Lainey Wilson was in the eighth grade when she landed a job impersonating Hannah Montana. Last month, she won her first Grammy in front of Miley Cyrus.
Watch the video above.
She’s sitting in a moody recording studio in Sydney’s Surry Hills, a cup of tea cradled in her hands and a wide-brimmed hat casting shadows over her brown eyes.
“It’s hard for me to wrap my head around, because I mean, I’m from Northeast Louisiana, from a town of 200 people,” she tells 9honey earnestly.
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Wilson grew up in Baskin, Louisiana, and got the Hannah Montana job when she was barely a teenager.
It wasn’t the most glamorous way to start the music career she’d been dreaming of since age nine, but it got her foot in the door.
“I did birthday parties, and fairs, and festivals … I was playing a three-year-old’s birthday party one minute, and the next I was playing a nursing home,” she laughs.
“It’d just be me and my guitar, then I’d run backstage and throw my wig on … but it taught me a lot.”
After graduating high school, she hung up the blonde wig and headed to Nashville, Tennessee – the heart of the US country music scene.
Unlike Miley Cyrus, Wilson didn’t have a famous family name to help her. If she wanted a career as a country artist, she’d have to make it on her own.
“It didn’t happen for 10 years,” she says, taking a sip of tea.
Barely 20 when she arrived in Nashville, Wilson lived out of a trailer parked behind a recording studio and relied on the studio owner to help her make ends meet.
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She booked small gigs and worked on her music tirelessly with no guarantee of success. Back home in Louisiana, people started to worry.
“It would probably make more sense if I packed it up and went home,” Wilson admits.
“I definitely had family members that were like, ‘When are you going to come home and teach kindergarten?’
“But I never had the feeling of, ‘I don’t know if I can do this’. I knew I was cut out for it. I knew that I was born to do this, even from a very early age.”
It wasn’t until 2018, when she landed a major recording contract and started to gain some mainstream traction, that Wilson felt the years of effort start to pay off.
The following year, her songs were featured in a little show called Yellowstone, and in 2020 she released her breakout hit Things A Man Ought To Know.
By 2021, it had topped the Billboard Country Airplay chart and Wilson was certain the success she’d dreamed of for a decade was right around the corner.
Then she got the call that changed everything.
Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan was on the line and he had an offer for Wilson; did she want to join the cast of the hit Western series in a role written just for her?
Obviously, she said yes.
From the moment Wilson hit screens in the show’s fifth season, her music career exploded.
“We’d already had a little bit of success with radio,” she says.
“But a lot of folks listen to the radio and they don’t know who’s singing, they just know the song. And I think that’s what Yellowstone did for me. It put a face to a name.”
That same year she released Bell Bottom Country, the album that won her five Country Music Association (CMA) Awards in 2023 and a Grammy last month.
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To accept her first Grammy the same night Miley Cyrus won Record Of The Year was a full circle moment.
“I don’t think you can ever really be fully prepared for something like that. It seems like the stars have just aligned over and over and over again,” Wilson says.
“It does give me that courage that I need to to just keep going […] when you’re recognised, especially by people that you look up to in the industry, people that have inspired you.”
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Now she wants to inspire other women in country music, which has been dominated by men for decades.
“There are so many women who have paved the way for me. You had the Dolly Partons, the Reba McEntires, the Shania Twains, the Faith Hills, the Carrie Underwoods,” Wilson says, eyes bright.
“They set us up to start seeing a little bit of change, and I’m very proud to be a part of that change.”
Wilson counts Parton among her close personal friends after meeting her onstage at the 2023 Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards, where Wilson was named Female Artist of the Year.
“She really has taught me so much, even down to the way that she carries herself, how she is as a business woman, how she’s kind to everybody, but also don’t take no s–t,” Wilson says of the queen of country.
“You need that in this industry. I think everybody does, but especially as a girl.”
Wilson has plenty of big-name male country artists in her corner too, including Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen and Keith Urban – the latter who drove her to the airport on her way to Australia.
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“He did warn me [about Australian wildlife],” she laughs, adding that Urban gave her “all kinds of tips” he probably picked up from Aussie wife Nicole Kidman.
This weekend, Wilson’s headlining CMC Rocks in Queensland and next weekend she’s playing two sold-out shows at Sydney’s Hordern Pavillion, which has a capacity more than 20 times the population of her hometown.
It’s hard to believe that a decade ago, she spent her weekend donning a blonde wig and singing Hannah Montana tracks to toddlers.
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But if Wilson knows one thing, it’s that success isn’t about where you start out – it’s about where you’re going next.
“And at the end of the day, us girls, we have a lot to say. It’s definitely a man’s world in the music business but hey, we’re coming for them.”