Kacey Musgraves Interview: Kacey and the sunshine band

Kacey Musgraves is not a tongue-biter by inclination. If she has something to say, the 25-year-old opens her mouth and out come the words. Stewing in silence isn’t her thing.

Hot Press learns this early in our conversation when, negotiating a potentially sticky subject, we foolishly attempt to dance around it rather than charge in head-first. We’re trying to cajole Musgraves into discussing her supposed rivalry with Taylor Swift, the reigning princess of tween-beloved country-pop (in reality the alleged bad blood between the two is largely a figment of Twitter’s imagination.)
What about all these people to whom you are compared we ask, deploying our amazing powers of subtlety. Does it annoy you – or are you flattered?
She narrows her eyes, doesn’t miss a beat.
“Who are you talking about specifically?” asks Musgraves.
"Taylor Swift," we blurt out. "Lots of people think that, with your catchy country songs and glossy photo-shoots, she’s in your sights: that you perceive her as a rival, rather than a peer."
“I try not to take offense,” she says, sounding offended. “Nobody doing their own thing wants to be compared to anyone else. You want to be the first to have done something. A comparison may be meant to be flattering, often it's not. You want to make your own name.”
From there, we stagger into another thatch of briars. In the Cliff Notes retelling of Musgraves’ career, much of her prominence is owed to her transgressive lyrics, with their references to alcohol, drugs, girl on girl entanglements – all staples of her debut LP Same Trailer, Different Park. Amongst the nabobs that constitute the ruling elite in puritanical Nashville, that sort of grit carries a whiff of heresy, goes the theory. In the most conservative scene in music, Musgraves dares to stand out. She even has a nose-ring. Some of us can’t get our heads around it.
She sighs. Have people taken offence at her lyrics? A few – as in literally, a handful of random individuals with access to the internet and too much time to kill. Mostly, her audience takes her writing for what it is: honest, reflecting the world we live in every day.
“The lyrics have been received amazingly well,” she insists. “There's a minority in the dark ages choosing to call them controversial. They’re not. It’s sad that what I do could be considered controversial in 2014. These things are not controversial - they happen to everyone. In big cities and small towns, in America and elsewhere. I’m just doing my job. People want to pull out the rebel card with me and I don’t get it.”
She may disdain the Taylor Swift comparisons. Nonetheless, their careers have followed remarkably similar trajectories. Like Swift, Musgraves headlines arenas back in America and is now considered a pop star as much as a country artist - when she recently collaborated with Katy Perry on the music TV show Crossroads, a viewer recently emerged from a foxhole would have been hard pushed to say who was the country chanteuse, and who was the sparkly chart dominatrix.
“It’s important for me to connect with as many as possible,” says Musgraves. “Katy became a fan when she heard my song ‘Merry Go 'Round’. She got in contact, we did some writing for her record and stayed in touch. I’m going out on the road with her in August for some dates. We have a lot in common - one of the things we bonded over was our love of Patty Griffin.”
Musgraves grew up in a tumbleweed town in east Texas, the sort of place where an ambition to break into show-business can seem an impossible fantasy. Her talent as singer was obvious from early on. At age eight, she was writing and performing. By age 18 she was living in Austin, making her way as a songwriter. Discovered by a local indie label, she was soon touring with crossover country outfits such as Lady Antebellum. In 2012, she signed a major label deal and has never looked back.
Still, fame has its downsides. As well as reported tensions with Swift, she has became embroiled in an online fracas with American country DJ Bobby Bones - type her name into Google and ‘feud’ is helpfully suggested) The controversy stems from an video interview Musgraves gave to Bones which he later pegged as an example of her rudeness. She responded - in a Twitter back and forth that rapidly escalated – by pointing out he’d only aired 20 seconds of their 90-second conversation.
“I try not to censor myself because there are more people out there,” she says. “I’m okay with a large audience. I don’t believe in changing who I am because of what I do or in case people are watching. You should put yourself out there. That said, sometimes you have to be careful with what you say. You do realise that, every now and then.”

Kacey Musgraves plays The Academy, Dublin on July 10