Miranda Lambert may be a country music icon, but she still had to jump through some hoops to work with Ella Langley.
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On March 17, the women and their collaborators gathered at Nashville’s BMI offices to celebrate Langley’s two No. 1s—”Choosin’ Texas” and “Weren’t for the Wind,” the former of which Lambert co-wrote.
Speaking to press ahead of the packed bash, Lambert and Langley discussed about their special relationship, which developed after the rising star “pretty much just harassed Miranda every time I could get a chance.”
Langley’s tenacity, combined with a stamp of approval from co-writer Luke Dick, got Lambert to the table.
“If you know Ella at all, when she puts her mind to something, it’s happening. I’m pretty strong too, but I was like, ‘This girl knows what she wants. I guess we’re gonna work together,’” Lambert said. “… The stars kind of aligned within a year or so.”
Ella Langley’s Test for Miranda Lambert
When Lambert arrived to work with Langley on her forthcoming sophomore album, Dandelion, she was immediately impressed.
“She’s holding court. I mean, within the first five minutes of our write, we set up and she’s like, ‘This is what’s going to be. This is Dandelion. These are the colors it is. This is the inspiration playlist. This is what I want it to be. This is the vision,’” Lambert recalled. “I was like, ‘Damn, girl. Let’s go!’”
“I was so excited that somebody had such a vision for who they were, and what they wanted to do, and who they were becoming as an artist and as a woman,” she continued. “It was so inspiring. I’m blessed and lucky to get to have a front row seat to that.”
At one point, the two women stepped out to get “junk food and cigarettes,” and Lambert found herself under scrutiny from Langley.
“She was playing this playlist that was her inspiration playlist. I was singing every word to every song because it’s all the s**t I love. I think it was a test,” Lambert said, a theory that Langley confirmed.
“She would side eye me and I’m singing, ‘Smoky Mountain Rain.’ She’s like, ‘OK she knows that one,’” Lambert continued. “I think that was a test that I passed, hopefully.”
“I would say!” Langley quickly assured Lambert, who added that the experience “just solidified who we are and why we’re kindred spirits.”
“We have a lot of similar musical influences we grew up on. I think there’s that grit there that we both have,” Langley agreed. “We put some work into this before we saw anything in return for a long time… That is the thing that binds us all together, that we’re not afraid to work for it.”
Ella Langley on Miranda Lambert’s Support
Work for it she did, as Langley experienced a meteoric rise last year. All the while, she counted on Lambert and other women in country music for support.
“I had Miranda there and Lainey [Wilson], and a lot of other women—Gretchen Wilson, Jo Dee Messina—who were just constantly there for me,” Langley said. “There’s not a rulebook to this job. There’s really only people’s stories to get you through.”
“Like, ‘Oh, this this is normal? I should feel this insane?’” she continued. “I think just having somebody else say like, ‘Yeah… This is how it feels. It’s OK to feel like your head is spinning it off a rocker every day, because that’s just a journey you’re on right now. One day it’ll slow down.’”
She added, “Having that saved my life last year. I know God did that on purpose. One hundred percent. [He] put Miranda in my life to get me through that specifically.”
The relationship isn’t a one-sided one, though, as Lambert said that she learns a lot from the younger generation too.
“Nobody truly understands what it feels like unless you lived it. It means a lot to me that they trust me with calling me with the good, bad, ugly,” she said. “I learn a lot from them. I learned so much from the girls that are just working their ass off, and [are] so inspired and so sure of who they are. It’s inspiring to me. It reminds me to stay true to that thing that I have too.”
Dandelion is due out April 10.
Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images for ACM
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