With her tenth studio album due for release this week, we are looking back at our past conversations with country superstar Miranda Lambert.
After nearly a quarter-century in show business, Miranda Lambert is showing no signs of slowing down.
This week, her tenth studio album, Postcards from Texas — which has already spawned the singles “Wranglers” and “Alimony” — will be available wherever you can rent or purchase music. On Sept. 26, she’ll be among the superstars performing at the 2024 People’s Choice Country Music Awards when the show airs live on NBC from Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. And on Oct. 5, she will headline at Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater the 15th annual Music for Mutts benefit concert for Mutt Nation, her pet project — pun intended — founded to raise money for shelter pets.
So we decided it would be a good time to look back at the great times we’ve had while keeping up with Miranda Lambert on the pages of Cowboys & Indians.
2007
We first spoke with Miranda in 2007, just as her stardom was ascending in earnest. After attracting national attention in 2003 as a contestant on the musical competition show Nashville Star, she went platinum with the title cut from her 2005 breakthrough album Kerosene, then went double-platinum with her follow-up LP Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. At the time we chatted, however, she was still getting used to being recognized in public.
C&I: When did you first notice that, hey, maybe you were becoming famous?
Miranda Lambert: I guess it was right after I started appearing on Nashville Star, really. I’d actually go places and people started to recognize me. At first, it really freaked me out. Like, how did these people know me? And then I remembered: “Oh, yeah, I’m on Nashville Star every week.” But even now, you know, I still don’t consider myself really famous. Maybe I’m on my way, yeah. And it’s such a thrill when someone comes up to me at some random place – like a KFC or something – and tells me that they liked my album. But right now, I feel like I’m still regular ol’ me from Lindale, Texas.
C&I: Do you ever feel like an actor playing a role when you “get into character” for your songs?
Lambert: Well, nobody’s ever put it that way to me before. But, yeah, that’s a really good analogy. On my new album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I wrote a lot more from a personal standpoint. But as far as a tune like “Gunpowder and Lead” goes – I’m not really going to sit by the door and smoke and drink and try to shoot my boyfriend. And the title song, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” – I’m not really that person.
Obviously, I have it in me, because I had the idea to write the song. But people sometimes take it too literally. I mean, they’ll actually ask me: “Boy, is your boyfriend scared of you? Because you’re so violent!” And I have to explain: “Look, it’s just a song. It’s like watching a movie. Those things don’t really happen.” But it’s definitely fun, too, because when I’m on stage, I can get into that character and be crazy when I’m singing the song. It’s really a rush.
C&I: Do your female fans enjoy seeing you act out that way?
Lambert: [Laughs] Oh, yeah! It’s like a little girl playing dress-up. They want to get up at a show and scream the words to a song like “Kerosene” because they’re mad at their boyfriends. I think I have a lot of female fans for that reason. And also, both my albums show the appeal of just being a strong woman. Of course, a lot of that comes from my being from Texas.
2011
After you’ve launched your first headlining tour, earned major Grammy and Country Music Association awards, and topped the charts with your third No. 1 album, Revolution, what can you do for an encore? If you're Miranda Lambert, the uncontested Queen of Outlaw Country who's gone platinum three times, the answer is simple: You grace the cover of Cowboys & Indians.
C&I: You’ve recorded several songs, some of them major hits, about tough, tenacious, even gun-toting women. Are people surprised when they meet you and see you’re a sweet little country gal from East Texas?
Lambert: [Laughs.] Well, not every song I write is about me. I mean, I’m not actually going to shoot my husband because he’s beating me. First of all, my husband’s not beating me. And I’m not going to go to jail. But it’s fun to sing about those things. It’s a time when I get into that character. You see, performing a song, recording a song, is a way for me to get into the character of that song. You become sort of an actress while you’re singing those lyrics.
C&I: Many of those songs have helped you connect with a large female fan base.
Lambert: That’s true. I think I have a really strong female fan base because I sing about empowerment of women. Not in an against-men kind of way, but just about being strong in who you are as a woman. And I think that’s good because my mom taught me confidence growing up. You know: “Be confident — you can do anything you want to do.” And not every girl’s mom tells her that. And so I try to have that message, for young girls especially. And for women who maybe have been abused in some way and didn’t have the guts to leave — maybe they’ll get the message that they can do it, and that they are worth something. I just love singing about that. Because that’s how I feel — I’m a very confident person.
C&I: “Gunpowder & Lead” is about a woman who’s planning to, ahem, unburden herself of an abusive husband. After that song became a hit, did you notice men reacting to you with a bit more deference?
Lambert: I did. But, you know, I’m still the same person I’ve always been. People who’d meet me after hearing that song would tell me, “Wow, I thought you were going to be so mean and scary.” And I would tell them, “Look, it’s a song. Part of it is just playing a character. I’m just a nice girl from East Texas. I promise I’m not going to shoot you — as long as you are nice.”
C&I: And then on your next album, you did a cover of Fred Eaglesmith’s “Time to Get a Gun.”
Lambert: Yeah, it seems like there’s a theme here, doesn’t it? [Laughs] But you know, I think that’s what sets me apart. I’m not afraid to say things. I like edgy stuff, and I like to stand up for what I believe in. I mean, I grew up around guns. My dad was a police officer. And I grew up around cheating. Not firsthand, of course. But my parents were private investigators, so I heard a ton about cheating. So that’s what I write about. I think country music is about being real. That’s why I like Merle Haggard.
“I think that some people see the good in everyone until proven differently. And I’m one of those who start out saying, “Okay, you’ve got to prove you’re good to me.”
C&I: There’s definitely a dark undercurrent to some of your songs, like “Down,” your bluegrass tune about a woman who more or less proclaims, “A man hurt me once, so I’m going to spend the rest of my life hurting other men.” You’ve said that while you were growing up, your parents often talked about the bad behavior of the people they investigated. Do you think that may have made you more cynical, or at least more skeptical, about personal relationships?
Lambert: I think I’m more cynical and more skeptical. I think that some people see the good in everyone until proven differently. And I’m one of those who start out saying, “Okay, you’ve got to prove you’re good to me.” Because I did see and hear a lot of bad things about humanity, with my parents being private investigators, doing background checks and things. And with my dad being a cop before he was a private investigator; in Dallas, he was a narc.
So I guess you could say our dinner conversations were not your normal ones. And sometimes, there’d be talk about someone in our town, or even someone that I knew, who’d been abusive to their wife, or cheating on their wife, or abusive to their kids. It’s the sort of thing that makes you doubt people. It makes you keep yourself at arm’s length until you feel comfortable enough with a person. And that’s how I am. I’m not really a warm and fuzzy kind of a person. But when I love you, I love you with all of my heart.
My ultimate goal is to be Loretta Lynn — I want to be that much of an influence, and I want to make an amazing record at 70 years old with [The White Stripes frontman] Jack White.
C&I: You’ve said that while you really appreciate your current success, you know it’s not going to last forever. Can you actually see a time down the road when you’re not going to be singing and songwriting?
Lambert: I don’t see that ever. But I know in reality there may be a time when I’ll still want to sing and write and people won’t care. There may be a time when my time passes and I’ll still be doing it, but I won’t be doing it at this level. I’ll always want to do it, because I love it. But I may be back in a motor home traveling around Texas with the trailer again, playing bars at some point. So I just want to keep that reality close to mind.
Right now, I’m thinking I have to add a truck to the tour this summer and I’ve got to add a bus. Everything’s getting bigger, and that’s awesome. I want to shoot for a career like Reba McEntire’s. My ultimate goal is to be Loretta Lynn — I want to be that much of an influence, and I want to make an amazing record at 70 years old with [The White Stripes frontman] Jack White.
So I’m going to work as hard as I can toward that. But I’m also okay with the fact that when all the awards shows go away and I’m not getting to be on the red carpet and not getting all this publicity, I’ll know that I had my moment and I loved it. I’m going to be content wherever I am, because you have to be — there’s nothing you can do at that point. But I’m still going to be writing songs, and I’m still going to be playing shows. Because I love it.
2013
Miranda Lambert returned to our pages for our July 2013 20th anniversary issue. By then, she’d already scored a few more platinum-selling singles — including “Over You,” “Mama’s Broken Heart” and the much-covered “The House That Built Me” — and had begun recording and touring with Pistol Annies, the country music girl band she formed with Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley.
And we couldn’t help reminiscing about the behind-the-scenes drama that accompanied our last conversation. No joke: Weather conditions bordered on the blizzard-like that January afternoon when she arrived at a private home near Dallas to take the pictures and grant an interview. “Yeah, we rode in on our bus,” Lambert remembered, “so it was interesting. I was not a pretty day for a photo shoot, definitely. So I’m glad it was indoors.”
But she was happy, and proud, when she saw the end result.
“A lot of my friends read the magazine because, really, that’s kind of my audience. And I have a lot of friends and family who read the magazine. So I got quite a bit of response to it. It’s still on the tables of a lot of friends’ houses that I’ve been to. And it’s a really cool magazine to be on. That’s my crowd.”
At the time of the 2011 interview, Lambert admitted to a not-so-secret career ambition: She wanted to do a guest spot on her favorite TV series, Law & Order: SVU. Either someone connected with the show read the C&I article, or Lambert shared her “secret” with scads of other folks who passed the word. Either way, one year later, Lambert earned praise for playing a brief but attention-grabbing role on a Season 13 episode of the Law & Order series “Father’s Shadow, playing Lacey Ford, an ambitious singer who auditions for a reality-TV show, only to wind up drugged and nearly sexually assaulted by the show’s sleazy producer (Michael McKean).
“And it was awesome,” she said. “Like I said, Law & Order: SVU is my favorite show, so that’s kind of why I did it. It’s not like I want to do a lot of acting, and be in movies and TV shows and stuff like that. But doing a bit part like that was fun.
“And because it’s my favorite show – I just wanted to meet the cast more than anything. But as far having an acting career – I just love music too much for that.”
But what if Lambert – who counts Tombstone and Lonesome Dove as her favorite westerns – had a chance to slap leather and ride tall in a big-screen sagebrush saga?
“That would be something I would love,” she admitted. “But I definitely couldn’t play the main part or anything. I’m not ready for all that.”
On the other hand, she is ready to continue her sidebar career as a member of Pistol Annies. “We just finished the vocals for our second record together. And we’re very excited about that. We know some people may be thinking, ‘Oh, their first record was good – but maybe’s it’s just a fluke.” But it definitely wasn’t. We’re very tight, and we want to keep going. I love it, because it’s very different from what I do, and it’s a fun departure from being a solo act.”
2022
Unfortunately, Miranda hasn’t yet tried her hand at acting again — that is, if you don’t count her appearances in multiple music videos. But maybe that’s because she’s so dang busy being a multitasker in other fields. At the time we caught up with her for her second C&I cover story, she was still basking in the success of The Marfa Tapes, her Grammy-nominated musical and video collaboration with Jack Ingram and Jon Randall; had just released a new, Palomino; was planning the kickoff for her first Las Vegas residency and the launch of her Walmart line of home essentials; and was celebrating appearance on Time magazine’s annual list of the world’s most influential people.
C&I: In regard to the Time tribute: We couldn’t help noticing that you were listed not under artists or pioneers, but innovators.
Lambert: I saw that. And actually, when I first got the article, I was trying to look through to find myself on the list — and I went straight to artists, of course. And then I saw I was listed as an innovator, and I was like, “Hmm. Interesting.”
C&I: Well, do you agree with that description?
Lambert: It’s hard to say about yourself, honestly. I’m not sure what the explanation for that description is. I’m very flattered, obviously. And I don’t know, I think I try to be an innovator, so I guess I accept that.
C&I: Elle King writes in her essay for Time magazine that you’ve been very outspoken and innovative in raising the profile of female country artists.
Lambert: Yeah. And I take that very seriously to heart. If we don’t fight for us, who’s going to? So, I feel in that way, I’ve definitely tried to be an innovator. And I keep trying daily to think of new ways that I can be of help to any artist, but especially a female singer-songwriter. When you pick this job, you pick it for your life and it’s a commitment. And there’s a lot of sacrifice that goes with it. So having a network where we can bounce things off each other is so much more helpful than trying to navigate it on your own.
Lambert: Yeah. I think I got my first taste of it when I was trying to get booked into gigs. I’m 17, I’m writing songs, and my mom’s trying to get my gigs booked, and the bar owners would all say the same thing: “We don’t book girls. They don’t draw.” And so I had to fight that battle from day one of wanting to do this for my career. And proving them wrong is what I’m still doing to this day, which is great. But it was definitely not an easy way to start out with no one really giving you a good shake, a fair start.
C&I: While you were growing up, you had a mom and a dad who were private investigators. And while you were at the dinner table, they sometimes talked about the bad behavior of the people they investigated. You’ve mentioned that those conversations with your parents made you cautious about whom you should trust. Do you find it easier to trust people these days?
Lambert: I think a little bit, yeah. I think that comes with age and experience, and getting a little more comfortable in your own skin. It’s like, I’m pretty much able to read people right off the bat. So I feel like I’ve been able to surround myself with really, really great people. I credit a lot of my success to the people around me for always leading me in the right direction and supporting me on the right things, and it’s very helpful.
C&I: There must be days when you’re on tour, or when you’re recording, and you wake up think: “I wouldn’t like to do this today. I would really like to stay in bed.” Or, “I would really not like to go out tonight.” When that happens, how do you rev up your engine?
Lambert: [Laughs.] Well, after 20 years of doing it, you can’t love it every day.
C&I: True enough.
Lambert: But you know, what helps me the most is being able to miss it. I think that downtime is so important. And I learned a lot more about that during 2020 because I was forced to rest and take a break, with no other options. I learned to settle into that — and then ended up writing three records. So I learned about myself. And thought, “OK, I’m way better at my job when I take a minute away from it so that I can miss it. And then I can regroup and balance out my life stuff and my work stuff.” For the first six months of the pandemic, I probably didn’t write anything. And, like I say, then I ended up writing three records. So it just showed me it’s important to balance things. That’s the most important thing for me now.
