Carly Pearce is now firmly established as a country music artist, but she had to work plenty of challenging jobs in the pursuit. In addition to performing at Dollywood, when she was still a teenager, the Kentucky native had a series of side jobs to make ends meet, jobs that were definitely anything but glamorous.
“I used to work in the Banana Republic in the Opry Mills Mall in Nashville, which is kind of the touristy mall,” Pearce tells BMLG. “So, we get a lot of traffic. So I’d work there ten hours on a Saturday, which … you see a lot of people. And then I also cleaned Airbnbs, which is not glamorous at all. I cleaned a lot of toilets, scrubbed a lot of floors, cleaned a lot of sheets… nasty. And I also nannied, which was super fun, but hard work.”
Fortunately, the only work Pearce has to do now is for her music career, which is at an all-time high. The Grand Ole Opry member just wrapped up her time with Kenny Chesney on his Here and Now Tour, and will soon embark on the European leg of her headlining The 29 Tour. Pearce is also working on a new album, the follow-up to her deeply personal 29: Written in Stone, released last year.
“29 was such a pivotal record, and such a pivotal moment for me and my career, but also just as a person, so I’m taking some time just to really make sure that this next transition of where I’m at is reflective of actually what’s going in my life,” Pearce tells Billboard. “So I’m getting some stuff that I’m really excited about.”
Pearce has another Top 40 hit on her hands, with “What He Didn’t Do,” the final single she will release from 29: Written in Stone. The song follows her recent No. 1 hit, “Never Wanted To Be That Girl” duet with Ashley McBryde,
“I wrote ‘What He Didn’t Do’ at the end of 2020 with Ashley Gorley and Emily Shackleton,” Pearce said in a video shared on YouTube. “It was actually the second song that we wrote in the day, which sometimes that’s the one that really hits. I remember driving away and thinking, ‘Wow, I think this song is special.’”
The 32-year-old is grateful that her hard work is paying off, after years of dreaming of the career she now has.
“I’m in this phase of just going, ‘Oh my goodness, so many of my dreams are coming true. So much is aligning,’” Pearce says. “I want to maintain that, and then just keep raising it.”
Find music and tour dates at CarlyPearce.com.
Click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
