Tigirlily Gold on the Stigma and Lessons Learned from Playing Nashville’s Lower Broadway

Tigirlily Gold, the sister duo of Kendra and Krista Slaubaugh, recently released their new album Blonde, a high-energy confidence-booster of an album. The sisters spoke with American Songwriter about their journey to this project, which included playing on Nashville’s lower Broadway for a long time. They were a staple of Dierks Bentley’s bar Whiskey Row, but they never let the stigma of lower Broadway keep them from achieving their goals.

According to some people, those who play in and around lower Broadway are doomed to stay there forever. It’s hard to get out of the honkey-tonks once you start becoming a regular performer around there, but Tigirlily Gold are realistic about what it means to be musicians in Nashville.

“There’s definitely a stigma about you’re just going to get stuck down there,” said Kendra. “It was never that mentality for us. First of all, we need to pay our rent, we need to pay our bills.”

Krista added, “I don’t see anybody else paying my bills,” to which Kendra continued, “And if we’re going to get a job, why not still do something that can better us as musicians, as performers. We are still playing music. It’s a little bit different route than maybe we thought we’d be taking, but it still checks all the boxes for us.”

[READ Full Exclusive: Tigirlily Gold Shares Lower Broadway Lessons, Talks New Album and Their “Dolly Parton State-Of-Mind”]

Tigirlily Gold Talk Lessons Learned On Lower Broadway

While Kendra and Krista remained realistic about lower Broadway, they didn’t stop performing there just because it was unlikely someone would walk in and offer them a record deal.

“Playing Broadway is the best thing we ever did for ourselves,” said Kendra. “It’s the best thing we ever did for our career. We did not get a record deal from someone coming down to Broadway and seeing us, but it was part of the whole picture.”

Playing lower Broadway gave them the experience that prepared them for their career in the music industry. As Krista said, “It prepares you just for this industry,” adding, “It is never easy on artists, no matter what stage of it you’re in.”

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