The next day, I had to have a big chat with someone else in the industry, called Allen McKendree Palmer – he’s been in the business for decades, and he’d turned up to my gig for some moral support.
Allen had two things to tell me. One: that ‘High Heeled Shoes’ was the song for me. Agreed! Two: that I needed to get in touch with the kind of people who listen to country music beyond the Nashville bubble. So he sent me to the farm.
Yes, a real-life farm, in case you were wondering. I had to drive to the middle of Tennessee – the middle of nowhere, hours from Nashville – and to top it off, a storm was brewing. There was even lightning. I’d never seen anything like it – it was terrifying. When I got there, a lady was standing at the door with this lantern, and she took me to the ‘hayloft, where you’ll be sleeping’. I’m not joking you, this was my worst nightmare. It turned out I was staying in an old barn, away from the farmhouse. It was literally like something out of a horror movie. The thoughts going through my head were not normal.
There were little baby lambs and some cows, but also lots of spiders and these huge moths that used to fly about. The toilet was miles away in the main house, and I had to sleep up here on my own. Nah, mate, it ain’t happening.
To be honest, the producers weren’t happy that I didn’t stay on the farm, but honestly I would have ended up having a panic attack if I’d stayed there. I can’t even go camping. To be honest, I don’t even like getting in my mum’s florist van because there’s spiders in there. I even made her pull over once to get a spider out the van. So as if I’m going to survive in a hayloft… you having a laugh?
Instead, I stayed back in Nashville and got a good night’s sleep, but the next morning I was late for my day’s work on the farm. The girl, Sam, was fuming, so she made me shovel shit. At this point, I was thinking, ‘Fuck, maybe I should have just slept with the spiders.’
She also took me along for market day, and I watched two farmers sing along to a guitar. Later on, we went to a bar where I met some locals and listened to some more music. And then it was off to a barn dance. It’s true what they say, there’s music everywhere in that place. I even met someone who’d written a song for one of my idols, Carrie Underwood. They asked me if I knew Prince William. It was the real Tennessee. Allen was right, I did need to experience all this.
My next challenge was performing the American national anthem at a local rodeo. I couldn’t believe I even got asked! Allen told me, ‘Their ears are going to be on you, their eyes are going to be on the flag, and their hands are going to be on their hearts.’ I was absolutely shitting myself at this point. I didn’t want to know what would happen if I messed this up.
There were thousands of people at this thing, and some of them had travelled miles to watch the cowboys compete – it’s the ultimate all-American experience. Not sure they’ve ever had an Essex girl doing the honours with the anthem before. I met some real-life cowboys and tried to hide my nerves, but I was absolutely convinced I was going to forget the words to the country’s most iconic tune. On top of it all, I really didn’t like the way the rodeos went and it upset me how they treated the animals.
I walked onto the field, Greg took off his hat and they all said their prayers. Me, being an Essex twat, wore my brand new Chanel boots, and had to walk across a muddy, dusty arena to get to the middle. Yes, they were filthy. Country 1 – Essex 0.
I was shaking so much, I could barely hold the microphone, but we somehow got going. Bearing in mind there’s no music here, me and Greg looked at each other. He was shitting it as well, ha ha. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the whole audience had their hands on their hearts. It was all as serious as Allen had warned me. From now on, if anyone ever wants to doubt my country music credentials, or if they ask me something like, ‘Ever been to America?’ I’ll be able to say, ‘Er yeah, I’ve actually sung their national anthem at a rodeo. What do you think of that?’ So it was definitely worth it. Tip to self: wear sensible shoes.
It was time for my second songwriting session with Beth, and as we started working, I started to feel a bit sorry for Pete.
Yeah, Pete – Pete Wicks, not sure if I’ve ever mentioned him to you before… Well, he and I were back on by the time I went to Nashville. Yeah, yeah, ridiculous, I know, but at that point, we were all good again. We were back on the rollercoaster. But, hey, at least it gave me good material for my music.
When I’d first planned this trip, Pete and I had been split up, and I’d warned him he’d be appearing in any songs I wrote. After all, I’ve got to get my material from somewhere, true Taylor Swift style. God I feel sorry for my exes now, ha ha.
Beth told me she wanted me to be really open and honest, and put it all down on paper. I had to be really truthful with her, even though I was once again shitting myself. This was my chance to explain all those times when people had just seen me screaming and shouting, plus all those other times I’d been at home on my own, hurting, crying. Every single line of the song was so personal. I felt safe, though. I had Beth beside me, and she guided me through it, bringing out stuff in me that I didn’t know I had. Not gonna lie, I was shitting myself about what Pete was going to say.
Then – don’t ask me how! – I got invited to perform at the Bluebird Cafe. Unless you’ve been to Nashville, you won’t know how amazing this is. If you’ve been to Nashville, there’s nothing I need to tell you! The Bluebird is tiny, it’s only got about twenty tables in total, but it is THE place. Garth Brooks. Taylor Swift. Faith Hill. LeAnn Rimes. Everyone’s been. Big-label scouts come round all the time. It is INTENSE.
Allen had one piece of advice for me: ‘Make sure you connect. Use your eyes. Use your song. Let them into your personal space.’
I was even more nervous than I’d been at the rodeo, and the line-up was seriously impressive. Beth went up first and sang a song she’d written twenty years before for her late husband. In the room, you could have heard a pin drop. Then it was my turn, sharing all my Pete Wicks dramas with the Bluebird Cafe crowd, with ‘Far Cry from Love’. It wasn’t perfect. My chest was still bad, but I gave it my best shot. I also had this thing in my chest that I really thought was my nerves – I couldn’t shift it in my song and I was worried it was affecting my singing. It turned out, the real problem was… I needed to burp. Fuck my life! Why now, of all times, did I feel like I needed to burp, when I hardly ever burp anyway?
But Beth was lovely, and Allen told me something important. He said that’s what being vulnerable is all about. He said, ‘Life is not perfect. It’s not walking around with perfect makeup and perfect hair and the right shoes all the time, it’s about screwing everything up and learning how to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and go on.’
I did have a bit of a confidence crisis after that Bluebird gig, I’m not going to lie. Everyone was being really nice to me, but I knew in my heart of hearts I hadn’t done myself justice, and it bothered me. Then, just when I was considering packing up and going home, I got notice from Nick – the agent I met right at the beginning – that he’d scheduled a showcase for me at the end of the week. This was going to be THE performance that decided whether I got a deal or not. SHHHIIIIT. This was something I’d been waiting for my whole life, and it was going to happen.
Time to get real. I needed four songs to perform in front of some very important people. No more time for messing about.
I started off with some vocal coaching, and that was really helpful. The teacher liked my scales. He said to me that if Miley was in the room, who he’d previously taught, she’d say I smashed it.
More importantly for me, he kept asking me why I wanted to sing. I thought the answer to that was obvious – because I love it, because I like the sound of my own voice, because it’s what I’ve always done! But he wanted more from me. He told me about singing to his own one-year-old baby, and then he asked me to think about who I loved in the audience.
As you all know, my family are my number one, they’re everything to me, but this teacher made me really connect all my dreams with how I felt about them. I thought about my parents making sacrifices for me, my nan and granddad finding that extra money to get me through theatre school, and of course I thought about my granddad and all his pride in me.
Ahhh, my granddad… and his belief in me that I was going to become a country singing superstar. Back when I was little, he’d sit in the garden in the big chair, I used to stand and sing to him and he’d give his judgement like Simon Cowell. He’d say things like, ‘You rushed a bit.’ If he could see me now… He was even better than Simon Cowell. The songs he used to pick out for me were always the right choice.
The teacher could see me welling up. He said, ‘Sing for your granddad, not for yourself. Sing for yourself, you’ll always go wrong. Sing for the song, you’ll never go wrong.’
Meanwhile, any spare time I got, I was doing my warm-ups like he’d told me. I was even doing my scales in the car on the way to a photo shoot, where I had to get changed into a little cowgirl number and swing into action. Here, for just about the first time in Nashville, I did know what I was doing.
It was amazing hanging out in Nashville that week. I visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and saw Elvis’s car. I bought a guitar and had the guy in the shop show me a chord. I even went to a church on Sunday and watched a gospel choir sing their hearts out.
That week, I also did a radio interview on a station called CMT – only ninety million listeners across America! I’m glad they only told me that afterwards, as I was already pretty nervous, especially when the DJ, Cody Alan, told me who else had sat in my chair – yes, turns out Carrie Underwood had been there, and even Dolly herself.
Cody made me sing as well, but by now I was used to belting out a tune to order, so I just got on with it.
Finally, the night of the showcase arrived. It was at the Station Inn, a bit bigger than the Bluebird Cafe but still pretty intimate. I had an awful last rehearsal with Greg, and my nerves were definitely getting the better of me. I even started having a tantrum in the rehearsal. Not a good look! I could see Greg was hiding his impatience. I just thought I sounded rubbish. Once again, this tantrum wasn’t about being a spoilt brat, this tantrum was because I wanted it to be perfect – it meant so much to me.
Everything counted on this one night. The agent Nick needed me to pull it off big time at the showcase if he was going to green-light me recording a single back home.
When it came time to walk on stage, I was still feeling the nerves and so was Greg. The place was packed. They were all there: Allen, Nick, plus my mum, who’d flown over from England especially for the occasion.
I wanted to sit there for a bit and take it all in, but there was work to do. I could see Allen’s face, and I could see my mum. I just started talking, telling people my story, and then it was time to sing. Pretty much everything I’d ever done, or ever wanted to do, was all going to come down to this moment.
I gave myself a soft warm-up with a cover of a James Bay song, ‘If You Ever Want to Be in Love’, then up next was my original song, ‘Far Cry from Love’. Then came ‘High Heeled Shoes’, the song I wanted to release if I got the chance.
Finally, I sang ‘Fields of Gold’, but first, I told the audience about how proud my granddad was of me, how I’d lost him, but how I felt him still watching over me. My biggest fan! He’d have been so proud of this night. I felt really emotional singing it, singing it to him. All the words in that song, I always sing to him.
By the end of the performance, I felt happy. I walked off the stage, gave everyone a hug, and then the agent Nick said he wanted a word.
Once again, he told me straight. He said that at the beginning of my session, people had been chatting and the crowd felt a bit hostile, but as soon as I started singing, they buttoned up. He said, ‘They turned silent.’
He told the producers afterwards, ‘She opened her mouth and won them over, and that’s hard to do.’
Oh, and by the way, he gave the go-ahead for the single’s release in the UK. This moment – me standing there with him, him telling me this – made me think everything was worth it. All the hard times, all the crying and all the breakups, had led to my amazing music which everyone loved, so I definitely do believe everything happens for a reason.
I can truly say that trip to Nashville was the making of me. When I first got there, I’m not going to lie, I felt like a bit of a plum. I got bronchitis and I was coughing twenty-four seven. I couldn’t pull a proper pint at Bobby’s. But the people I got to know were amazing. I hope I get to work with Greg again – he was so patient – plus Allen, who I called my Nashville dad, and Beth, who gave me all that confidence to write.
The whole trip was inspiring – it made me realise that I wouldn’t give this up, whatever happened to the single. My granddad used to say that, he used to tell me, ‘You never give up.’ He would say all the time, ‘You will be a star.’
Thanks, Granddad.