Hi listeners, this is Sarah Harrelson, your host of Taken a Walk Nashville. I hope everyone has been enjoying the guest I have had so far this year on the podcast. And I am so enthralled with Nashville and Music City myself because I am also a musician. I just released a new single called It Can't Rain All the Time. Check it out on all streaming platforms under Sarah Harrelson and give me a follow. But enough about me today. Joining me on Taken a Walk Nashville is a very special guest, country artist Rae Linn. She is a former contestant of The Voice and two-time ACM awards nominee. She has garnered over a billion career streams and recently started working with Jonas Group Entertainment last year for her new releases. I am so excited to have her on today. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Welcome to Taken a Walk Nashville with your host singer-songwriter Sarah Harrelson. Rae Linn, thank you so much for being on Taken a Walk Nashville today. You look stunning. How are you? Thank you. I am good. I am good. I am getting into the groove with Daisy, my daughter, and riding a lot this beginning of this year. We start touring in April. It has been a little fun few months off, but I am already missing the road. I am excited to see the fans again. It has been a good little time off and recharging for the summer. I saw your recent clip. You were taking your daughter Daisy to the American Girls store. I love to see that little girls are still playing with American Girl dolls. It is so cute. We went for International Women's Day. My mom, her me-mall, took her. I was thankful to not get that bill and let my mom pay for that. No, it was super fun. She had a great time. It is so much fun being able to create memories with her. I remember when I got my first American Girl doll, so it was really sweet for her to get to experience that with my mom. Yeah, me too. I definitely had those growing up. You mentioned that you are hitting the road later this year. You are joining Luke Bryan on his Word on the Street tour. It is kicking off on May 29th in New Hampshire, continuing through the fall. This is very exciting. Have you toured with Luke Bryan before? The last time I was on tour with Luke was in 2019 because I was going back to a different photos. When I saw this, I actually was wearing this. I can always remember clothes more than I can remember dates, which is insane. It is a classic girl thing. I was like, what did I wear? Oh, I wore these cute little black Levi shorts and this bedazzled camo strapless top. That was so cute. I'll have to find a picture. No, it has been a while, obviously. I am excited. It has been seven years since I have toured with him. It is going to be super fun. I don't know if you know much about his lineup, but he does this cool thing on his tour where it is like every day of the show, you figure out where you are on the lineup. He has all these different openers. There are three openers per each show. Either the night before or the morning of the show, we will either find out if we are playing first, second, or third and you don't know until the day of, which I think is so cool because he wants everybody to experience what it is like to be direct support, which I think is such a cool thing that Luke does and it is cool that he can do that. I am excited to try that out. Luke is so sweet. He has always been so precious to me. He was actually one of the first celebrities I met right after the voice. I have a picture of me and him at Stagecoach when I was 18 and I just couldn't believe that I was meeting Luke Bryan. The guy who is saying, rain is a good thing because that is the song we loved in Texas. It is going to be definitely a full circle moment and I am very excited. That will be so much fun. People can find tickets to these shows through your website and you are also playing CMA Fest this summer in Nashville. Do you know what stage you are playing yet? I am playing Riverfront stage. I am so excited. Last year we were supposed to play Riverfront and we had some crazy storm that came in and it was so crazy because it was sunny outside but there was lightning. Of course they won't let anybody in if it is raining like that or lightning even though it was not even raining. It was the weirdest thing. We did a surprise show because I was not going to be all dressed up to not do a show and not sing. We ended up going to a whiskey river and I did a pop-up show there for the fans. I am excited to redeem myself and get to do Riverfront stage this year. I have been wanting to and I am super pumped to be able to play that stage. Just give me fun. In this case rain is a bad thing for CMA Fest so we definitely want to see you at Riverfront and keep the rain away this year. I think it is going to be good. I am pumped. I am looking forward to it and I am just loving your new music that you have released since joining the Jonas Group Entertainment Team last year. You have released Heaven is a Honky Tonk, Long Live Country Music Fall Together and a festive Christmas EP. You released so much music last year. They are definitely jams. How would you say your music has changed in these recent releases compared to your prior releases? I think this new music is definitely probably a little more rock and roll in a sense. Obviously, when I started I was 18 years old and now I am in my early 30s and 31, I hope 32. Obviously, I have matured. I have gone through some life. I feel like the common thread between all my music is the storytelling and the fact that I am a country girl. I grew up in Texas and I think with this project that I am creating right now I am really going back to those rootsy parts of myself that grew up going to the Houston Live Stock Show and Rodeo and grew up in a Texas girl. I moved to Nashville when I was 18 and I had so many influences here when I moved here. When I go back and listen to the songs I was writing when I was 18, 19, they really have a lot of the same instrumentation as my project now. It is so funny because I feel like in life you just kind of always go right back to where you started, especially for me in music. This music is just a lot of heart, very country, but also really fun. I never want to stop having fun when I am creating and writing. I just love living with this music and I am really excited for the fans to hear the rest of it. Yeah, we can't wait to hear upcoming songs too. Speaking of your music from 10 years ago, your platinum single God made girls, it is still resonating with a new generation on TikTok and social media. What is it like seeing a new generation 10 years later reacting with this song? People with social media, I think there are parts of it that are hard but parts of it that are really cool. The coolest part about TikTok and Instagram is that songs can truly live forever. Me and Jason Aldean were talking about this because I was on Jason's tour last year and he saw a lot of his older songs like The Truth and Amarillo Sky. They were all popping off on TikTok and Instagram reels. It just makes it one thing that is just so cool is when you make great music, it does live on forever. I love seeing people continue to make videos to God made girls and lonely call and boyfriend and people thinking that they are new songs. There has been artists that when I have gone through TikTok or whatever that I have discovered that I have actually had a full career for the last 10 years and then you are getting to rediscover it based off of older music. It is always so sweet and I love. I am so proud of God made girls and boyfriend and my first record that went number one. That music will always have a special place in my heart and it is so cool to see so many new people fall in love with it. There were so many fans that I met last year that thought that boyfriend was my first single. They were like, I love this song, you just released boyfriend. I was like, Queen, I wrote that 11 years ago but thank you. It is really cool. I still is very nostalgic when I hear it and I think about all those times and now that especially that I have a daughter to see her love that music is fine as well. Yeah. Since you have became a mother, how has it been balancing family and music at the same time? I will say, I feel like it is just kind of what you do as a woman. I feel very inspired and empowered to be able to bring her out on the road with me and do what I love. She makes, when you have a baby or when you have a child, when you see life through their eyes, it is just so special. Now I really truly understand why my parents get so emotional when I would do anything in my career because you see that little girl that you raised and seeing Daisy just flourish into this little girl is just so sweet. Her being on the road with me last year, she loved every person on the cruise. She would give her by fist pump. She was like the tour mascot and even when we got done with tour, I helped her make little friendship bracelets and all those crew guys are still wearing their pink and purple bracelets that Daisy Ray made them. It is just cool to know that we are creating the memories that she is always going to remember when she gets older and her childhood and I just want to be super special. I want to continue to show her that no matter what, you can always chase your dream and she is along that ride with me. I never want her to feel like she is falling behind. She can stand with me in my dream because she is a part of that dream because I have always had a dream of being a mother. She is just super special. She is just great and very sassy. We are working through this task but I want her to keep it because it will serve her well in life. You just got to kind of hone it in there. She has been really great. Does she love watching you perform on stage? Yes. Towards the beginning of the year, she doesn't understand that mommy has to work. Why can I be on stage? Towards the middle of the tour, we were able to bring her outside stage and she could watch and not want to run out on stage. She is starting to get a little older and understanding that she can't come out the whole time but I would always let her come out and we will ask her if she wanted to. That was really sweet. That was so special. That was cute. That was so sweet. Your music and your household, it has also been shaped by the military with both your husband and brother serving as green berets in the US Army special forces. How would you say you have found strength through music during times that your brother and husband have been deployed? Well, first of all, the military community is so incredible and I have so much admiration for the men and women that serve in our country and having to let the person that you love the most be gone for a significant amount of time. The biggest thing that I mean, my brother and my husband, the military is such a determination to get through the trainings that they have gone through and to come out on the other side and just, I mean, I'm just so beyond proud of them. It's been super cool to be able to have the platform to be a military wife and to speak on the experience of missing the person you love as well as just being there for military wives. I've gotten to do some really cool USO stuff and some shows overseas. We went to Naples, Italy last year and went to Spain, wrote a Spain to a base out there and we've gone to Korea. We've gotten a lot of cool opportunities to be able to be a voice for the military families and there's really just nothing like that community and I think no matter if my brother was in the military and my husband was, they weren't, I just have such a respect for the military and so I just, but having that connection has always been super special. But yeah, it's been, we've gotten to do so many cool things and I'm just having him home and having my brother, my brother's obviously been home for a while and he's been out of the military for a while and so has my husband. It's an admiration and I just, you know, I'll never get over but it's really cool and I will never turn down an opportunity to be able to be there for military families. They're just super special. Yeah, yeah, it's a very special purpose and I always say you never know where music will take you and if you think, if someone thinks music doesn't serve a purpose, you know, you can definitely make it a purpose because the military does need music. And you're bringing home to them like when I went to Korea, that was in 20, I think 2017 or 2016 after I looked back. But, you know, there was 19 year olds that had just, Korea was their first place. They literally, some of them had never been on a plane before. Wow. They joined the military and went straight to Korea and it was like so cool to be able to bring a little bit of home to them and it was cool because it was a show, it was me, Trane and Eli Young Band and it was just to see all those young, you know, young faces just so happy because they got to feel like a little bit of home was with them was so cool and it's just an experience I will never forget. Yeah. Well, thank you for your family for their service and the work you've done with the USO and the military. Thank you. I appreciate it. Is there any new music we can look forward from you this year? Yeah, we're, I've been writing so much. So it's so funny because I feel like with songwriters and artists, your last songs that you've written are your favorite songs. So I try not to get too like squirrely about it and be like, oh my gosh, and forget about other songs. But no, I'm very excited about upcoming releases. We're kind of working through that right now. I just, I just love my team so much and I feel super blessed to be a Jonas Group entertainment. I've known Kevin for a few years now. I met him in 22 and I just, you know, this is, it truly is a music family that we have created at Jonas Group. And so I just know we're going to do some incredible things this year. Yeah. Yeah. And we just had Kevin Jonas senior on to get a little Nashville. So love having the Jonas Group on here. And it's just been fun, Raelyn, to see your journey in the last 10 years of your career. And, you know, many first knew you when you were a contestant on The Voice on Blake Shelton's team in 2012. Looking back a decade ago, is there anything you wish your younger self would have known back then? I think I've always truly like enjoyed every moment, but I would just tell my younger self to just really take it all in because you don't realize that you're in a moment. That one day will just be a memory. And there's so many moments that I feel like it flies by so fast. And you, and I, and I know when deep down I enjoyed it all, but, you know, there's just, I wish like, I feel like I've lived like, like nine lives. And so, you know, it's just, it really is crazy to look back. And especially like we were talking about earlier, like when I look at comments of on videos like God Made Girls and Boyfriend and seeing fans be like, oh my gosh, this song was my favorite song when I was in fifth grade or fourth grade. Or this reminded me of this, you know, boy in my life. It's when you realize that the music that you were creating and the music that I made, you know, 10 years ago was somebody's memory for a moment in their life. It's just really cool. And there's all those memories I cherish. I mean, I think about my first time on radio tour, my first tour, my first tour bus, all those experiences, my first record deal. And, but then I'm here today and I feel like I'm just getting started at the same time. So it's all those memories I really do hold very close to my chest. And I think if, like I said, if I could go back to, you know, the younger version of myself, I would just be like, just continue to take it all in because you're going to be doing this for a long time. So yeah, I think that's great advice. And time does fly, but it's very cool to see how your music has been so timeless throughout the years. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. And we're loving your new music and Raylan, my last question for you. We are on taking a walk Nashville. So if you could take a walk with anyone in Nashville, living or dead, who would you take a walk with and where in Nashville would that walk be? If I could take a walk with somebody in Nashville, it would be, oh my gosh, I would probably take a walk with Dolly Parton. And I feel like she's just, she has seen so much of the industry, but I feel like she, I don't feel, she is such a genuine person inside and out. And I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of reasons why I admire her, but I would just love to sit and actually talk to her. I've got to do a few interviews with her, but to actually just like, you know, be unfiltered, just me and her. I think that would be the coolest person to be able to learn from is Dolly Parton. Yeah. Yeah. That would be so special. Do you know where in Nashville you would want to walk with her? Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. I'm trying to think. I probably like to go to like Radner. I love Radner. There you go. Yeah. That would be a great place. Could you imagine just walking there with Dolly? That would be great. Yeah, I cannot imagine that for me. That would be awesome. Well, Raelyn, thank you so much for being on. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Taking a walk in Nashville today. We are looking forward to your upcoming music this year, your upcoming tour with Luke Bryan. And I'm sure we'll see your daughter Daisy on upcoming shows with you too. She's a cutie pie. Well, I appreciate you, Sarah, and y'all have a great day. Thank you. You too. Thanks for listening to Taking a Walk Nashville with Sarah Harrelson. Please check out our other shows produced by Buzz Night Media Productions. Comedy Saved Me and Music Saved Me, hosted by Lynn Hoffman and Taking a Walk, hosted by yours truly, Buzz Night. All shows are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and our part of the iHeart Podcast Network.
