Not many people have found their biggest blessings during the coronavirus pandemic, but Natalie Stovall says that is exactly what happened to her. The singer and songwriter was feeling down because all of her shows were canceled due to COVID-19, when Runaway June’s Naomi Cooke and Jennifer Wayne reached out to her with an invitation to join the trio, after Hannah Mulholland decided to leave the band.
“I’m the luckiest person in the world, during a world pandemic, because I got to join them,” Natalie told People.
Natalie, who has had a successful solo career, including a stint on The Voice, didn’t hesitate to join the group when the invitation was issued.
“It just felt right,” Natalie acknowledged. “My gut said, ‘This is the next thing. This is what you need to do.'”
It might have felt right, but there were still details to be ironed out, especially since Natalie has been used to taking center stage, while her role in Runaway June requires her to harmonize with Naomi, who sings lead on all of the songs.
“It would be very difficult if I wasn’t such a fan of Naomi’s voice, because I do love to sing lead,” Natalie admitted. “But in this scenario, her voice is ‘the voice,’ and for me, there is something magical about harmonizing together. Singing harmonies is another love of mine, and so now I get to do that in a much bigger capacity.”
“We all speak the same language musically and even just our dreams are so similar,” she added. “I know one thing for sure. I love making music in a band scenario. I’m happy to welcome some sisters into the band of brothers that I’ve always had.”
It helped that both Naomi and Jennifer assured Natalie that they didn’t want her to mold herself into something else to fit the space left vacant by Hannah.
“Something that really impressed me about our conversations was the encouragement to embrace my individuality, because that was something I needed to talk about,” Stovall says. “Like, do I need to do something different or change what I do, because I can be a lot on stage! But the thing was, they came to me because they wanted me to do what I do, just within this context.”
Naomi and Jennifer previously revealed their only decision was whether to become a duo or invite Natalie, and that they never considered another player, and for good reason.
“There are a number of beautiful, talented, hungry, hard-working young women in town, but finding someone who knows what it’s like to be on the road, who knows the difficulty of life on the road, who knows what it’s like to work with a crew of guys … Natalie knows,” boasted Naomi. “She’s just such a good vibe.”
Not only is Natalie a good vibe, but she also adds another benefit to Runaway June: her ability to play the fiddle.
“We couldn’t afford a fiddle player on the road,” Jennifer conceded. “We could barely afford a guitar player! So it’s been really cool because that’s the sound that we loved from the beginning.”
While Naomi and Jennifer were disappointed to lose Hannah, who founded the trio with the two of them, they weren’t necessarily surprised.
“She had been kind of feeling homesick for a long time,” Naomi said. “This life is not for everyone. You spend a lot of time away from your family. You sacrifice a lot of other things, and so you kind of have to choose.”
“We still love her,” she added. “There was no drama.”
Runaway June openly admits that they went to therapy to make sure all three of them were on the same page as they look to making new music and, eventually, hitting the road again, including joining Luke Bryan on his rescheduled Proud to Be Right Here Tour.
“Naomi and I wanted to make sure that we were not going to let any of the past stuff go into this new marriage because that’s not fair to Natalie,” Jennifer said. “It’s pretty cool how therapy makes a new, healthy place for something new to start.”
Runaway June re-recorded their current single, “We Were Rich,” to include both Natalie’s singing and her fiddle-playing as well. Download the song on iTunes.
