“One of Nashville’s most reliable and sophisticated songwriters” (Los Angeles Times), GRAMMY, ACM, and CMA award-winning Grand Ole Opry member Ashley McBryde deals in songs that deliver hard truths with a soulful ferocity. On her new album, Wild, McBryde threads a captivating narrative over 11 tracks, culminating in the moment just before she quit drinking. The Arkansas-bred artist uncovers the deepest layers of her lived experience through it all: the grit and grind of growing up in the Ozarks, the enduring shadow of her fundamentalist upbringing, the fallout of drinking too much, and hard-won reckoning that led her to sobriety. When matched with her thrilling collision of timeless country and blistering rock & roll, the result is equal parts daring autobiography and courageous reclamation of her most untamed nature.
Earning elite accolades across her acclaimed catalog, like 2020’s Never Will, one of the only LPs ever to garner Country Album of the Year nominations from the ACM, CMA, and GRAMMYs all in the same awards season, McBryde is “an artist with many things to say and a big enough voice to slice through the noise” (Rolling Stone). The CMAInternational Artist Achievement award winner and recipient of an honorary doctorate in music from Arkansas State University is “the genre’s smartest lyricist” (SPIN) and “one of Nashville’s brightest innovators” (NPR). Dr. McBryde innovated again last August, creating a haven on Nashville’s Lower Broadway with her non-alcoholic forward concept bar, Redemption, at home on the fifth floor of Eric Church’s Chief’s.
As she moves into her next chapter with an unprecedented clarity, McBryde hopes that listeners might reconnect with their own boldest essence. “When people hear this record, I hope it wakes up the part of them that I’m singing about in Wild—the part that still believes in those unrealized dreams and untaken risks,” says McBryde. “I believe that wild little kid is still alive inside of all of us, and that’s the version of everyone that I want to sing to.”
