The latest album from Kaitlin Butts, ROADRUNNER, was inspired by the romantic Rogers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma and may seem an unusual choice of inspiration for a country album. But, as Oklahoma-born Kaitlin explained to us when we spoke recently, it reflects her love of musicals from a young age. Also, it touches on themes of love lost and sought, murder and humour, all concepts that have been featured in her songwriting to date. A departure from her previous recordings, channelling country music down an altogether different path with this album works spectacularly well and should further broaden Kaitlin’s appeal and rising star.
Are you settled in Nashville now?
Yes, I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I lived here in 2019, moved home during COVID-19 to my mom's house in Ardmore, Oklahoma, a small town, and we moved back to Nashville in 2021.
Singing and acting have been in your blood from a very early age.
I started singing when I was four or five years old and did musical theatre growing up. I started singing music I loved at a young age, which wasn't always country music; I also loved pop music. As I grew older, the artists that were powerful to me and were starting to get a lot of momentum were The Chicks, The Wreckers and Miranda Lambert, women who sang their own songs, played instruments and had great stage presence. I used to sing their tracks onto my little cassette tapes and make CD's. My neighbour was a guitar teacher, and he would come over to my house and teach me songs on the guitar that I wanted to learn. After that, I fell in love with country music, its history and origins, and it just continued from there.
Your new record, ROADRUNNER, follows from your 2022 album WHAT ELSE CAN SHE DO. There are a lot of tracks on it, seventeen in total.
A lot more than the last one WHAT ELSE CAN SHE DO, for sure. I wanted to deliver a project I cared passionately about, not leave gaps, and tackle the concept well.
It's not quite as dark as WHAT ELSE CAN SHE DO, but it has its dark moments alongside humour.
Yes, there are a couple of dark ones on it; it wouldn't be a Kaitlin Butts album if there weren't some dark humour and moments on it.
That last album was highly personal. Does your writing reflect your mood and state of mind at the time of writing?
Absolutely. My last album was about what I was going through over the course of four or five years. I thought should I put something on that album that might brighten it up but that was not how I felt during that time. That album was about women struggling and trying to find their way.
The theme in ROADRUNNER is based on the musical Oklahoma, which is an interesting concept. What motivated that?
When we moved back to my mom's house in Ardmore, Oklahoma, in 2020, my husband made the mistake of saying that he had never watched musicals growing up. I was flabbergasted because musicals are such a core principle of who I am. So, we started watching Chicago, which is one of my favourites, and my husband loved it. He's a musician, too, so there was no way that he would not respect the quality of the songwriting, dancing and production. We then watched Oklahoma with its cowboy theme going on, and I realised that I had more than one song that matched the theme and visuals of the movie. I just picked it up from there, started writing more songs inspired by the movie, and ended up with ROADRUNNER. If that last album was very dark, this one is a 'daytime' album, much brighter, like the sun coming out in the song Oh What A Beautiful Morning from the musical's overture.
You open the album with that overture Oh What A Beautiful Morning renaming it My New Life Starts Today. Is that a statement of where you are at presently.
Yes, I'm glad you got that, and I hope that people understand that symbolism. When you're going through some of the things when I wrote my last record, the message is, 'Don't worry, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and good times are on the way.' I'm a perfect example of that.
The track listing is very clever, mixing the darker songs with more humorous songs and some ballads.
The listing was very important to me. I wanted to have 'up and down' momentum on the album and humour but also to be very country and dramatic. I wanted it to showcase everything encapsulating me and what you get at my live shows. My last album was very much rock and roll, and that's not everything that I am. If you listen to this album and come and see me live, it's a great representation of what you will see.
The track You Ain't Gonna Die has shades of Loretta Lynn to it.
Yes, I love that song so much. Every time we play it live, it is one that everybody can relate to, someone to whom they want to say goodbye.
Vince Gill guests on the ballad Come Rest Your Head (On My Pillow). How did that connection come about?
I performed at The Opry, and he was playing the same night. Whenever you play at The Opry, and there are other celebrities on that night, you might walk by them in the hallway or even get to meet them. Vince Gill was sitting in the church pews during my performance, looking up at the stage stream, humming along, and playing at the back. I didn't know this until I came off stage and into my green room, and my team told me this. After he finished his performance, he walked up to me and introduced himself. I could have fallen on the floor; he's such a legend and iconic person. At the end of our conversation, he just said, 'I'm not that hard to get a hold of. If you ever need anything, just holler.' While working on the Oklahoma theme for this album, I thought of artists from Oklahoma who might sing on it. My manager suggested that we ask Vince Gill to sing on it and 'let's call him.' He didn't even need to hear the song; he immediately came on board
Had you written that song with Vince Gill in mind?
No, I had not. I wrote that song because this woman at a festival had a tank top that read 'Cowboy Pillows' across her chest. I thought that was so funny, and in movies how, it's normally demonstrated that women are resting their heads on men's chests and being the comforting person, whereas in my experience, it's the other way around. It got me thinking about how women are a comforting place to land, and that's where the song came from. Vince is from Oklahoma, and I'm so happy that he sings on that song.
The album has a couple of interesting covers, one of which is Bang Bang, previously recorded by Nanci Sinatra and Cher.
That is one of my favourite songs; I used to walk on to that song in my shows. It's one of those songs I wish I had written; it's so dramatic. In Oklahoma, Jud Fry personally victimises himself; he has been rejected, and he's mad and seeks to murder. I feel like he's saying, 'My baby shot me down; she rejected me.' That's how I envisioned the song Bang Bang's connection to that, and I really wanted to figure out how to work the song into the album.
You also include a more modern country version of Hunt You Down by Kesha.
Yes. I wanted to mirror the Ado Annie and Will Parker's song All Er Nothing from the musical. It's such a funny song, a tongue-in-cheek murderer; it's like everything that I think my audience knows me for. I also wish I had written that song. For me personally, I'm not in a place where I'm in an abusive relationship where I want to kill my husband; I'm in a loving relationship. The song's theme, where if a guy does you wrong, he might get killed, works; I thought I like women to have that kind of empowerment.
You have co-written with three women for the album: Angaleena Presley, Natalie Hemby and Courtney Patton. Have you co-written previously?
These were not my first co-writs, but every time I do co-write with someone, it feels like the first time because I get so nervous. Writing with Angaleena was incredible; walking away with the song That'll Never Be Me with her was a dream. I'd been listening to The Pistol Annies since I learned to play guitar. I’ve played her and that band's songs so many times. We clicked right away, and it was so easy to write together. It wasn't as if we were trying to write hit songs; we wanted to write something that was real. I'm particular about who I write with because I like to write independently and take my time; I'd hate to be boxed into four or five-hour windows where I had to write a song. I brought the scene from Oklahoma that I wanted to write with Angeleena and brought it to her.
And the Natalie Hemby and Courtney Patton co-writes.
I couldn't believe I got the chance to work with Natalie Hemby. Those two songs, Other Girls and You Ain't Gonna Die (To Be Dead To Me), are core moments on the album for me. They were the last two songs we wrote for the album, and they were the two final missing pieces that I knew I had hooks for but had run out of juice. I was stuck and could not think of another creative line; Angeleena had seen the film and got it right off the bat. Courtney Patton is one of my good friends; we wrote that song, Elsa, in 2016. It's a song that I wanted to draw out and tell her story in every way possible. Courtney sat with me while I cried for hours while I was working on the song. Those are the only co-writes, and I feel as proud of them as I am of the ones I wrote alone.
How does marriage to a fellow singer and musician, Cleto Cordero, work out logistically?
It's all that he and I have ever known. He lived in Lubbock, Texas, and I lived in Ardmore, Oklahoma, four or five hours apart. It was always a long-distance relationship, which we are used to. Cleto understands what I have to do, and I understand what he has to do. The kind of responsibilities, the things that don't seem important to people not in the music industry, like a show poster or a setlist. Those things take time and can take away from everyday things, but we both understand their importance. We may not get to talk to one another until after our shows at one or two in the morning, sometimes when we're all buzzing and wanting to talk. It totally works; we leave the house and go our separate ways, but when we get together with a few weeks off, it's all the sweeter getting into a normal routine for a while. We then feel the need to get going and start on the road again.
Your touring diary is complete for 2024, with your final two shows before Christmas in your home state, Oklahoma. How fulfilling is it to play shows there as your career progresses?
I love going back to Oklahoma; it always feels like going home. I played there last New Year's Eve, and it was amazing to walk on stage and hear the roar. Everyone knows my music and my references; they have been there for me since the beginning, people who had seen me playing around town in little bars. It feels like I'm going to my high school reunion and that I'm throwing the party.
Interview by Declan Culliton