Ashley McBryde is opening up about her new album, Wild, out now. The record, her fifth, is also her most personal. Unlike some of her other projects that tell somewhat of a third-person story, like the Grammy-nominated 2022 Lindeville, Wild is all about McBryde.

“There were no characters to build for this record,” McBryde says on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “The more songs we chose, the more they revealed themselves. It was stuff from my life. It does two things. We all have the need to be seen. But it’s also really scary to tell the story. There’s nothing to hide behind.”

Wild includes songs like her current “What If We Don’t” single, plus “Bottle Tells Me So,” “Behind Bars,” and “Lines in the Carpet,” the latter of which she performed on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

“All of this leads up to, and then she went to rehab,” McBryde says. “And it’s not a sobriety record. It’s not full of sober songs, and it’s not a big soapbox thing. But it is part of the story. I don’t walk around and preach about it. It’s not a pulpit. It’s not a big shiny badge I carry. It’s more like a wet wool blanket that’s on me all the time. If you’d like to know why I’m carrying it, I will tell you, but I don’t have to tell you. It’s just part of the story.”

Ashley McBryde’s Latest ‘Wild’ Album

Wild is a record McBryde couldn’t have made without being sober. But it was also influenced by an accident she had in 2021, which could have made her unable to perform ever again.

“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.”

What Ashley McBryde Says About Being Sober

McBryde just celebrated four years of sobriety, after going to rehab in 2022.

“Congratulations, me! 1,461 days of fighting for myself, showing up, doing the work and doing it scared most of the time,” McBryde wrote on social media, in honor of the milestone anniversary. “For me, staying sober includes boxing, lifting and other ways of celebrating this body that carries me across the stage I live for. It includes being picky and intentional about who I spend energy on and with. And so much more.

“For you it may be totally different,” she continued. “Maybe you work a program, maybe you paint, maybe you do something totally ‘out-there’ to some people. Your path is yours. No one else needs to understand it. Whatever keeps you, YOU. You need you. Struggle forward. Do it scared.”

 

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Photo Credit: NBC / Weiss Eubanks