There’s no doubt that reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year, Lainey Wilson, is one of the biggest acts in the genre today. Between her endless amounts of sponsorships that range from Stanley to Coors Light to Tractor Supply, her new Nashville Bar, Bell Bottoms Up, and her frequent collaborations with seemingly every artist in Nashville, it’s clear that the “Watermelon Moonshine” singer is country music’s new “it-girl.”
Though Wilson seemed to have all the makings to be a star in the genre, not everyone was as keen on the Louisiana native at the beginning of her career.
In November of 2022, Wilson appeared on Tracy Lawrence’s, podcast, TL’s Road House, where she discussed everything from her acting experience on Yellowstone, being an artist during the pandemic and most surprisingly, the time a radio executive told her that she she was “just not good.”
During the rollout of her 2019 debut single, “Dirty Looks,” Wilson was making stops at radio stations. She recalls that one particular visit was doomed from the start, “We went to this one radio station. We walk in; I got my guitar on my back. We [were] about to go in there, and we’re about to play him some music. And of course, you know, he made us wait in the foyer for about 45 minutes to show us who’s boss. And then we go up to his room, and he said, ‘You should have just left your guitar in the car. I don’t want you to play for me.'”
The radio executive then made the baffling decision to play “Dirty Looks” on what Wilson described as a 1995 computer speaker, “He said, ‘I want to hear what it sounds like through my computer speakers.’ And I said, ‘Okay, fair enough. That’s what’s going to be playing on the radio. That’s fine,’ so he cranks it up. This is my first single was called ‘Dirty Looks,’ and he plays it through his like 1995 computer speaker.” Cupping her hand over her mouth to mimic the muffled sound of the speaker, she said, “So it literally sounds like this.”
Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse for Wilson, after listening to the track twice, the executive then said, “Lainey. You’re just not good. I hope you don’t get real upset when he leave here and start crying and stuff.”
In typical Lainey Wilson fashion, she shared her response, “I leaned across his desk, and I said, so-and-so, out of the 10 years I’ve been in Nashville. You telling me that ain’t sh*t. Period. If anything, it just makes me want it that much worse.”
If this interview, coupled with the recent story of an unnamed promoter claiming that Zach Top “sucked” (which you can read here), isn’t further confirmation of just how out of touch (and generally flat-out wrong) most modern radio executives and promoters are, I don’t know what is.
Watch the full interview here: