Ashley McBryde can’t wait for fans to hear her new album, Wild. Out on May 8, the record includes her current single, “What If We Don’t.,” plus “Arkansas Mud,” “Bottle Told Me So,” and others.
“When you make the record, from making the record to releasing the record is a year, sometimes more,” McBryde explains. “So if you can think about living life every day and doing shows every night while holding your breath a little bit, and then when the record comes out, you go, ‘Finally,’ and you can put all of the songs into the show that you’ve been wanting to put into the show.”
For McBryde, the feeling is similar to something that is commonplace to little children.
“Maybe it feels sort of like, you know when you watch videos of like kindergarten graduations? How happy everyone is?” the 42-year-old reflects. “It’s a little bit similar to that feeling.”
What Ashley McBryde Says About “What If We Don’t”
“What If We Don’t” received the most first-week adds ever in McBryde’s career. The song is written by McBryde, along with Terri Jo Box and Randall Clay.
“For me, this song brings about being at peace with answers you’ll never get,” McBryde says. “And whether you chose to do this or that, the other decision, the one that you didn’t make, you still live with those consequences. Things that hurt don’t just stay. Things that hurt turn into a lyric. The lyric turns into a melody. The melody turns into a song. The song goes on a record. And now, we have created a bridge from hurt to heal. And it did it for us to write it, and it did it for us as a band to record it. And now it gets to do that for other people when they listen to it.”
The video for “What If We Don’t” shows events that are based on a situation that happened in McBryde’s own life.
“The moment when you decide to take a risk or not take a risk, or make the left or make the right, that moment can be expanded,” McBryde says. “We can hold that feeling for three and a half minutes. And whatever your decision is, you have to live with the consequences either way. But, more about that later. Right now, it’s just the question: what if we do, what if we don’t. For this long, everything is [that] anything can happen.”
Ashley McBryde Opens Up About Sobriety
Wild comes as McBryde has been open about her sobriety. The Arkansas native got sober in 2022, waiting until 2023 to reveal that she had quietly quit drinking. But now, McBryde is being open about her addiction, and sharing the heartbreaking moment that led her to rehab.
“I woke up at another artist’s house, another female artist, in a bed that’s not mine, in pajamas that aren’t mine,” McBryde recalls on Bobbycast. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God, that must have been a doozy.’ I’m thirsty. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know where water is, so I’ll just go find water.”
Little did McBryde know that when she went to get water, she was about to walk into what would become a life-changing decision.
“When I went to find water, I found a living room,” McBryde remembers. “In that living room was my team. And they said, ‘We need you to stop.’ And I said, ‘I need me to stop, too.’ And that was when I found out that she took me to her house that night, after we’d been out, to make sure I didn’t die.”
Photo Credit: Nathan Chapman