Kacey Musgraves Knows How to Throw a Hoedown

Kacey Musgraves wants you to have some Frito pie. It’s a Tex-Mex dish comprised of Fritos corn chips, chili, cheese, and whatever else the chef desires—a concoction some coastal elites would probably scoff at. But those of us who have a little honky tonk in our bones know that it’s an absolute delicacy.

On Wednesday night, Musgraves provided the dish for some of her top Spotify listeners in Nashville, Tennessee. The dish was paired with Dr. Pepper cocktails, mechanical bull riding, a tank bedazzling bar, and, of course, a performance from Musgraves herself. “Come on down, honey,” Musgraves said to ELLE before her performance. “We got some Frito pies.”

These Texas-inspired aesthetics fall in line with Musgraves’s sound and visuals. Her newest album, Middle of Nowhere, out today, is a return to form—more like her first two albums, Pageant Material and Same Trailer, Different Park, than Deeper Well or Golden Hour (both of which nabbed Grammys for the singer). On her new LP, she collaborates with country heavy-hitters Miranda Lambert and Willie Nelson and incorporates a grand landscape of sounds that have influenced country music. There’s a waltz in “Horses and Divorces” with Lambert, with whom Musgraves recently squashed a feud. “Abilene” has the spirit of the Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl” and Taylor Swift and HAIM’s “No Body, No Crime.” Mexican Norteño sounds, bluegrass, and more are sprinkled throughout the album. “Rhinestoned,” an album standout, feels like it could be played at a gay line-dancing, country bar (hello, Golden Hour’s “High Horse” fans). The project is a bit of a Texas hoedown.

At the same time, Middle of Nowhere serves as an examination of Musgraves’s solitude. The title was born while she was in her hometown following a breakup. She came across a sign that read “Golden, Texas: Somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere.” Thus came an examination of the phrase, from top to bottom, and an obsession with the concept. The music, which follows her divorce from singer Ruston Kelly in 2020 and breakup with poet Cole Schafer in 2023, talks about being chaste, horny, lonely (yes, there is a follow-up to Golden Hour’s “Lonely Weekend”), and introspective. It’s made with humor and a big hit of fun. “Just literally just leave him, please,” Musgraves jokes as we’re talking about singlehood.

Musgraves is enjoying it all, too. To promote Middle of Nowhere, she rode into her surprise Coachella performance on a horse and crashed her own, campy look-alike contest at a pub in London. She plans to bring Texas on tour, hitting stops across the United States with country music stars like Midland, Flatland Cavalry, Carter Faith, and more. “Anytime that someone enters a space that I’ve had a hand in creating, I want them to feel transported to a very specific world,” she says.

Below, the country superstar talks about her new album, working with Miranda Lambert, and her foray into the single life.

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On Wednesday, you performed a few songs from Middle of Nowhere for some of your top Spotify fans. You also have an upcoming tour. How are you bringing the Texas, honky tonk vibes of this album to the stage?

It’s been a mission for me to bring Middle of Nowhere to unlikely places. The “middle of nowhere” to me is just as much a physical place as it is a state of mind, and it’s really fun to play with that concept. I got really obsessed with trying to understand and examine: What would “the middle of nowhere” sound like? What does the “middle of nowhere” feel like? What does it look like?

What inspired you to return to a more classic country sound on Middle of Nowhere?

Well, I always have one ear on traditional country music. From the beginning, I have had so much fun playing with blending the traditional with the modern. I think my first two records, [Same Trailer, Different Park and Pageant Material] really leaned really hard into that. Golden Hour allowed me to float in between a lot of different genres. Deeper Well did swing toward a more organic, warm, Celtic side of country.

Whatever music comes out is whatever I’m just inspired by at the time. This record is me exploring some other borders of country music. The bones of country music are really influenced by so many different cultures. It’s really quite a melting pot. You can look at the borders of Mexico, at Tex-Mex and Norteño, and even Zydeco, the influence of German and Czech music, Polka, and then a little bit of bluegrass. There’s just so many different beautiful currents running through country music. It’s really fun for me to explore that.

You have mentioned that Mexico greatly inspired this project. How did you bring those sounds into this album?

As Texans, a lot of our culture is influenced from the other side. And so it’s woven its way into our food and cowboy culture. There’s a lot of kindred energy there. But no matter where I’m at, I’m always finding so much inspiration in what’s going on around me—my relationships, the environment, the atmosphere, the sounds, the feeling of a place. I find that I write my best when I’ve had time to just live my life with no real timeline. That’s when I find myself the most creatively inspired. Finding a life in Mexico has been really beautiful, really eye-opening, and inspiring in a lot of ways.

When you listen back to your old music, do you ever get flashbacks?

Every now and then I will revisit old songs, and it really instantly takes me back to where I was when I was experiencing whatever it was that inspired the song itself. Music holds so much memory for people. It’s a really beautiful part of all of this. I create from a place of trying to work out my own life through song. When the songs come out, people attach their own meanings and memories to them. They’ve become the soundtrack to people’s memories and lives. That’s really beautiful.

How do your songs come together? Are you a lyrics- or sound-first person?

It’s usually lyrics first, but I just have a running log in my phone of a lot of different ideas as they hit me. It could be just a common phrase or colloquialism that I hear that’s already baked into society, or I hear a word, see a sign, or, I don’t know, have an argument, make a mistake—just quite literally the human experience is where I find my inspiration. There’s inspiration floating around all the time in the mundane. For me, it’s not about reaching to some grandiose marble hall of inspiration; it’s really just tuning to the simplest things around me. That’s just my favorite part of life, the beautiful simplicity. There’s actually so much poignancy within the extremely simple.

On this album, you talk about not having sex and being single for an extended period of time. What lessons have you taken from being single again?

I think it’s easy to avoid being single. It can be scary to be on your own and have to really spend time with yourself and reflect. I found myself really enjoying it. I would much rather—much, much rather—be single and by myself than be with somebody who drives me crazy and makes my life hell, just isn’t compatible, doesn’t communicate well, or is insecure. I just find it so much more freeing to actually be on your own. That was a lesson that I had to learn.

I was single for about seven years and learned a lot about myself through that time. When you go back to back, boyfriend after boyfriend, I think it’s hard to find yourself.

You just got to reconnect to who you are, reevaluate, and take stock of the things that really matter to you, and then only put the things back in that really deserve a place there because they add value. They’re not subtracting. For a long time, I would just wind up with people that would just end up subtracting. The last place that you should be receiving even more of that chaos is in your closest personal relationship.

Were there any funny or wild moments in the studio with Miranda Lambert when writing “Horses and Divorces” that really stick with you?

That was just a really fun song to write. It was the last addition to the record, and I slid it in under the door just in the nick of time. We laughed our asses off and loved the accordion, the cowbell, and just that Texas dance hall energy on that song. Also, I love a waltz. The record needed a good waltz.

Is there a musical moment from this album where you think, “Oh, shit, that’s cool. I did that?”

What if I’m like, the whole thing?

Period, honestly. Love it.

It was just such a fun palette to explore. This record is a love letter to all the sounds that made me who I am. It’s an honor to be inspired and to take these pieces of all these beautiful things and put them together. It’s literally my reason for living. I just enjoy it so much. It’s been really awesome to see people really loving the songs.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.