Cole Swindell is about to become a father. The singer-songwriter and his wife Courtney will welcome their first child, a girl, later this year. For Swindell, he is about as ready as he can be to have a daughter.
“I feel ready,” Swindell shares with Everything Nash and other outlets at a recent media event. “I don’t know if you’re ever ready for that. To have milestones in life, things happening like this. I heard people talk about it for years, when I had my head down, grinding. I’m still getting to work too, obviously. But just getting to have somewhat of a better balance with real-life stuff and career stuff. Being a dad is something that I didn’t know if it was in the cards for me. But then you meet somebody, and you just start making plans, and things happen fast. They say life comes at you fast. This is what they mean I think.”
Swindell and Courtney got engaged in 2023, getting married one year later. In March, the couple announced they were expecting, later revealing they were having a girl. For Swindell, it was a lot of life changes happening at once.
“Engaged, married, little girl on the way, all within a couple of years,” Swindell says. “I always wondered what that would be like … But I always say, from the people I talk to that are parents, I don’t know that they can ever quite explain it to you, and I love it. I love them trying to explain it to you. I think the best things in life, whether they’re good, happy, sad, whatever, are just, they are hard to explain. You almost have to live them yourself to understand what people are saying. I’m not there yet, but it just seems like something that people talk about like this, you gotta live it to really.”
@everythingnash @coleswindell can’t wait to meet his daughter. ? #baby #father #coleswindell #countrymusic ♬ original sound – EverythingNash
Swindell is as prepared as he can be. But even he admits there is a lot that he can’t fully understand until their daughter arrives.
“I don’t think you can explain to somebody how much you’re going to love your child,” Swindell says. “But to hear people try – some of my closest friends. I feel like I’ve done some pretty cool things in my career, but for them to be like, ‘This is going to be the best thing you’ve ever done,’ … I’m very fortunate, and that’s not lost on me that we even get to be parents.”
Swindell just celebrated his 13th No. 1 hit with Forever to Me.” The song is from his new album, Spanish Moss, which is out now. The album is his first since Stereotype came out in 2022.
“I think I was in a different part of my life by then as well,” Swindell says, explaining the three-year gap. “I was married. I had never been in that situation. I knew that we had some good stuff. I just knew it wasn’t quite there. It just didn’t cover all the bases yet. It wasn’t ready. I think, as frustrating as it was, I think the moment it all came together, a lot of these songs came in the last week, a day before we went into the studio for the last time. That’s two albums in a row that that’s happened, and they were some of the biggest songs of the whole thing. It’s just another reminder that I’m not in control of my plan. That’s not how it’s going to happen, and it usually works out a lot better than I had it.”
Find Spanish Moss, and all of Swindell’s music and upcoming shows at ColeSwindell.com.