British-Sudanese vocalist and songwriter Elmiene has unveiled a new version of his single “Honour,” this time featuring rising Atlanta soul star Baby Rose. The collaboration arrives in tandem with the beginning of Elmiene’s North American headline tour, which kicked off April 30 in Detroit, and runs through May 31 in Los Angeles. Later this year, Elmiene will bring his tour back to Europe, closing things out at London’s Eventim Apollo on December 8.
Taken from Elmiene’s 12-track debut album sounds for someone, which he released in March, the reworked “Honour” marks the two artists’ first song together. It’s not, however, Elmiene’s first time reworking one of his own releases—he previously retooled his 2025 mixtape Heat The Streets into a remix EP, Heat The Streets Some Mo’. He shared his breakout EP’s, El-Mean and Marking My Time, in 2023, following them up with a steady stream of releases throughout 2024, including two live albums and another remix EP with reworks from Timbaland, Blxst, and more. He’s also collaborated with the likes of Syd, Stormzy, ASAP Ferg, and Lil Silva over the years.
No stranger to duets, Baby Rose solidified herself as an emergent force in contemporary soul by working with the likes of Georgia Ann Muldrow, BADBADNOTGOOD, and, most recently, Leon Thomas. She has also long been associated with J Cole’s Dreamville label, appearing on the 2019 compilation Revenge of the Dreamers III and opening for Ari Lennox on her Shea Butter Baby tour the same year. She shared her most recent full-length LP, Through and Through, in 2023.
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Per a press release, Elmiene’s debut sounds for someone traverses “two decades of familial trials and triumphs that have profoundly shaped Elmiene’s personal worldviews, and sense of self.” It features production from Sampha and GRAMMY Award-winners No I.D. and Raphael Saadiq, the latter of whom also appears as a guest. Since its release, the record has garnered critical acclaim, earning Elmiene nominations for Best R&B/Soul Act and Best Male Act at the 2026 MOBO Awards, and Outstanding New Artist at the 2026 NAACP Image Awards. Another key single, “Reclusive,” has received over 13 million streams across platforms.
The couple seemed blissfully happy at the time, but now, multiple reputable outlets are reporting that they’re sorting through some “issues.”
People — a magazine with a long and well-deserved reputation for accurate reporting — was the first to report on the alleged trouble in paradise.
Elsie Hewitt and Pete Davidson attend the 13th Annual Blossom Ball at The Pierre Hotel on May 15, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
“There are issues, but they’re trying to figure things out together,” a source tells the outlet. “They’re adjusting to parenthood and working through the process.”
The gossip site Deux Moi has taken things a step further, alleging that Pete and Elsie “are currently spending time apart.”
News of the relationship troubles comes as a shock, as Pete has gushed about the joys of family life in numerous previous interviews.
“Dad life is f–king awesome,” Davidson told People in March.
“It is exhausting and rewarding and cute. And I’m very lucky because Elsie is a fantastic mom, and I can’t stress enough how lucky I am.”
Davidson also opened up about the darker side of being a parent, admitting that his protective feelings sometimes led him to be overly defensive.
“It’s funny. It’s like I didn’t understand this. You’re just ready to fight anyone,” Davidson said at the time.
“It’s like, chill out. No one’s doing anything to your kid,” he continued, adding:
“You have this overly protective like…if one paparazzi guy pops out I’m going to f–king beat the living s–t out of him. So that’s a weird gear because I’m not a fighter guy.”
For her part, Elsie has also had nothing but good things to say about the joys and challenges of mom life.
“My Scottie girl is 12 weeks old today. On the way to the hospital we wrote down our predictions for what time she’d be born,” Hewitt wrote on Instagram back in March.
“My guess was 3:05pm (my birthday, 03/05). After 23 hours of labor, that is the exact time she arrived. How crazy and cool is that.”
Obviously, neither party has spoken publicly about the breakup rumors yet. But knowing Pete, he might have already moved on to the next situationship!
The 61st Academy of Country Music Awards is shaping up to be one unforgettable night of country music, with the new wave of performers that were just added to the lineup.
Taking place May 17, 2026, live from Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena, the show will feature a mix of chart-topping stars, rising talent, and recent award winners.
ACM, Prime Video, and Dick Clark Productions have announced that the lineup will include Blake Shelton, Carter Faith, Dan + Shay, Ella Langley, Jordan Davis, Kane Brown, The Red Clay Strays, Thomas Rhett, and Zach Top, will join previously announced performers Cody Johnson, Lainey Wilson, Riley Green, Kacey Musgraves, Little Big Town, and Miranda Lambert.
Additionally, the first two winners revealed ahead of the show, Avery Anna (New Female Artist of the Year) and Tucker Wetmore (New Male Artist of the Year), are also slated to take the stage.
2026 ACM Awards performers
The excitement doesn’t end there because even more performers and presenters are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
Hosted by country music icon Shania Twain, the 61st ACM Awards will stream live exclusively for a global audience across 240+ countries and territories on Prime Video on Sunday, May 17, 2026, at 8 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. CT / 5 p.m. PT from the world-renowned MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Emmy-nominated broadcast returns to its Sunday night slot this year, promising standout performances, must-see collaborations, and plenty of surprises.
Fans will also be able to watch the broadcast on the Amazon Music channel on Twitch, as well as in the Amazon Music app.
Plus, ACM Awards week will take over Las Vegas with a full slate of events leading up to Sunday night. Festivities kick off Thursday, May 14, with the “Whiskey Jam Welcome Party” at Ole Red Las Vegas, featuring sets from Avery Anna, Caroline Jones, Jenna Paulette, and The Band Perry. On Friday, May 15, “ACM Lifting Lives Country on the Green: Riley Green & Friends” takes over Topgolf Las Vegas, with performances from Riley Green, Lauren Alaina, Randy Houser, and Rodney Atkins.
The celebration continues Saturday, May 16, with “ACM Next Wave: Country’s Beach Bash” at Mandalay Bay Beach, headlined by Keith Urban and joined by Ashley Cooke, Braxton Keith, Dasha, Flatland Cavalry, Tucker Wetmore, and more artists still to be announced.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, said Friday his state will not redraw its congressional lines ahead of the midterms, rejecting calls to reschedule the state’s upcoming primary.
The outgoing Republican governor said that he will not cancel Georgia’s May 19 primary or rush to redraw congressional maps, following a Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act and triggered a Republican-led push to redraw districts across the South.
Kemp made it clear that he will not be a part of that push this cycle, but praised the court’s ruling.
“The Supreme Court’s decision Louisiana v. Callais restores fairness to our redistricting process and allows states to pass electoral maps that reflect the will of the voters, not the will of federal judges,” Kemp said Friday.
“Voting is already underway for the 2026 elections,” he added, meaning changes to the maps would not be possible this year.
However, he acknowledged that the ruling would still impact Georgia’s elections in the future: “It’s clear that Callais requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle.”
President Donald Trump ignited a redistricting war earlier this cycle, when he first urged Texas Republicans to redraw their lines. Democratic and Republican states responded in kind — including Florida, North Carolina, California and Virginia — bringing the change in seats to roughly a draw.
But the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down a Louisiana congressional map that created a second majority Black district has led to calls from Republicans for more last-minute redraws, particularly in Southern states.
The decision triggered Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, also a Republican, to order his state’s upcoming primaries be canceled days before early voting was scheduled to start in order to redraw the maps.
Trump also said Thursday he had spoken to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, and that Tennessee would be moving to erase a Democratic-held seat there.
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Chase Rice is sharing an update with fans months after revealing plans to step away from the road in an effort to live life more fully.
In a new post from the studio, Rice said he’s feeling better than ever after taking time to slow down, enjoy everyday moments, and spend more time with the people closest to him. While he admits he’s not sure where this new creative chapter will lead, he’s excited to see what comes next.
Chase Rice; Photo by Ben Christenson
“Back in the studio. Some time off at the start of the year, then right into Red Rocks and Stagecoach was wild. I was having FUN on stage again. I know it hasn’t been long, but it made me miss it,” he shared. “Now I’ve got a little more time off to go live life, be with friends, golf, write, record, drink, watch The Chosen, not drink, fish, travel, see my niece and nephews and be with family. I don’t know what that’s gonna do for these songs, but I can’t wait to find out. Love y’all, thanks for a fun ride.”
Chase Rice is fresh off a performance at Red Rocks, which he called a “dream come true.” He also took the stage at Stagecoach and even joined Sydney Sweeney for a karaoke moment, where they sang along to Rice’s co-written hit “Cruise.”
The appearances come after Rice shocked fans in January with an honest message revealing plans to take a pause from touring to focus on living life more fully.
“I’ve been touring for 13 years and I’ve lived a dream far greater than I could’ve ever expected. This isn’t a goodbye thing or anything like that to be clear upfront, although it may feel like that, but I’m exhausted,” he wrote at the time.
Chase Rice; Photo by Ben Christensen
The North Carolina native admitted he hasn’t felt like himself on stage in quite some time and shared that stepping away from a grueling touring schedule was a way to reset, recharge, and focus on living more fully. He added that the break was about getting back to enjoying life, spending time with loved ones, and eventually returning to music feeling refreshed.
“I haven’t been able to be myself on stage in quite a while and really enjoy music and why I got into it in the first place. I love songs, I love living them, hearing stories from other people, and figuring out how to put that life into music. After 13 years it’s finally beat me up to the point where I need to step away for a while. I need to go live life so that I have more real experiences to write down,” he explained. “I won’t be touring this year and it wasn’t even really a decision, it was something I know that I just have to do for myself. A lot of artists do this all the time, but it’s new for me so it’s kind of a big deal in my life.”
While he has played a handful of shows since then, Chase Rice has also been spending time with his dog Jack, fishing, hunting, catching up with friends, and more, and it sounds like his plan to step back, reset, and return feeling more refreshed is working.
In Driver’s Eye with James Hinchcliffe, the six-time INDYCAR winner will bring you inside the mind of a racer while breaking down the nuts and bolts of the sport for fans. Spring time in Indianapolis is a beautiful thing. The snow melts, the weather warms, flowers start to bloom. But that has nothing to do with it. What makes spring in Indianapolis so beautiful is the fact we are in the “Month of May” — as we in the sport like to call it. When the calendar flips over to May 1, something in the air changes in Indy. It’s tough to explain but undeniably felt by everyone who resides there. Smells are stronger, colors are brighter and there is an energy in the air that is palpable. For INDYCAR teams and drivers, it’s the most important month of the year. The Indianapolis 500 is the biggest motorsports event on the calendar. In fact, it’s the largest single-day sporting event in the world. There is no non-religious gathering of human beings on Earth bigger than the Indy 500. To be fair, some would argue that the Indy 500 is their religion. So, how do drivers and their teams excel at Indianapolis Motor Speedway throughout the month and the biggest race of the year? 2 KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR THE INDY 500 To be successful in the Month of May and at the Indy 500, there are two things that every team has to focus on more than anything. The first is the three P’s: preparation, preparation and preparation. So much of your fate at the Indy 500 — and the crucial qualifying events leading up to it — is decided before the cars ever come off the trailer. The offseason work back at the shop on engineering and pit stop practice, the hours dedicated to building the cars, the countless runs in the simulator — all these things add up and set the tone for how your Month of May could go. It’s the difference between confidence and speed versus being miserable and frustrated for a whole month. The second thing is, quite simply, execution. There are so many things you have to do absolutely perfectly as a team over the month, and slip-ups can be costly. Throughout 500 miles on the iconic 2.5-mile track, uncontrollables are abundant and can negatively affect your race, so nailing each element you can control is vital to success. Especially when you need a little luck, too. Let’s break down how INDYCAR drivers and teams attack the month leading up to the Indy 500, set this year for Sunday, May 24 (12:30 p.m. ET on FOX). WEEK 1: INDY 500 TESTING The first week of the month is all about what we call the Indy 500 Open Test. The Month of May kicked off with the two-day test, which, ironically, was in the last week of April this year. Teams hit the speedway for the first time this season and dusted the cobwebs off before they come back in anger later this month for opening day of official Indy 500 activities. It’s usually to confirm and ensure all the systems on the car are working correctly, so time isn’t wasted when official practice begins. This is also a great opportunity for the one-off entries — cars that aren’t full-time INDYCAR competitors — to get the team all together at a race track for the first time in a year, if not ever. There are only so many meetings and practice pit stops you can do at the shop before you need to go do it for real. [INDY TESTING: Mick Schumacher’s First Time Driving Indy Oval] WEEK 2: INDY ROAD COURSE RACE After the Indy 500 Open Test, the second week shifts to the Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, which lives inside the famed 2.5-mile oval. This year, it’s on Saturday, May 9. Racing on any configuration at IMS is a rush, but when the biggest race in the world is just around the corner, sometimes the grand prix can feel like the annoying little brother to the 500. But it’s not something you can overlook, as it pays just as many points as any other race. It can also give your team momentum heading into the rest of the month. Just ask Will Power, Simon Pagenaud or Alex Palou — all of whom took the confidence from winning the Indy Grand Prix into a 500 victory a few weeks later. But more on that next week… WEEK 3: QUALIFYING AND A LOT OF LAPS Once the Indy road course race is done and dusted, the series makes the teams take a mandatory day off. The garages are closed and all the engineers, mechanics, officials, volunteers and drivers get one last day to rest and recharge before the marathon run-up to Memorial Day Weekend and the Indy 500. Then, the teams get a day with no on-track action to switch the cars over from road course configuration to oval configuration. This is when Week 3 really begins, and it’s all about laps. Practice week has four days with six total hours of practice. That is a ton of track time, but it’s because there’s a ton of work to get done. Teams will prioritize evaluating any updates or changes they developed over the offseason and then start heading down a path on setup. The early days of the week are focused on the setup for the Indy 500 specifically. Drivers will spend a lot of time running in traffic and getting the car comfortable in race trim. Logging as many miles as you can is crucial. On Friday, the horsepower gets turned up to qualifying levels — it’s all speed, speed, speed — and focus shifts to the four-lap qualifying runs that will determine the starting grid and the coveted pole position. Saturday and Sunday are all about going fast and finding out where you will start in The Greatest Spectacle In Racing. The last six Indy 500 pole winners’ qualifying speeds were at least 231 miles an hour. There is no greater thrill — and no more nerve-wracking challenge — for an INDYCAR driver than a flat-out qualifying run at IMS. WEEK 4: THE GREATEST SPECTACLE IN RACING Once you’ve survived qualifying weekend and your heart rate comes down, Week 4 is all about strategizing your 500 miles. How you approach this final week and the two last practice sessions — one on Monday and one on Friday, which is affectionately known as Carb Day — totally depends on how the previous weekend went. If you qualify well, you work on dialing in the car to run up front and contend for the win on pure pace. Starting near the back? Well, then you’ve got to throw as much at the car as you can to make sure that you can weave through traffic. Because if you have to pass 30-plus cars, that means you will spend a lot of your day in traffic! After that, all that remains are 800 left turns between you and becoming racing royalty! Easy, right?! [INDY 500: Everything To Know For Busy Month of May in Indianapolis] SOUND LIKE AN INDYCAR EXPERT Having just watched the Open Test, I am so excited about this year’s Indy 500. And I’ve already got my eye on one team in particular: Arrow McLaren. Zak Brown’s team is running four cars — three full-season drivers in Pato O’Ward, Christian Lundgaard and Nolan Siegel, plus a one-off entry for 2014 Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay — and each has a very different story heading in. Starting with Lundgaard, you’ve got a driver in his second year with the team, and he’s coming off a seventh-place finish in 2025 — his best in four Indy 500s. He’s got two podiums on the season but has never finished an oval race in the top three. With a year of experience with this squad, he should be brimming with confidence. Plus, he has the benefit of learning off of an Indy expert in… Ryan Hunter-Reay. RHR joining this team is, by far, the most exciting combo of the one-off entries. A previous race winner for Andretti, he nearly took the W last year in a back-up car for a team that only competes in one race — the 500 — each year. Put him in a program with the resources of McLaren, and watch out. Nolan Siegel, who is the focus of the most recent episode of FOX Sports’ docuseries “All In,” has a lot to prove to team boss Tony Kanaan this season, and the year hasn’t started out great. But a strong Indy 500 performance can save a driver’s season. And career. Finally, you’ve got the series’ most popular driver in Pato O’Ward. Pato’s track record at Indy is exemplary: four top-5 finishes in his last five starts. The outlier was a crash with a handful of laps to go while, you guessed it, running in the top 5. Only Alexander Rossi, another one to watch, has been as consistently competitive over the last decade as Pato, who is fueled by the recent memories of bitter defeat. Indy owes nothing to any of the 33 drivers lucky enough to take part in the 500. But if there is one driver you feel is deserving of a career- and life-changing checkered flag, it’s Pato. But deserving doesn’t make you one to watch. The way he was driving and the way his car was handling at the Open Test, however, is more than enough to put him right at the top of the list of favorites heading into the 110th running of this amazing race. MORE DRIVER’S EYE:Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
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Since joining Chip Ganassi Racing six seasons ago, Spanish driver Àlex Palou has shown to be a generational talent who is quickly working his way through INDYCAR’S record books. For that, Palou has earned a multi-year contract extension on his current deal that runs through the 2027 season. The extension was finalized following this week’s two-day Indianapolis 500 test. Ganassi never publicly discloses contract terms. The reward capped a celebratory week for Palou, who drove into Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the defending Indy 500 winner for testing and saw a larger-than-life banner of himself chugging the traditional winner’s milk. It’s the main banner as you enter the speedway — key placement he’d seen reserved for rival drivers the previous six years. “I took a picture when I was driving by and sent it to my parents,” Palou said. Palou has won four INDYCAR championships in five years, including the last three consecutive titles. He won eight times last season, including the 500, as he’s blossomed in INDYCAR since joining Ganassi in 2021. Ahead of the Long Beach Grand Prix two weeks ago, former Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi was asked if anything had surprised him through the first quarter of the season. His response was immediate: “Yeah, that Alex has only won two races. And isn’t the points leader.” Palou responded by winning Long Beach to give him three wins through five races this year and reclaim the top spot in the championship standings. “It’s incredible, actually amazing,” said rival driver Will Power, a two-time INDYCAR champion and Indianapolis 500 winner. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about the last week or so because, once again, he’s gone out and won three out of five races. I mean [Kyle] Kirkwood’s average finish is like three-point-something, and he’s not leading the championship, which is insane. “So it’s something I’m absolutely, like, how is he doing that week in, week out? Well, it’s one, he’s qualifying well. Two is he executes in the race and three is the pit stops, you know, top-notch, there’s no mistakes in there. And he’s fast. So that’s what it takes when you’re driving out there.” His 22 career victories through 103 starts ranks fifth in 121 years of INDYCAR history. Sebastien Bourdais won 31 times in that span in the diluted Champ Car era; A.J. Foyt won 30, Mario Andretti 27 and Ralph DePalma 26. Palou’s four titles already match Andretti and Bourdais, and in the post-World War II era, Palou’s 61 top-five finishes in his 103 starts trails only Andretti, who had 64. Dario Franchitti, a four-time INDYCAR champion and three-time Indy 500 winner, is now a driver coach and consultant for Ganassi. He believes there hasn’t been a driver this dominant in the series since Alex Zanardi, who won 12 races and back-to-back titles for Ganassi in 1997 and 1998. “Winning one championship is one thing, but then the subsequent ones, it gets progressively more difficult,” Franchitti said. “Just watching what he’s done, and at this early stage in his career, it’s something very special. And the level of domination, that’s the icing on the cake. “You feel sorry for the others. I’ve said to him a number of times, ‘I would have hated racing against you.’ He is the complete package.” At Long Beach last month, rival driver Pato O’Ward conceded his McLaren team has not closed the gap at all on Palou and the No. 10 Ganassi team. “The guy goes into every weekend being able to win. Honestly, it’s impressive to see,” O’Ward said. “The gap is as big as it’s been, and we’re working hard to try to be at the level he is of being able to win every race, but we don’t have that.” Connor Daly believes the domination is a combination of Palou’s flawless performances and the strength of his race team. “Alex is very good, but that team, when they’re called upon, they don’t make mistakes and that is what is so important about this game,” Daly said. “Everything has to be, everyone has to be on the same page, and he is, like without a doubt, one of the best drivers in the world right now.” Reporting by The Associated Press.Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
Georgia-born country artist Austin Snell is expanding on his creativity and emotional songwriting with his new EP Colors, which finds him leaning into more honesty than ever before in his career.
The seven-song collection fittingly arrives at the start of Mental Health Awareness Month, an intentional detail that Snell says aligned naturally with the themes of mental health, family struggles, love, and personal growth that appear throughout the project. He previously tested the waters of sharing a deeper look into life with 2025’s Home Sweet Hell project and after seeing how well fans resonated with those vulnerable stories, he gained the confidence to dive even deeper.
Photo Courtesy of Austin Snell
Co-written entirely by Snell, Colors reflects the rising singer/songwriter’s more laid-back approach to his artistry, as he focuses on making the kind of music that matters most to him and letting the rawness of his stories truly connect with listeners before immediately jumping to find what’s next.
“I’ve reached this new place in life of just like, I’m going to write what I think is cool and I think sounds cool and I think is different and I’m excited about it,” he told Country Now. “If I’m excited about it, then I think that that’s all. I should be really focused on, as a creative or an artist, just making something that I resonate with, that I’m excited about and the rest will kind of just take care of itself.”
Snell has faced his fair share of ups and downs in his life, including the struggles he faced at home growing up and having to navigate his more recent chapter as a U.S. Air Force Veteran, now on a mission to bring his musical dreams to life. With Colors, Snell is turning that perspective into his most personal work yet, by opening the door to the stories and experiences that shaped him.
Ahead of the EP’s release, Snell broke down the inspiration behind the project, tapping into his vulnerable side and more.
What pushed you to open up so much with this project?
I think that it’s kind of based around the idea of mental health and the struggle of that. And I think that’s kind of just always been the through line for my music, it’s been what I wanted to do for a long time. And I think last year’s project, the Home Sweet Hell project just really made it seem okay for me to do that. It was probably the scariest time in my career so far, just putting this story out that I’ve never told before and I mean, never even spoke to anybody about really. And here I am putting this entire song out to the world to listen to it and judge it and hopefully resonate with it. So last year was the most difficult time and this year was just it being okay to do that. And I’ve really just been able to dive into not having any fearful thoughts of what I’m writing about and more so just writing it and knowing that people are going to listen and hear what I’m saying and resonate with it. So that’s always the goal is to have people relate to what you’re saying.
Austin Snell; Colors
Was it intentional to align the release of this project with the start of Mental Health Awareness month?
Yeah, it was definitely intentional. It was kind of timing itself out to where it was going to be around this time period and it was just one of those God things of just like, Hey, we have these songs. Let’s make this project. Not only is this project already about mental health, but it’s timing itself out to be dropped during Mental Health Month. So I’m super huge in my faith and I think that things happen for a reason. And I think that this just is a God thing that presented itself. And I’m a believer in that when God tells you to do something, you do it. And I think that that’s kind of just why this has all happened. I’m not some huge mastermind and planned it all out like this, but it’s just kind of happened this way and I think it’s meant to be that way.
Talk about the song “Colors” and why that was the right title to use to sum up this collection.
Earlier this year is when we decided that this was going to be the entire essence of the project. And I wrote “Colors” last year with some good friends of mine, and it was really just essentially a love story. It’s a love song, and love songs are not something that I’ve done a lot of. And I feel like I do a lot of writing in the past versus the future and all this and that. And so I’m in love, I have a beautiful girlfriend, and we’ve been together for a while now, and she was starting to ask questions about not having any love songs. So I had to make something happen. And one of the things that we’ve grown closer to each other with is just the struggle of some of our upbringing. And both of us grew up in a household that wasn’t the healthiest and I think that can either drive people apart or make somebody closer to another person, and it’s done that for us. So that’s kind of just the whole idea of that song, it’s just a song for her. And it’s the being okay with sharing all the parts of you, because it’s a scary thing. It’s especially scary in a relationship and being scared to show this person that you spend a lot of your time with, parts of you that you are not the most proud of. And it’s a super just heavy idea in a relationship. And I think it’s a healthy thing to do. So that’s kind of what it’s about.
The topic of family is something you really open up about, especially in “Daddy’s Eyes.” Talk about your intentions behind putting this song out into the world.
I think that that song was probably one of the first songs off this project that I wrote, and that’s just what really sent me down the route of what this project was going to mean. Growing up, I didn’t grow up seeing my dad be the healthiest husband to my mom, and that’s just kind of the way it was. And I think I’ve taken a lot of that with me, and I was experiencing that as a super young child, around the age of nine, I think. I don’t think people, sometimes parents especially, understand that kids are like sponges, especially at that age. They’re processing everything and those are the first things that they experience is the way that their parents act towards each other. I remember just growing up, I’ve always had that thought in my mind and I didn’t ever know if it was going to be a song, but I would always grow up and people would mean it as a compliment and they would say, “You have your daddy’s eyes” or “you’re just like your dad,” or whatever, this and that. And I’ve always just viewed that as more of an insult than a compliment.
Taking that idea into the room with Tucker Beathard and Jimi Bell, it was two guys that loved to write stuff like that. And so they really helped me bring that to life and that thought to life. And I don’t think there’s anybody else in Nashville that could have wrote that song with me than those two. artist, you put out a song that you feel led to do for yourself, and that’s kind of one of those songs on the project.
Have you already started to see that honesty start to resonate with fans through what they’ve head across social media?
Absolutely, yeah. And that’s one of the coolest parts about being an artist is hearing other people’s stories. And it’s been, I mean, life-changing to play these shows even off the last project and hear people’s stories just based off of Home Sweet Hell and even songs in the past like “Excuse The Mess” and “Pray All The Way Home.” That’s one of the coolest things that artists can experience is to meet somebody and them tell you that a song that you wrote and put out is helping them through a season in life. And that’s what music always was for me, it was a way to escape where I was and what I was dealing with. So I’m super blessed and honored to be in that position. It’s definitely a weight to carry, but it’s a weight that I’m proud to try and carry.
Was there anything that you learned about yourself in the process of making this project?
I think I learned that there’s a lot more there than I thought there was. I’ve never been through therapy. I’ve never had a therapist, probably need one, but I’ve learned that there’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t come up unless you force it to. And I think that just goes to anybody that has been through anything. Your mind helps you forget about it or helps you push it down. I guess not forget about it, but push it down. And I just learned there’s a lot of things that I need to get out for myself, not only just for anybody else going through something, but there’s a lot of things that I need to say to help me get past a certain situation that I was going through. So that’s kind of been the biggest learning curve is just writing the things that you’re kind of scared to write about and you’ve pushed it down for so long that you don’t know how to write about it, I think has been the biggest thing that I’ve learned through all of it, for sure.
Thinking back to your debut album to now, how do you feel like your music has grown and changed in that time?
I think I’ve grown a lot. I think I’ve really dialed in on just being excited. I started my career in 2022, and at the time, I wrote “Excuse the Mess” and put it out, and that’s kind of what led to my publishing deal and my record deal and stuff like that. Up to that point, I’d only been in town writing songs for six months, and so I didn’t have a lot of time to really dial in on what I wanted to do. And once that all started, it was hard to be excited about a certain thing or always focused on what’s next or what the next project is going to sound like, or what show is coming up next, or what meeting or whatever it is…And I think this project has just really been a result of me just sitting in the moment and really just being excited about a piece of work and really just letting it live how it’s going to live regardless of, if it does really well, it does really well. I would be blessed for it too, and it would be awesome. But even if it, for whatever reason, doesn’t do well and people don’t, I did this because I think it’s cool and I think that’s a new headspace that I’ve been in and I’m super glad that I’ve reached that point. Not that anything in the past has been bad. I’m super proud of everything that I’ve done so far. It’s just sometimes really hard to be in the moment when releasing music because there’s always the thought of what’s coming after that. So that’s just been where it’s changed a lot for me.
You recently wrapped up the Home Sweet Hell Tour. How did that run go for you?
It started last year around October is when we started that tour after the project, and that was a chapter in my life and the shows were great. And so I’m really just excited to dive deeper into what that brought to the people and just continue to put out more music and continue to try and be creative and do something different. And I think that we’ll see. We’re definitely playing a lot more shows and planning on playing a bunch more in the fall and doing a headline thing in the fall. So I’m just always excited to see these songs take a new life in a live setting.
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