“This record is my most personal record yet,” Lola Kirke shares of her new record, Trailblazer. Written over a series of years following a move from NYC to Nashville, the record feels like a collection of treasured postcards from different eras of Kirke’s life, each song tracing her relationships with love, family, and the search for self. Released alongside her recently released memoir Wild West Village, the album plays like a companion piece. Through her memoir, Kirke reveals what it was like growing up in a legendary artistic family, where personal reinvention sometimes clashed with high expectations, shaping both her identity and her art. (Alongside music and writing, Kirke’s acting CV boasts magnetic performances in Mozart in the Jungle, Gone Girl, and Mistress America.) A striking collection of songs born from years of introspection and emotional reckoning, Trailblazer sees Kirke lean into her rock sensibilities, dropping the stylistic boundaries of country music she once thought she had to embrace.

J.L. Sirisuk: You grew up in London and New York – different cultural environments. What were you drawn to early on in terms of self-expression?
Lola Kirke: I was originally drawn to acting because I thought all you had to do was just be emotional to be an actress. I was so lucky to be raised in an intensely creative family where being an artist wasn’t taboo. In fact, to not be an artist was kind of taboo. Growing up, I didn’t know that women could play music. It was a man’s world. I’m blown away by how much that’s shifted now. Maybe because everyone I follow is a woman in music now, I’m like, “They’re everywhere.” I’m sure it’s still quite rarefied. My latest foray into writing was something I truly never thought I could do because I was such a bad student. I mean, I didn’t know grammar [laughs]. I feel so grateful that my life is one where I get to explore multiple modes of expression.

JLS: How long have you been living in Nashville? Was music the draw?
LK: Yes and no. It was kind of an accident. I had started seeing my partner and we were newly in love, and I thought I would just come visit him every other weekend from New York, where I was about to go and begin a play. I had all sorts of acting work lined up and then the pandemic hit and I got stranded here. That has been such a happy accident, and it really allowed me to explore this part of my creativity, which has been incredibly rewarding. If I hadn’t started writing music in the way that I had, I’m not sure that I would ever have felt empowered to write longer form.

JLS: When it comes to music, how does it feel to tap into this compared to acting or writing?
LK: In a way, all art is scary because if it’s truthful, it demands that you are making yourself vulnerable. I’ve never been entirely confident about my musical ability. I started playing music because I just loved listening to music, and it was something I wanted to have in my life. My passion turned into whatever raw talent I had as a musician – it’s a lot of hard work and a lot of passion, but I feel intimidated a lot. I love being alone, and I love singing. I think singing is a very spiritual and joyful thing to do. Whether you’re a professional singer or you can’t actually sing a note, I think it’s an important part of our human instrument that we can play and have access to whenever. With anything that I do, the more I encounter struggle, the more I feel like I can get to know that thing a lot better and really understand if it’s something that’s aligned with who I want to be, and who I am.

“I think singing is a very spiritual and joyful thing to do.”

JLS: With all these projects – a movie, a book, and the record – what sparked the record?
LK: I had been writing the album for years, in between Lady for Sale, my last full-length record which we did in 2022 and this kind of stopgap EP called Country Curious – that was tiding me over until I found the deeper thing that I wanted to say. So much of what I’m beginning to realise I’ve done in putting out a record and a book and having this film come out this year, is to really begin to understand creativity and the creative process for myself. It’s incredibly human to create, and it’s something I feel so lucky that I get to do. For me, this record is my most personal record yet. I wrote it at the same time that I wrote my book and there’s a lot of thematic overlap about family, finding your own voice, and learning how to talk to yourself in a way that affirms and empowers you rather than destroys you, which has been a really big part of my growing up. Writing has been the most steadfast way for me to learn to organise chaos. There’s a lot of chaos in my life, whether it’s chaos I have created or chaos that I’ve just been privy to. I feel like my art, or my music at least, is always a bit wiser than I am. I think that my art gets over hurdles in my life quicker than I do, and I’m  happy that I have that outlet to do so, and hopefully help others, because I don’t think what bothers me, bothers me alone.

JLS: How does this record feel different compared to your previous ones in terms of what you revealed that you didn’t expect to?
LK: With my last EP, Country Curious, that was very much an experiment in genre. Lady for Sale, the LP that preceded it, was very much about exploring the sonic landscape of 80s and 90s country, adding synthesisers and creating something that just sounded different. My songwriting has really matured and become much more refined, whether it’s the tears in your beer songs like 241s or Hungover Thinkin, or the much more personal songs about family. Over the years that I’ve been writing in Nashville, I’ve had an incredible education from writers I’ve had the privilege of writing alongside, whether it’s Liz Rose and Caitlin Rose or Jason Nix or Jon Decious or Ashley Monroe, to name a few. 

“There’s a lot of chaos in my life, whether it’s chaos I have created or chaos that I’ve just been privy to.”

JLS: Mississippi, My sister Elvis & Me – that title jumped out because it felt like it could be a movie or an episode of a show. What can you tell me about that track?
LK: I’m so glad that jumped out – I also feel like it could be a movie. Maybe it will be. I wrote that song a week before we recorded the record and I was so happy that it got to make its way on there, because a lot of the time you write a song and two years later, you record it. I had written my book and shared it with my family, and some family members were really unhappy with it. Both of my sisters really came to my side and there was something about writing the book, which included a lot of anecdotes about longing for a different kind of sisterly relationship, that weirdly gave me that sisterly relationship. I wasn’t expecting that my book would make anything in my life change, but my sisters really showed up for me, and one of my sisters came with me on a trip to Graceland. It was this kind of experience that I never thought we would have, and as it was happening, I was like, “I want to preserve this forever.” So I went down to the hotel bar at the Peabody and started writing the song on the back of a napkin. When I got to Nashville a couple of days later, I took it to Daniel [Tashian, producer] and I was like, “Well, how can we make this into something?” It’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written, so I’m glad that he was game for it.

JLS: How does it make you feel to listen to this record?
LK: Proud. As I was packing my merch just now, I realised when I was packing all of my records and my books into one shitty plastic case from Home Depot, I was like, “I made these things.” I can’t believe I made these things, and they’re here, and I can share them with people. Trailblazer is something that I really want to share. Part of me believes that personal storytelling is self-indulgent and annoying. There’s another part of me that really understands the tremendous value personal storytelling can have for other people, because it’s always had that for me. When I’ve been able to behold other people’s vulnerability and willingness to take the risk and find the art in their life, it really helps me go, “There’s art in my life too – this mess is not just overwhelming and scary. This mess is beautiful.” 

Trailblazer is out  now via One Riot Records
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