Denitia’s Indie Sensibilities Bring New Shades to Country Sound

New album "Sunset Drive" reimagines Americana template

Photo Credit: Chase Denton

I finally got a chance to catch up with one of the artists who’s keeping modern country music vital and interesting for me — Denitia! I run through her long list of accomplishments in my intro to our conversation. Here it is, edited for clarity and content.

(NOTE: Subscribers get to SEE THE VIDEO of my full interview with Denitia tracing the influence of Country Music Hall of Fame member Don Williams on Sunset Drive, AND my random thoughts on the societal implications of Post Malone’s Bud Light sponsorship that will probably end up in a future essay)

HK: Hello, Denitia! It is so good to connect with you again! It's been a minute!

D: It has. It's great seeing you, Hunter. Thanks for having me on here.

HK: I want to go through and read some of your accomplishments over the last few years. So, just sit there and listen and let this be the ego boost you need, honey!

D: Okay.

HK: Denitia, you've been named an “Artist to Watch” by the Nashville Scene and NPR. You got one of the five spots in a residency hosted by the Black Opry and WXPN. You were named a member of Rissi Palmer's Color Me Country class. Oh, and y'all must go listen to Denitia performing on NPR’s Mountain Stage, introduced by Kathy Mattea, who we adore. She’s a longtime friend of LGBTQ+ folks.

Denitia is a member of CMT's Next Women of Country and made her Grand Ole Opry debut a few months back. Her spring tour starts March 11th in Charlottesville, Virginia. You can get those dates at denitia.com.

And recently, Denitia announced that she will be performing at the world premiere of Dolly Parton's Threads, My Songs in Symphony with the Nashville Symphony on March 20th. You are on fire, Denitia!

D: That's awesome. Thank you!

HK: Oh my gosh. You’re so welcome.

I want to start out talking about your new album, Sunset Drive. With your previous album, Highways, we talked about you playing within the confines of “country music” and how that was freeing. In your music before Highways, there was no limit limit or parameters in what you were drawing from — exploring alternative, electronic music, and everything else.

Sunset Drive is so exciting, because I still hear you playing within the confines of “country music.” But I also hear you expanding sonically and bringing some of that alternative and electronic influence in. Do you feel like more of your full musical story comes through on Sunset Drive?

D: Yeah, totally. With Highways, there was a comfort and a stability that I felt like, “Okay, here are the walls.” We’re gonna keep it Americana feeling, country feeling. I feel like making Highways helped me reorient myself stylistically. It put my feet back on the ground where I really wanted to be. And with Sunset Drive, I wanted to keep my feet planted in my attachments to elements of country music, which would be acoustic guitar and pedal steel. I wanted to hold onto those things, but let's let some of some of my other affinities and influences start flying — like a little bit of the indie and alternative — and just allow some of that stuff to color my filter of country music.

I feel like there are some songs on Sunset Drive that are still firmly in the Americana space in the way my producer, Brad Williams, and I conceived of them, in the way we executed them. Then, there are some songs where I just allowed myself to get a little more abstract.

HK: The first song I heard from this record was "Gettin’ Over,” and that one is country as cornbread. That is so hardcore. Why did you want to put that one out as one of the lead singles?

D: When I was thinking about the singles, or what songs to highlight before the album came out, I went with "Back to You,” “Don’t Le Me Go,” "Getting’ Over,” and “Sunset Drive.” Those felt representative of the palette that I was covering. I really wanted to highlight "Gettin’ Over" because I wanted to emphasize that my interest and my creative affinity still lies in the country space. And that's something that I'm still inspired by, something that I love and I wanted to pay tribute. I just wanted that song to have its own space outside of the album for a little while.

HK: One of the things I've really enjoyed about Sunset Drive is hearing your voice front and center. It sounds more expressive. I hear more tones and shadings in it. How did you approach vocals on this record as opposed to Highways?

D: Thank you for that, first of all.

I think there's a physiological evolution of a person's voice. So with every year that goes by, I'm relating to my physical voice in a different way. The more I sing shapes how my voice is gonna sound.

With Highways, that was my first foray in a long time into this Americana space. And I think having gotten our sea legs with that record, I felt more locked in when we were doing Sunset Drive.

With Highways, Brad and I were both still in New York, and I would travel to the studio in Williamsburg, New York. This was during the quarantine, so we'd just be in separate rooms for the most part when I was recording vocals. He would be in the control room, and I would be in the the live room. We would never even be together.

For Sunset Drive, Brad and I really set forth to say, “Let’s make sure the vocals are it. Let's make sure we can build these worlds with these songs and introduce all these elements and create a universe. But let's make sure the vocal is undeniably out front and still fitting within the style that we're trying to convey.”

I flew out to Brad’s studio in L.A., and we were able to like really spend some time going hard on the vocals. We know what microphones really work on my voice.

HK: You can totally hear it. And I love how much you get into the creative side of music-making in your conversation with Lizzie No on "Basic Folk" that came out around the time the album was released. I couldn't believe y'all had not met before.

D: We still have not met in person, if you can believe it.

HK: I know you're both busy, but this is a tragedy.

D: I know! People have been saying that to me for years. “Oh, you don't know Lizzie No?” I know her music. I'm a fan. But yeah, that was a great conversation. I'm glad we had it.

HK: It was such a great conversation because it was Lizzie and you talking artist to artist. You were talking about the production side of things, and Lizzie asked what creative elements you’d like to see come over from alternative and indie music into America and country? You said you’d like to see more sonic experimentation with those country sounds, and I hear you following that path that on Sunset Drive.

D: Yeah, for sure. I think of myself as almost like a stained glass window of influences. At any given time, depending on wherever the sun is, you're getting a different color. One of the things that I love about being an artist and making music is that I'm always changing and the light is always changing.

So, when I was set out to make Sunset Drive, I wanted to bring some of my indie sensibilities to my interpretation of these country songs that I'm writing, right? Thelonious Monk said, “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”

Genre labels are helpful, and they're also arbitrary at times. Because art is fluid, and my approach to it is fluid. There are so many Americana records that I love that are like, “This is how you make an Americana record.” And I think with Sunset Drive, I wanted to be free to expand and to bring some of that Indie/Pop sheen to the records.

Because Brad and I have known each other for so long, he's been along with me on the journey when I was making Dream/Pop, when I was making more experimental electronic music. For us to both be bringing these voices and influences to the music, it's coming out as something that is dimensional in that way.

HK: Of course, the steel guitar is everywhere on this album. I moved out of the south for the first time about two years ago, so hearing the pedal steel is just like a warm blanket for my soul. You heard the pedal steel on country radio all the time while growing up in Texas. What led you to use so much of it on Sunset Drive?

D: That was one of the that was one of the tenets of this record. We focused on acoustic guitar, pedal steel, vocals out front, and then we did whatever the song asks for around that.

Brad played a lot of slide guitar on Highways, and people would mistake it for pedal steel. A lot of reviews mentioned pedal steel, but it was the slide guitar. After we put that record out, I went through a phase of getting obsessed with pedal steel and revisiting a lot of the records that I grew up on. The sound of pedal steel just brings a tear to my eye. It like literally moves me.

So, I told Brad I wanted to put a lot of pedal steel on what became Sunset Drive. Keep in mind, we made these two albums with just the two of us playing. And I wanna brag on Brad a little bit. He's a multi-instrumentalist as well as a great producer. When I told him I wanted to put a lot of pedal steel on this album, he said, “I don't play pedal steel.”

Then he calls me about a week or two later and tells me he borrowed a pedal steel from somebody. He’d learned how to play it ,and he learned how to play it so well, he just played it on the record.

HK: Sure.

D: That's what I said. I was like, “Wow, that's not normal. No, that's,

HK: No, that's insane. And also Brad plays in Brittany Howard’s band, right?

D: Yeah, just Brittany Howard. Just really chill stuff.

HK: Brittany’s another sonically adventurous artist.

D: Very much. She's very inspiring in so many ways, but particularly in the way that she just continues to break boundaries.

But, with Brad, I really just wanted that pedal steel sound throughout, because I'm thinking of it as a project. It’s almost deconstructionist, like, “What makes these things country?”

I’m from Texas. That’s my life. Okay, here's some acoustic guitar. Okay, now here's some song structures that would be commonly considered to be commonly country. Put some pedal steel in there. It's country music. Now, we can get in the sandbox and play with these other things.

HK: Going back to your interview with Lizzie No, I heard you say the song “Ready to Fall” was a bit of an exercise for you to write a straight-ahead love song without letting your ever-present sense of melancholy cloud the lyrics. Yet, there’s some melancholy elements in the feel of the song.

D: There’s no escaping it.

HK: Was that some sort of thought exercise to see what was on the other side of the melancholy?

D: It was more like, “What if?” Because I'm mostly drawn to the bittersweet. So there's this beautiful, great emotion, but the only way I know this is a great emotion is because I know what it's like to have sadness and sorrow. So, I’m usually presenting both and living in the question of which way do we wanna lean?

And for “Ready to Fall,” I really wanted to make a country song like something that Randy Travis might write, but that The Cure would perform. I was listening to, “Friday, I'm In Love” by The Cure, and as famously melancholy as that band is, the point of the lyrics for that song is — “Today, I'm in love.” So, I was inspired by that. I wanted to just zoom in on the emotion of, “I'm ready to fall in love with you,” even though it's couched in, “I've failed a little bit here and there.”The primary emotion is that this is a beautiful moment, and I love you, and I'm ready to take this to the next level.

As Brad and I were writing that, it was a challenge to keep bringing it back to that zoomed-in, little moment.

HK: Having first met you through my LGBTQ+-focused show, Proud Radio, I’ve got to ask you about the moments when you’re plainly singing a love song to a woman, like on “I Won’t Look Back.” It’s so affirming for me to hear that, and it feels like an act of defiance in a way to still show up as completely ourselves in this time.

With the backlash against anything queer or “DEI” raging right now, how do you get past it to still show up as fully yourself in public, and on stage?

D: Yeah, totally. I think that I had to come to a realization at some point in my life that when I walk into a room, I just am myself, without even thinking about it. So, I might as well just lean into who I am. Just being who I am and living, my identity's just really obvious. When I talk, you can start to like piece together who I might be. So, I might as well just live authentically because there's nowhere to put it. You know what I mean?

I don't really think about it. And when people bring up that I use female pronouns in my songs and sing about two cowgirls in love, I'm like, “I do because that's my life. That's the way I move through the world. I'm just being myself, because who else could I be?”

HK: Thank you. I just needed to connect on that because I need that reminder to keep showing up as completely myself. Speaking up and showing up as our queer selves breaks the spell of people trying to convince us where we can and can’t be. We’re still here.

D: I've been an independent artist for so long that this is about connecting with the fans. I don't really take into consideration like, “Oh should I say this?” It's my story. It’s my life, and people are finding relevance to their own lives by me sharing openly about my life. If they don't relate to it, then maybe it creates a moment of empathy, or a moment of understanding or illumination for someone who isn't living an experience that's similar to mine. So, I just have to keep going and keep being myself.

HK: Now on “I Won't Look Back,” is the line “Two cowgirls in love” or “Two cowgirls in luck?”

D: It's luck.

HK: Why luck?

D: I wanted to play with that idea of being in love, and that the two of us are having a lucky day. Everything's kinda working out our way. So, let's just get in the car and just drive.

HK: Let’s talk about your live show. When you’re getting ready to go on stage, how do you prepare to meet the moment and really show up and be present with that particular group of people that has come to see you that night?

D: There's a lot of running around that goes on before showtime. My routine is to allot enough time for me to have quiet time before I'm supposed to hit that stage. I usually try to take a walk to get some air and get calm and centered, and then I have a little cup of tea.

I always try to remember that the moment is unique, and that we'll never be in this moment again. I'll mention this on stage to show my appreciation for the audience — that I’m grateful to everybody who came to the show because that's what this experience is about. It’s us being physically present in a room and sharing an experience that no one else is sharing. The things that are heard, the way the air feels, and the way the lyrics are hitting, and the way the person next to you is immersing themselves along with you, that's never gonna happen again. It’s a one-of-a-kind moment.

HK: Now that Sunset Drive has been out for a minute, which songs are connecting with your audience the most? Have any of them changed shape or meaning for you as you’ve been performing them?

D: “I Don’t Get High” has become the most-requested song. People are really connecting with it when I do that song live. It’s really going somewhere in terms of connection with people.

The inspiration for that one was thinking about limerence — when you first fall in love with a person and you have all those pheromones that are making things intense. Later, there’s the question of, “Okay. The new relationship energy has faded. Is that all we were meant for? Or are we just going into this new phase? And then I'm the junkie in the song who's wondering if I should try to go get high off of somebody else or if I need to stay where things are familiar.

HK: Well, you’ve got a huge gig coming up singing Dolly Parton songs with the Nashville Symphony on March 20. How did you become one of the featured singers on this show?

D: First of all, I'm honored and blown away to get to be a part of that in Nashville. I’m a huge fan of Dolly. She’s inspired me ever since my grandmother introduced me to her music listening to AM country radio when I was a kid.

The producers of that show reached out to my team. I think one of the producers was familiar with my work and they reached out. I sent them some video recordings of me doing a couple of Dolly songs that we’d talked about me doing. Then I went in and met folks from the team, played them some songs, and they invited me to be a part of it. I'm really looking forward to being in Dolly’s presence and to lending my voice to this beautiful synergy of orchestral music and her iconic songwriting.

HK: Have you met Dolly before?

D: No.

HK: The energy in the room shifts when she enters. It’s just electric.

Have you sung with a symphony before?

D: Yes, I have.

HK: Oh, I understand that is such a moving, singular experience for a musician.

D: It really is. It brings out different colors in the music. And different texture to your voice. Instead of playing off the sounds of six strings in a piece of wood, you're now playing off this epic score of thousands of strings. So, I think the emotion will be really palpable.

HK: One thing I love about you is how you're a “musical sponge,” and you do deep dives on artists or sounds or styles you love to incorporate into your own musical vocabulary. Since you got this gig, have you gone back through Dolly’s catalog? Are there any deep cuts you’ve discovered that just blew you away?

D: A few years ago when I was on this little quest of coming back home to Americana music, I latched onto Dolly’s record, My Tennessee Mountain Home.

Once I fell in love with that record, I started looking around at the story behind that album — how Dolly had been on The Porter Wagoner Show, and they made all these great duet records together. But she really had this conviction to write about her life and how she grew up, and where she came from. Then some of the response from her peers was like, “You really just need to get back to doing like love songs.” She said, “Yeah, but I need to sing about the big old black kettle and sitting on the front porch.” I think those types of records give her so much dimension. They humanize her. She's a real person who grew up in a real place. She is not only an iconic pop songwriter, but also a person who came from Tennessee, sat on the front porch and watched her parents working and doing the best they could. So, I really got into that record.

Right when they called me to start discussing this Dolly show, I had been on a tear listening to the Porter and Dolly records. That’s country music in its purest form.

HK: While we’re talking about Dolly writing about her childhood and her family, I’ve heard you’re working on a similar project about your own family?

D: Yeah. Without saying too much because it's in progress, I’ve really been drawn to diving into the stories. Now, looking back at all these different chapters of my life as I’ve lived here in Nashville, I've lived in New York, I’ve traveled and been in love, been outta love, and I miss my family back in Texas. There's been so much life, and I'm just mining from that to tell some stories.

HK: I just love knowing new things are on the horizon for you.

D: Oh, yes. I’m always exploring.

HK: Well, Denitia, I’m so excited for you to continue sharing the music of Sunset Drive with audiences this year. It’s been so good for my soul to connect with you about this art.

I know you got a big boost in recording and releasing this album from your work with Nashville-based MTheory’s Equal Access Program, an initiative designed to empower artists from underrepresented demographics in country music. What role did that program play in helping you fulfill the vision you’ve executed in releasing Sunset Drive?

D: Oh, man. I'm so grateful to Equal Access, to Cameo Carlson at MTheory for creating that program, and to Tiffany Provenzano and Chantrel Reynolds for facilitating it.

Equal Access is an artist development program that I was in last year. Before that, I was completely independent with no team and doing everything myself. They came in as my team and said, “What do you want to do?” I said, “I want make a record. I want to play the Grand Ole Opry. I want to have a little bit of a foot in the indie/Pitchfork world, but I also really want to lean into my relationship with CMT and that fan demographic as well.” I had a few quite a few things on my vision board, and they were like, “All right, let's do it. Let’s get you there.”

While I was in that program, I wrote and recorded Sunset Drive. They introduced me to a lot of people that I needed to know and really just helped me with the organize everything to independently release my record and to continue to bolster myself as an independent artist.

HK: The Equal Access program has given a big boost to you as well as so many other artists I’ve worked with in the past few years, including Chris Housman, Carmen Dianne and Julie Williams. If you’re reading this and you want to support diversity in country music, go see what you can do to support Equal Access! Check it out at MTheory.com.

As for you, Denitia, it has been so great to talk to you! Godspeed on all your tour dates!

D: Thank you so much! This has been an awesome conversation. I've just always really enjoyed talking to you, so thank you for this.

HK: Oh, same to you.

And now, paid subscribers, enjoy the full video of my conversation with Denitia!