Jamie Wendt
Carly Pearce has spent most of her life chasing a country music dream. Now, she’s more interested in telling the truth about what that dream costs.
Pearce’s forthcoming album, Honest Woman, is coming soon, and she’ll bring her hits, new music, and hard-earned perspective to CMA Fest when she performs June 6 at Nissan Stadium as part of the festival’s nightly concerts.
Luke Rogers
It’s another major moment in a career that began in Taylor Mill, Kentucky, and took Pearce from five shows a day at Dollywood to country radio, sold-out tours, Grand Ole Opry membership, a GRAMMY Award, multiple CMA and ACM Awards, and platinum-selling songs including “Every Little Thing,” “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” “Never Wanted to Be That Girl,” and “What He Didn’t Do.”
But Honest Woman isn’t an album about trophies. It’s about what happens when the dream you fought for starts asking something different of you.
“I made an album without anybody else telling me who I am or what I need to be,” Pearce says.
The journey started in a writing room when the pressure to stay competitive at country radio finally caught up with her.
“I walked in and said, ‘We’ve got to write the next hit song,’” she says. “And then I just started crying. I said, ‘This town is killing me. I feel forgotten. I feel lost.’”
With Tofer Brown, Lauren Hungate, and Emily Weisband, Pearce turned that moment into “Dream Come True,” the album’s debut single. Rather than writing specifically for radio, she told her truth. Pearce sings about buying a four-bedroom house without a family to fill it, missing her best friend’s wedding because of a gig, and carrying the weight of her country music dream — for her and her mother.
“What that did for me is it sent me on a quest to return to the original dream,” Pearce says.
That dream started in Northern Kentucky, rooted in Appalachian music, storytelling, and emotional honesty. For Pearce, Honest Woman became less about reinvention and more about returning to the source.
“I just knew I had to go find what I loved again,” she says. “Not the shiny producer who I should work with or the person who does make hit records. No, the person who makes music that makes me feel something.”
Longtime collaborator Emily Weisband says the album captures Pearce in an important artistic chapter.
“She’s been around long enough that she has become a country staple, but she also has plenty more of her heart to share and mystery to reveal,” Weisband says.
That depth shows up in songs including “Church Girl,” written by Cameron Bedell, Seth Ennis, and Carter Faith. Pearce, a woman of faith, connected with the song’s message of grace over shame.
“I had to deal with the shame and self-doubt and insecurities of the divorce and sexual purity,” she says. “I wore a true love waits ring for a long time as a kid, and was told that’s what you do. Explain that to somebody who then goes through divorce.”
If “Church Girl” offers compassion, “Daisy” pushes into darker storytelling. The up-tempo song follows a woman hiding bruises behind sunglasses as she reaches a breaking point. Pearce sees it in the lineage of country songs unafraid to make listeners uncomfortable.
“I don’t want to sing songs anymore that are just vanilla,” Pearce says. “The women that I grew up loving, they pushed the boundaries, and they were controversial. I want to stand for something that means something.”
That, more than anything, is the pulse of Honest Woman. Pearce isn’t trying to prove she can sing about heartbreak. This time, she’s showing the clarity that comes after surviving it.
“You can think you know who you are,” she says. “And then there’s a knowing. This is my knowing.”