Ashley McBryde is giving new insight into her latest album, Wild, out now. The record, produced by Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne, includes both new songs, and new twists on songs that McBryde has already been performing in her live shows, including “Water in the River.”
In a recent interview with Amazon Music, the Arkansas native reveals that, of all of the songs on Wild, it’s “Water in the River” that changed the most from how it sounded in the beginning, to the way it ended up on Wild.
“And here’s what’s weird about it: we’ve been playing ‘Water in the River’ for almost nine years,” McBride says. “We’ve tried it in this iteration, this iteration, more on the pop side, a little on the piano-driven side — which made no sense. We got with John Osborne. He said, ‘Here’s what we’re gonna do: dismantle the song completely, to make you unlearn it. And then we got this version, and it’s the way I always wanted the song to sound.”
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What Ashley McBryde Says About “Rattlesnake Preacher”
“Rattlesnake Preacher” is another song that has been around for a while. A fan favorite, McBryde says it became a challenge, at least for some people on her team, to find a place for “Rattlesnake Preacher” on Wild.
“It was the first song we cut,” McBryde recalls. “And then as the record came together, the question was asked, ‘Where does ‘Rattlesnake’ go?’ And I said, ‘At the top of the record.’ They said, ‘Yeah, but it’s been out for a while now, because we cut it and released it in preparation for the album. Maybe we just leave it off the record.’ And I was like, ‘That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.’”
Ashley McBryde’s ‘Wild’ Album
It was a 2021 injury that led McBryde to create Wild. Her fifth album, it’s also the one that she has always wanted to make.
“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 was also sober when creating Wild, a decision that is evident in some of the songs, including “Bottle Tells Me So” and “Behind Bars.”