've been reading about the record, and music critics and music writers--if you want to boil it down, the headline is, "This is Kacey's divorce record," you know that. You've seen it. You wrote it--you lived it! But Kacey, when I listen to this, I really hear this relatable story of someone going through grief, and processing change. And I think that there's a really beautiful kind of "the sun comes out at the end" kind of ending to the story. So I wonder if you could talk about the record in that way and sort of the story arc. Because it's really, like, everybody goes through their stuff. And everybody goes through grief, whether it be losing a relationship or losing a family member or losing your youth or, you know, people grieve different things. But I wonder for you--kind of talk about the story arc of the album.

Man, yeah, well I did find myself going through all the stages of grief on this record. And one thing that became really apparent to me is--and I say this in "Justified," is healing doesn't happen in a straight line. And that's something you think, like--my dog's tripping over here, sorry, if you hear pepper in the background. But yeah, healing is very much up and down. And one day, you might feel a strong sense of conviction and confidence and excitement for the future, and even happiness, and then the next year, like, "Oh, my God, what am I doing? Who am I?" And you can get kind of lost in that too. So I think learning to embrace those ups and downs and knowing that they eventually will even out--like, that was a big part of this for me, and I have my writing so I wrote all those things down and you know, it's funny, like when I listened back to the record, I can even hear myself contradicting myself from song to song in some ways where I feel confident, and then in the next I'm kind of saying, like, the antithesis of what I had said in the other song, and that's how my healing journey was.

When you look at the stages of grief--I've applied them to my own life and loss and the thing is, those stages of grief were designed for people that were terminal and people that were facing in the end of their life. So the stages of grief to apply to the living can almost be difficult to find where the end is. Kacey, I wonder for you--the album really ends on this nice, like, optimistic, almost celebratory note. How does your grief resolve? What do you think that extra stage maybe is in Your Life? Is it just optimism and hope? What do you think it is for you?

That's a good question. Yeah, I think resolve, acceptance, forgiveness to yourself, knowing if you made a hard decision, there are few decisions in this world that are so cut and dry and black and white. Most of them are very tormenting when it comes to choosing what you think might be the right thing. One thing that I wish someone would have told me growing up was that sometimes choosing the right thing, or making the right decision feels wrong, and that's confusing. So I think having compassion for yourself, and trusting yourself, surrounding yourself with honest people, trying to establish healthy routines, whether that's exercise or some form of therapy, I recently took up pottery, which has been fun. I think it's just like really taking things one day at a time, not being too hard on yourself. There's a lot there.

Yeah, all those things--excellent coping mechanisms. So thank you for sharing.

I try.

I'm talking with Kacey Musgraves about the new record Star-Crossed. We talked about the arc of the story and what you were writing about and going through, but what was your vision for how you wanted this record to sound? When it was time to, you know, it was pen to paper, but then really getting into music arrangements and the sound, what was your vision for that?

I'm inspired by a huge range of things. I grew up in Texas, so there's always going to be that country element, that I'm inspired by. The traditional kind of country thing. Around the house, I heard a lot of--my dad played a lot of female songwriters, a lot of Fleetwood Mac, Alison Kraus. But then a lot of Neil Young, a lot of Tom Petty, Sade, all the things, and I'm a fan of the Eagles and Weezer, and going into this record, I had become a big fan of the John Hopkins playlist, which includes music from all over the entire world. And there's a lot of classical music woven into it too. So I just had this vision of like, telling the story of a modern romance gone wrong. A tragedy, if you will, set to modern rhythms, and having some modern textures in there too. The synth, and the keys and a lot of that kind of stuff, but then like having it stay really warm with like the classical guitar, the acoustics, some steel, some of those elements too. So it's really just this big, like, patchwork quilt, but I feel like it really represents me and what I'm into, it's all over the place.

Kacey, you talk about--you're really at your heart a country girl. I mean, you're a Texas girl. But there's so much more, like so many more elements and genres that you're influenced by. And I wonder with the discussion of, "Is Kacey Musgraves country? Is she pop?" I mean, you're certainly not the first artist to cross over into that world, this discussion about the Grammys. But what I want to ask you, and what I always want to ask a lot of artists that have made that crossover from country to pop, because I mean, my gosh, we go back to Patsy Cline and Dolly and Kenny and Taylor Swift did it too. To you as an artist, in this day and age, do you think that genre really matters? And I think there's more to that question, but I think for you, is genre something that you take really personally or do you think that those lines are starting to fade away?

Well, when you look back in history, and you look at some of the most iconic artists out there, I kind of have this theory that true great artists create their own genres. When you look at the Beatles, and you look at their music and you listen to it, what are they? You can't really--you know, what's Joni Mitchell? They ebb and flow. What are the Eagles, are they country? I don't know, they kind of are. But to me, I think the only way that I really categorize music to myself is like, "Is this good? Or is this bad? Does this speak to me? Does it not speak to me? Is this authentic? Or is it not?" Those are the things that I look for whenever I'm choosing the music that I like, and that I listen to. The whole genre conversation is really interesting. I think that genre labels may have been created back in the day, to have somewhere to--like in a store like that was selling CDs, or tapes, or vinyl--they needed a way to categorize those things. And that's where genres came in handy. These days with the rise of streaming and stuff like that, some of those old rules don't really apply. And I personally think it's really cool to see artists mixing a lot of different elements.

I think as long as it's authentic and vulnerable, and it tugs at your heartstrings--at the end of the day that's what country music is all about, no matter what it sounds like. I mean, I'm a fan of classic country music.

Yeah. I mean, I think at my core, I'm a songwriter, I'm a storyteller. And that may sound differently as I ebb and flow through my creative life. And I think that people that love "Golden Hour" may not love "Star-Crossed" and I think that's totally okay. As I make different albums, I might bring some of the old fans along with me. But if not, then I might, catch some new ones along the way. I think music is kind of meant to ebb and flow, and the true artists that I like--I respect for changing things up and not just, you know, phoning in another record that sounds exactly the same, just because they knew what worked before. I'm not going to do that.

Sure, and that's why your fans love you for it. Kacey Musgraves' new record is "Star-Crossed," and Kacey, it's getting to that time of year that I do want to encourage people--if you've never checked it out, Kacey has a wonderful, wonderful Christmas album, and your song with Willie Nelson--to me it's become one of those modern classics.

Oh my gosh, yeah, "Have A Willie Nice Christmas" everybody.

Thank you. Yeah, exactly. All right, Kacey, well you take care. Thank you so much for checking in with The Current.

Hey, thank you so much for for playing me and supporting my music. It really means a lot to me to have it hitting the airwaves out there. And I just appreciate you spreading the love. So we'll see you whenever I come to play the first tour, the first date on the tour.

External Links

Kacey Musgraves - official site

Credits

Host - Jill Riley

Guest - Kacey Musgraves

Producers - Jesse Wiza, Anna Weggel

Technical Director - Eric Romani