Runway June‘s Jennifer Wayne, Natalie Stovall, and Stevie Woodward are breaking out the bubbly in celebration of the release of their new album, New Kind of Emotion, on September 19.
Videos by American Songwriter
“We have gotten into this thing over the last couple of years; our thing together is champagne,” Wayne tells American Songwriter. “We drank it every once in a while, but it wasn’t like a consistent thing for any of us girls. We just kind of started doing it together, and now it’s a tradition. Before every show, we pop a bottle of champagne.”
The 13-track project, produced by multiple producers, including Kristian Bush, Ron Fair, and Mickey Jack Cones, has its share of sizzle, fiddle, pedal steel, flair, and a whole lot of girl-power energy. From the Latin-flavored “Drink Champagne” (We don’t need a grand occasion / Don’t need some fancy celebration / To catch a little sunup sundown buzz / We can pop bottles just because), to the female-empowering “Sad Girl” (Girl, cry it out ’til you’ve got nothin’ left to cry / Girl, don’t be sorry, kiss his sorry ass goodbye), and the comforting “Come Home to Me” (Come home to me when the world gets too heavy / Come home to me when you can’t find your way), the trio finds themselves hitting all the right notes with a mix of fun and heartfelt tracks.
“You’re hearing a compilation of three years of our lives, different journeys, heartbreak, love, just all of girlhood,” Woodward adds. “It’s all the things combined—what we’ve gone through in the last three years. And none of it is fake. It’s all that we’ve experienced. So it’s been a journey, and that’s what the album sounds like: a journey.”
A journey that finds the trio drawing from their own experiences. Wayne, Stovall, and Woodward co-wrote most of the project (with the exception of two—”Miss Me” and “Make Me Wanna Smoke”), giving us an authentic collection of songs that bring together playfulness and raw honesty while offering us an album that is both personal and relatable.
We sat down with Runaway June to chat about New Kind of Emotion, the stories behind the songs, and what this new era means for them.
American Songwriter: Talk about the chemistry between the three of you in this incarnation of Runaway June.
Stevie Woodward: Well, I can only speak from the time I joined, but I will say that coming into a situation that was already established and already had its feet running, it was a little bit of a challenge. And then this album that we’re getting ready to release, it was the evolution of us finding what the new version of Runaway June was. So working together, it’s been amazing, and it’s been really exciting just finding that new sound.
AS: What does this album, New Kind of Emotion, represent to you individually, personally, and musically?
Natalie Stovall: To me, it represents our growth, and you can take that metaphorically, like growth as an individual. Because one of the best parts about being in a band is that we get to write together, and you’re not just writing about your own experience, you’re kind of taking something that Jen has gone through and giving your own take on it. And when we’ve been in all these different stages within love and within our lives, and then we just kept writing, and it’s so cool that it feels like each little section of music is from a different time that we were searching.
AS: How do your different perspectives shape your music and the way you created this new album?
SW: I think just because we’re all on different life paths, it’s like we can each bring our own experiences through a writing session. It’s so fun to be able to do that with your sisters. It’s like you can have your own perspective, and only certain people can relate to that at that time. But then, when you have three of us, it’s like, ‘Oh, what if you add this element into a love song that they’ve experienced?’ It’s like a superpower that we have, that we can all give each other different perspectives on things.
AS: So Stevie, you joined the group in 2022, so I’ll ask Natalie and Jennifer, what does Stevie bring to the group?
NS: Her musicality is insane. Her melodies are just incredible in the writer’s room. But for me, one of the things that attracted me to Stevie and made me want to be in a band with her was just her musicality. The covers that she was choosing to put her own spin on on Instagram. That was really cool to me because it wasn’t the same thing that I heard everybody else doing. And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I can create with this girl. This is going to be fun.’
JW: Her melodies are unbelievable, and they’re a little bit outside the box from traditional country music. And so it’s so beautiful to hear her melodies and combine them with Natalie and me. It’s such a gift. I’m obsessed. At soundcheck, she’ll always be fiddling around and playing some melody, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, we have to write that. We have to write that.’
SW: Which is also a great thing about being in a band. Usually, I’ll just play that stuff, and it kind of goes out the window, and Jen has the ear, she’s like, ‘Oh, stop. Keep playing that.’ I’m like, ‘OK, all right, we’ll start writing a song..
NS: The number of song starts we have from soundcheck is ridiculous in our voice memos.
[RELATED: Runaway June Reimagines Sound with Megan Moroney Producer Kristian Bush (Exclusive)]
AS: So you play off of each other?
JW: We really play off each other well. That’s one of the main things I think that really attracted us to asking Stevie to join the band. We wrote together for the first time before we told her that we wanted her in the band. It was instant chemistry. It was easy. We wrote a song, just the three of us in a couple of hours. Sometimes songwriting sessions feel like you’re banging your head against the wall. It just felt effortless, and we all kind of just gelled, and then we started singing together. We were like, ‘Whoa, we sound like sisters.’ And that was kind of the moment where I was like, this is meant to be.
AS: Take us through your songwriting process. How does it all come together when the three of you are in a room together?
SW: Oh my gosh, it’s like it really just depends. Every single time is different.
NS: Always different.
SW: Literally. So one of the songs in the album is called “Drink Champagne.” That song in particular—we were in a management meeting and Jen was like, ‘Stevie, grab your guitar.’ So I grabbed the guitar, and she’s like, ‘Play that riff.’ So I started playing it, and we abandoned the management meeting. So that song was written that way. Another time we’re at soundcheck, we’re playing songs or we’re in a writing session with another incredible writer, and one of us has a title or a voice memo we’ve worked with before. Then if we all love it in that moment, it’s just whatever comes up in those moments.
NS: And then sometimes one of these girls will start writing something, and then the other one will go, ‘I have that exact melody on my phone from a different song idea.’ It was the wildest thing, we’re like, ‘All right, well, clearly we’re supposed to write this right now.’
JW: Yeah. That’s never happened to me before. I’ve never had the exact same melody as someone multiple times. And on “He Ain’t My Problem,” I do this a lot to Stevie— I’m like, ‘Play this…’ I feel like we’re such good musicians, and it’s all in my head. So I sang her melody, I’m like, ‘We got to play this.’ And she was like, ‘Jen, I literally just recorded that melody in my phone.’ And she took out her phone and played it. I’m like, ‘That is just too weird because melodies are infinite, and to have the same one, just crazy.
AS: The album is called New Kind of Emotion, but it’s also a song. In parentheses, there’s Lily’s Song. So explain that meaning and why that name.
JW: So New Kind of Emotion is just one of our favorite songs we’ve ever written. And the day we wrote it, we wrote a lot of songs; they’re all our babies. But this song in particular, we brought it home and played it for all of our families and friends, and we kept calling each other. We’re like, ‘My mom loves this. Mine does too, my sister.’ And it was the first song where our entire family loved it and wanted to play it on repeat. And my daughter, who’s three years old now, but she was two at the time, she just kept wanting to play it over and over and over again, and she wasn’t talking yet. So I would say, ‘Oh, this is Lily’s song’. So now, when she wants to hear New Kind of Emotion, that’s hard for her to say; she’d say, ‘Lily’s song.’ And I know that it’s her song. So we gave her a little…plug.
AS: Talk about the album overall. What are we hearing from Runway June?
SW: You’re hearing a compilation of three years of our lives, different journeys, heartbreak, love, just all of girlhood. It’s all the things combined—what we’ve gone through in the last three years. And none of it is fake. It’s all what we’ve experienced. So it’s been a journey, and that’s kind of what the album sounds like: it’s a journey. We worked with a few different producers, and we were just experimenting with sounds and lyrics, and so we found what we want to say and how we want to sound with this album.
AS: If you can describe the album in three words, you can each do a word, what would they be?
JW: Fun
NS: Empowering
SW: Growth
AS: Do you each have a favorite song on the album?
SW: It changes so much.
NS: At this moment mine’s “Champagne.”
SW: Mine would be “Come Home to Me.”
JW: I go back and forth between “New Kind of Emotion” and “Champagne,” but I do think in this moment, “Champagne.” When you hear it, you just start having fun, and you want to sing along, and you want to hear it over again. It just brings out, I don’t know, brings out something.
AS: I wanted to talk about “Drink Champagne” in particular because it has kind of a Latin flair, which the rest of the songs don’t. So what was the decision behind going with that kind of melody?
JW: We really wanted to either cover a Latin song or try to write something. My grandmother’s from Lima, Peru, so I’m a quarter Spanish. And she’s always like, ‘You need a Spanish song.’ Stevie’s Spanish too. So we had talked about it, but when we started singing that melody and Stevie started playing it, we didn’t even realize that it wasn’t intentional that we were going there. But then, when we started writing it, we were like, ‘This is what it feels like, and we should embrace it and not try to turn it to fit into the country box.’ We just went with it. It wasn’t intentional, but maybe subconciously, because we had talked about it.
SW: Working with the producer of that song, Ron Fair, I think he just elevated it and made it into a Latin flair even more because he’s one of those producers that takes risks, takes chances, and he’s not like, ‘Let’s play it safe just so we can get on the radio.’ It’s like, ‘No, let’s make this song what it is and let’s amplify what it is and make it the best it can be.” Once we heard it back the first time in the studio, we’re like, what? But also amazing!
AS: After listening to the whole album, was there a track on the album that surprised you? One that was like, ‘Wow, that really turned out great?’
JW: For me, when I heard “Sad Girl.” We wrote it, and we kind of were in that vein, but Ron Fair really took that song and drove it home. I mean, when I heard that back, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s like our inner Carrie Underwood “Before He Cheats” type of song. I think that track really surprised me. I think that Ron knocked it out of the park.
NS: He’s a genius for sure.
SW: Mine would be “Fine Wine.” This version on the album is actually [recorded] before I was even committed to join the band. It was like, ‘Hey, let’s do a session and we’re just going to record this song.’ I was like, ‘OK, well, I hope this all works out.’ We got in the studio, and it was with Duke Bourbon, who was sponsoring the event and had these wonderful musicians. It’s almost got this Judds-y feel to it, very rootsy, very cool country sound to it. That’s what we were envisioning when we wrote “Fine Wine” initially. When we first recorded “Fine Wine” on the EP, it was something totally different than what it is on this album. I really like the version that we have on this album.
NS: It’s funny. I feel like I’m boring because I’m going back to “Champagne.” Part of it is the way that it turned out. I feel like, and it’s hard for me to ever separate the process from the end result, but it was so fun working with Ron on that one, and the ideas that kept spawning. He actually had us dig in and write a little more of a second verse, but then that allowed for more call and response stuff for me and Jen. He has you sing so many different parts and in different voices and different vibes, and it’s just fun doing that. I love challenging where my range is and where we’re going vocally. That’s a really cool process to me.
AS: If someone were to listen to this album from start to finish, what do we learn about Runaway June as a group or individually? Any secrets in there?
JW: Gosh, I feel like listening to this album top down, it just shows our friendship and how we have all stuck together to help each other out through every kind of situation in our lives. It shows that we can get through everything—breakups, hard times in life. It just shows that, you know what, if you just keep on going, we’re going to make it through and we’re going to have fun doing it. All three of us girls have had so much fun the last couple of years, writing songs, playing music, even the breakup songs are fun. It’s kind of just a snapshot of how the three of us band together and keep on trucking.
AS: What do you want listeners to take away from this album?
NS: Well, Stevie said this earlier, but I think part of the goal is that everyone knows that they’re not alone. This album definitely shows that things are not perfect, and they can be really messy, and that’s OK. It can still be a good time with some champagne.
SW: Absolutely. And whatever you’re going through, there’s pretty much a song on the album for it anyway. I think it’s like you said, not taking ourselves too seriously, and music is supposed to be fun. It can also be emotional and all of these things, but we try to just be human on this album and just record and write whatever we felt in that moment, and didn’t try to take the genre too seriously. Obviously, it’s a country record, but it’s not like we went in, like let’s write a three-chord country song. It was like, let’s write what’s on our hearts right now. That’s what this album means to me.
Watch the full interview with Runaway June (below) and check out New Kind of Emotion, out now.
Photos by Acacia Evans
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.