Ever since Lainey Wilson dropped her Grammy-winning album Bell Bottom Country in 2022, a storm of success has been raging all around her. There have been headlining tours and festival appearances, Entertainer of the Year trophies at both the CMA and ACM Awards, an induction into the Grand Ole Opry, and the expectations that come along with being country music’s undeniable new superstar. Instead of letting it send her spinning, however, Wilson held on tight and channeled the chaos into writing and recording a career statement album, the thrilling Whirlwind.
Produced by Jay Joyce, it’s her third album for BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville and features 14 songs all co-written by Wilson. If Bell Bottom Country and her 2021 major-label debut Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ were glimpses into Wilson’s small-town country life growing up in Baskin, Louisiana, then Whirlwind, with its sweeping vistas and feeling of endless possibility, is a panoramic view of her world now. “Whirlwind is kind of the Western sister of Bell Bottom Country,” Wilson says. “Since that album, I have gotten to experience so many new things and meet folks from different walks of life. Because of that, I’ve become a better songwriter, and I have more understanding. I feel like I’ve truly stepped into what it is that I’m called to be doing. Ironically, I found my path within all the craziness — and that’s the whirlwind.”
Led by the country-soul vibes of “Hang Tight Honey” and the beautiful love song “4x4xU,” Whirlwind paints the most vibrant picture yet of who Wilson is as an artist and a woman. It’s a lived-in and, at times, gritty album conceived far outside of Nashville’s sterile writing rooms. With a determined discipline, Wilson and her collaborators — from Trannie Anderson and Dallas Wilson to Josh Kear and Wyatt McCubbin — made time to create no matter their surroundings. “A lot of this record was written on a bus, in a hotel room, or at my house in Nashville, because I’ve come to realize that you got to get it while you can,” she says. “I used to write 300 songs to get 12, but for Whirlwind, I became more intentional.” And no subject was off limits. “4x4xU,” co-written with Jon Decious and Aaron Raitiere, was inspired by Wilson’s personal life. “I’m getting to show a side of me that I didn’t before. I’m in a happy, healthy relationship and I sing about that for the first time,” she says. “Although I’ve been in the whirlwind, making these songs would bring me back to the center. Even if I wasn’t physically at home, writing this album made me feel as if I
was.”
Like Waylon Jennings before her, Wilson insisted on using her road band to record the new songs in the studio. The result is a lively and spontaneous album with a distinct heartbeat. Wilson says she was in search of a specific “thump,” and you can sense the unspoken communication and camaraderie among the musicians over Whirlwind’s 14 tracks. “We all became a family on tour. In the studio, we knew we wanted to bring that same high-energy and connection of our live show to this album,” she says. “Whirlwind definitely wouldn’t be the same record if I didn’t have my band playing with me.” But Wilson also welcomed someone new into the fold: Miranda Lambert appears on “Good Horses,” as the first artist to collab on one of Wilson’s own songs. Co-written with
Lambert and Luke Dick, it’s an autobiographical tale of both the desire to roam and the magnetic pull back home to a partner. “Come a long way since I left Louisiana/my dreams tied on like a red bandana,” Wilson sings.
Lambert has become a confidant of Wilson’s and the two often text about the demands of the business. As life swirled around Wilson, Lambert invited her to her farm for some R&R. “She called me and said, ‘I want you to come out and nap, and I’m going to feed you,’” Wilson says. “I slept for 13 hours, and she and her husband cooked for us. Then we decided to write a song, and that was ‘Good Horses.’” Cowboy and horse allusions pop up frequently on the album, building on a theme Wilson introduced with Bell Bottom Country’s “Wildflowers and Wild Horses.” In the track “Call a Cowboy,” she celebrates the strong, silent archetype but also hits one of the biggest notes of her recording career. “I just went for it — I’m not afraid of embarrassing myself in front of friends in the studio!” Wilson says. “Afterward, Jay Joyce kind of looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, we’re keeping that in.’”
One of the most famous parts of Wilson’s backstory is how she lived in a camper trailer in a parking lot in Nashville. While writing Whirlwind’s cinematic title track with “Heart Like a Truck” collaborators Anderson and Wilson, she serendipitously found herself once again in a trailer, this time in Oklahoma before a show. “Our green room for the day was a camper trailer,” Wilson laughs. “I wanted to write something with a Western vibe and sitting in that camper trailer resonated with where I was and where I am now in my life, which is running up and down the open road, but also having somebody at home that loves and cares about me.” Wilson explores the push and pull between freedom and putting down roots throughout Whirlwind. And while she doesn’t yet know which side might win out, she’s willing to go on the ride and share that journey with fans.
“My job as a storyteller is to dive deeper every single time and not be scared to be vulnerable,” Wilson says. “Whirlwind is my promise that I’m going to continue doing that.”