Ashley McBryde has a new album, out now. The Arkansas native just released Wild, her fifth studio album, and by far her most personal. The 42-year-old reveals that the injuries she suffered in an accident in 2021 ultimately led to creating Wild, weaving for the first time ever, her entire story into one project.
“I was really, really badly hurt, and it was a bad enough injury that there was a chance that I wouldn’t have been able to perform ever again,” McBryde recalls. “With that in mind, I thought, ‘Okay, then what if the songs that are in our live show, that aren’t on records, what if I keep letting them not be on records?
“What if something had happened, and now somebody never hears ‘Water in the River?'” she continues. “Somebody never hears ‘Rattlesnake Preacher.’ Somebody never hears ‘Creosote,’ because I let myself be discouraged in this way or that way from putting those on the record? So that’s what I wanted to start with.”
McBryde’s current single, “What If We Don’t,” is at radio now. It’s a song she’s been playing for years, but was never brave enough to put it on a project, until now.
“I said, ‘What If We Don’t’ is going on this record,” McBryde says. “‘Rattlesnake’ is going on this record. And we can build the rest around them. There’s nothing I’ve been through that most of us haven’t been through, or are going to go through. It’s not unique. And the whole point of creating music and creating records and playing a live show is for each of us, so we feel a little bit less alone. Songs did that for me when I was in my formative years. Songs still do that for me.”
View this post on Instagram
How Ashley McBryde Getting Sober Influenced ‘Wild’
McBryde released two more albums, both Lindeville and The Devil I Know, after her fateful 2021 accident. But learning to live as a sober person, after going to rehab in 2022, also had a direct impact on Wild.
“I got out of my way,” McBryde explains. “And once I got my pouting out of my way, ‘I don’t get to drink anymore,’ and look at it and thank myself for just getting all of that out of the way. And that’s kind of the song, ‘Wild,’ to me in some ways. I almost ended the record with ‘Wild.'”
No stranger to releasing at least semi-autobiographical songs, the Grand Ole Opry member admits there is something new, and much more honest, about the songs on Wild.
“I think in the past, even when I’ve written really honest songs, there’s been a little bit of distance,” McBryde tells Entertainment-Focus. “You can tuck yourself behind a character, or shift the perspective slightly, or soften the edges. But with this record, there was nowhere to hide. And once I realized that, it was both kind of terrifying and also really freeing. Because if it’s already all there, if it’s already all you, then there’s no point in holding anything back. You might as well just tell the truth as clearly as you can.”
What Ashley McBryde Says About All Of the Songs on ‘Wild’
McBryde wrote six of the 11 tracks on Wild, although all of them point back to her life in some form. It wasn’t until she was piecing together what became Wild that she realized she was about to share her entire story with the world.
“There really was a moment, and it wasn’t even during the writing, it was afterwards, when I was looking at everything as a whole,” McBryde recounts. “I was sitting there with all these songs, trying to do what I always do, which is figure out the through-line. You know, ‘What’s the story here? What’s the narrative I’m telling? How do I shape this into something cohesive?’ And I kept looking for it, trying to piece it together like I would with any other record.
“And then it kind of hit me all at once… there wasn’t a story to construct,” she continues. “There wasn’t anything to shape or fictionalise or connect in a clever way. It was just me. Every song, every theme, every thread, it was all coming from the same place, and it was all pointing back to my own life. And I remember having that moment of going, ‘Oh… this isn’t me telling stories about other people. This is me, start to finish.’ And that’s when it really sank in how personal it was.”