Ashley McBryde can’t wait for fans to hear her next record.  The Arkansas native shares an emotional video of her listening to the album, her fifth, in the car for the first time, and her reaction to hearing its completion.

The video McBryde posts is one she first sent to her team, revealing her unfiltered response to the project.

“It’s a rough mix; it’s not even finished,” McBryde says through tears. “I just listened to ‘Hand Me Downs,’ and I wrote the damn thing, me and Jessie Jo [Dillon] and Laura [Veltz]. I knew what was in that song. And then I listened to it, and I kept staring at the dash, like, ‘Why would you do that to me?’ I’ve been here for every note, every syllable, every breath of this record. And I’m listening to the mixes, and it’s like I’ve never heard this record. It’s like I’ve never heard this artist.”

McBryde has already released “Rattlesnake Preacher” from the record. Her former album, The Devil I Know, came out in 2023.

 

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Ashley McBryde’s Sobriety

In 2022, McBryde quit drinking, waiting almost a year before announcing that she had quietly gotten sober.

“I didn’t really want to talk to anybody about it even lightly until a year had passed because I was like, ‘What if I screw it up?’” McBryde said on Apple Music Country’s Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen.

She later recalled the devastating moment that led her to realize she needed to completely eliminate alcohol from her life.

“Today marks three years. Since my last drink,” McBryde wrote on social media on June 11. “My last time being ‘that guy’ in my social and professional circles. The last panicked phone call for help. The final slip up that caused the intervention from those that love me and the shift in me allowing me to say ‘that’s enough.’ The details are known by those who are deserving of such painful information. Gratitude is the guiding light today. Grief is okay. A version of me had to die off so I could become myself. I have love for her and every other version of me that had to exist so I could stand by this waterfall today.

“Thank you for the ability to stand here,” she continued. “Celebrating by connecting to Mother Earth was just the kind of party I needed. If you’re struggling, reach out. You aren’t alone and don’t have to be. You’re gonna be delighted at how many of us there are. I love you, keep going.”

Ashley McBryde Opens Redemption Bar

Earlier this year, McBryde opened up her own Redemption Bar, a place where sober people can also get crafted drinks, inside Eric Church‘s Chief’s.

“As someone who is three years sober, the typical response to ‘Do you have anything non-alcoholic?’ is either ‘Why did you come to a bar if you aren’t gonna drink?’ or ‘You can have soda water and a lime, I guess,’” McBryde says of the inspiration for Redemption Bar. “Some of my favorite places to socialize became wildly unaccommodating when the only thing that changed was what was in my cup.

“It was vital that I create a space where not drinking is the forethought – normalized,” she adds. “You can get alcohol drinks in Redemption too, because everyone is welcome.”

 

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Photo Credit: CMA/John Russell