Ashley McBryde is multilayered.
The Arkansas-born country star grew up in a household with a fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist preacher as a father. She got her start in music playing biker bars, suffered a severe concussion after falling off a horse and hitting her head, is covered in colorful tattoos, sports a gray streak in her brown hair, and spent years drinking heavily before getting sober in 2022.
It’s this unconventional path to stardom that McBryde tackles on her fifth studio album, “Wild.” The 11-song project was produced by John Osborne of the Brothers Osborne and was recorded with her live band, Deadhorse. The first four cuts are unmistakably rock-infused songs but the tone changes on the fifth track when she sings the heart-wrenching “Bottle Tells Me So.”
That song, about hitting proverbial rock bottom after a long night of drinking and waking up in a friend’s bed in someone else’s pajamas unable to find her phone, references a real-life incident that led McBryde’s team to stage an intervention and encourage her to check into rehab.
“Not everybody has a drinking problem,” McBryde says. “Some people drink perfectly normally — they can consume or not consume. For me it was a bottle, and for you it’s something else, and that’s the point. I don’t come at sobriety from a preaching place, I don’t say, ‘I stopped drinking, and you should, too.’ Your drinking has nothing to do with me. My drinking was killing me, quite literally ending my life. And whatever it is that you’re struggling with, that’s what that song is for.”
Despite her success — one Grammy, three Academy of Country Music Awards, one Country Music Association Award and membership in the esteemed Grand Ole Opry — McBryde was in a dark place.
“The only thing I had was a pistol and a cell phone, and I had to choose which to use,” she says. “I would pick up my cell phone and call my friend and say, ‘I’m in a bad spot again.’ And he would say, ‘OK, I love you, thanks for using your phone. So you drank again, and it’s getting darker faster. I understand. Try again tomorrow.’”
Ashley McBryde
Nathan Chapman
Thankfully, tomorrow turned into four years of sobriety and a whole new outlook on life. But the memories remain. Even today, the bottle still calls her name sometimes although she’s managed to fight off the demons and stay sober.
“I’ve negotiated with myself,” she says. “If you’re willing to trade being a member of the Grand Ole Opry, your Grammy, your accolades, every band member, every crew member, and the way your voice sounds, then drink the drink. No one’s going to stop you from chugging the whole thing. Years after I’ve stopped coming to you, bottle, you’re still tapping me on the shoulder, saying I can fix it. But you’re wrong, and f–k you, I will not bend.”
Instead, she’s leaned into her music and telling her life story through the lyrics. That storytelling translated into a series of 11 videos she filmed for each song on the album. “It was exhausting,” she recalls. “Some of the time we shot three songs in one day. But looking at the songs and trying to tell the story of who you’re sitting across from and where she came from, I think it was fitting.”
On the album, she tackles her difficult childhood relationship with her father on “Rattlesnake Preacher,” a marriage devoid of emotion in “Lines in the Carpet,” and the death of a high school friend and unrequited love in “What if We Don’t” — not exactly the predictable drinking and cheating songs so prevalent in country music.
She’ll play these songs and others on her “Into the Wild” tour that kicks off in September for a 26-city run. McBryde, who’s 42, says she actually loves touring.
“I’m at an age in my life where I love being home, planting flowers, providing a safe place for wildlife to get food and water,” she says. “But I am most alive when I’m trapped in a bus with eight other people because there’s nothing to distract you. Nutrition can sometimes be a challenge, but none of it matters, because what I’m going to get at the end of the day is 90 minutes of: nothing can touch me, safety, security and creativity. If I’m home too long, I actually get homesick for the highway.”
When she’s not on the road, she’s often found in “Redemption,” the Nashville nonalcoholic bar she owns on the fifth floor of Eric Church’s Chief’s. In typical McBryde live-and-let-live fashion, she says Redemption has alcohol for sale, but customers have to specifically request it.
Ashley McBryde in her Nashville nonalcoholic bar, Redemption.
Aubrey Wise
“You can ask my bartenders for alcohol, and they will happily serve it to you,” she says. “They’re not going to treat you asking for alcohol the way people treated me when I would ask for a nonalcohol drink. I’m not saying this is a bar for sober people, but I made some space available for people who don’t drink a lot or don’t want to be slobbered on by a bunch of drunks.”
When she’s visiting Redemption or onstage, McBryde is most comfortable in T-shirts and jeans. She says earlier in her career, she went through a jumpsuit phase, but she was uncomfortable moving around in those, so she moved on.
She often goes for sleeveless or low-cut pieces to show off her brightly colored tattoos. The body art pays tribute to some of the most special people and experiences in her life. For example, she’s got one of an exploded TV on the back of her calf, a nod to the John Prine song, “Spanish Pipedream.”
On her feet are boots — always. She has partnered with Ariat in the past and together they designed some models she wore for red carpet appearances. Today, she opts for slightly higher heels — she’s 5 feet, 3 inches tall — and “swankier” materials such as suede.
For her “Wild” media campaign and tour, she’s wearing waxed jeans with studs, tank tops and a “fresher, more natural face, more of my natural hair texture. “
McBryde has become known for the gray streak running down the left side of her hair. “That’s the only part we don’t color,” she says, adding that she went gray at 24. Her hairstylist created permed extensions to match her natural curls that allow her to spend less time on her hair every day.
When she’s on the red carpet, hosting awards shows or presenting, McBryde will up the ante. “Whatever looks great on camera wins,” she says. For the recent Academy of Country Music Awards, she wore a dark brown dress with ruching around the waist for the red carpet and a red column dress while presenting the award for Male Artist of the Year.
So what’s on McBryde’s bucket list for the future?
The cover of Ashley McBryde’s “Wild” album.
Courtesy
“It’s so rewarding to see us move from a van to a sprinter, to an RV, to a bus, to two buses, to two buses and a truck, but I would like to see our audience quadruple,” she says. “I want us to play to 10,000 people a night and reach more folks. I want to headline Red Rocks. I want to play Madison Square Garden.”
She also wants to add a few more tattoos. “I want to get more tributes to the songwriters that made me want to write songs,” she says, mentioning Kris Kristofferson. “And I need a Guy Clark piece.”
