Lily Meola, bronze in the Nashville sunlight, is a picture of summery radiance. She is bestowed with a dazzling white grin and the kind of effortlessly cool vibe that would send American Eagle commercial casting directors into a frenzy.
The rising country star released her long-awaited debut album, Lucky To Be, on July 18th. Her voice of molasses and deeply satisfying internal rhyming schemes (“Watch my Levi’s leave right out that swinging door,” she croons on the first track, Sleeping With My Boots On) ensure that the record is the perfect rodeo soundtrack.
“Recently, the word lucky has just been circulating around my brain,” the Hawaii native and former America’s Got Talent contestant explains. While writing the record, she came across a mind-boggling statistic: the fact that the chances of being born are one in four hundred trillion. “And I was like, whoah. That’s way crazier than I thought it was…”
For Meola, the statistic has served as an important reminder - that, as the album title suggests, we are all lucky to be here. She admits, however, that it can be easy to forget. “I think that I can struggle with it… I think that we all get lost in our everyday lives and the silly things that piss us off or make us crazy. I try to see the positive in things, but it’s hard sometimes.” The album is a testament to her commitment to focusing - however hard it may be - on the positives.
Lucky To Be, fittingly enough, was born of years of hard work, of having to overcome life’s inevitable hurdles. “I have been on this journey for a really long time,” Meola says, sounding faintly exhausted. “I started singing at bars and cafes in Maui when I was ten years old. I haven’t stopped. But the journey has evolved in such an interesting way.”
She didn’t, however, attempt to write a song until she was nineteen. “I just didn’t think I could. I was just doing my gigs, touring around, playing other people’s songs, songs that other people would write for me. Writing has never come naturally to me. I have dyslexia, so I think it was just a mental thing of believing I was bad at words. So I just put this block up.”
One day, a publisher - Leslie DiPiero of Jonas Group Publishing - saw a video of Meola and reached out to her, invited her to fly all the way from Hawaii to Nashville and put her pen to the paper.
“And I fell in love with songwriting. I couldn’t believe it. My whole world changed; I could sing my own melodies and my own thoughts,” Meola gushes. “It’s become such an amazing outlet for me.”
When DiPiero got in touch, Meola was already sitting on a record. “I went on that trip to Nashville, and my album was supposed to come out in a few days. But it wasn’t my music; I hadn’t written it. I was like, I just don’t feel connected to this music anymore. So I threw that away. It was a lot of work, but it just didn’t represent me.”
Then, a few songs that Meola had written started to circulate through the label system. “Way before I was ready. I was just turning up to meetings like, ‘What’s Interscope Records?’” she says, laughing. “And all of a sudden I was signed there.
“I started writing and writing and writing, but none of the music felt quite right to me. I didn’t want to be put into a box.” This period culminated in Meola getting dropped from Interscope Records.
“My life flipped upside down,” she says, and a deep depression ensued. “I kind of sat in that for a moment for a while, and then really worked on myself and tried to heal.” Healing involved finding her way back to songwriting, on her own terms.
“Everything, unfortunately - and I don’t know if I fully stand behind this - but everything kind of unfolds the way it’s supposed to,” she says. “And thank goodness I waited. I signed with Nettwerk, and I got time to really dig in and play. I went into the studio and didn’t put too much pressure on myself, just wrote songs that felt right to me… So it was a blessing in disguise.”
Now that her debut album has finally been released, Meola could not be happier. “It’s been so beautiful. There’s just certain things that I didn’t expect to happen - and they’re happening.”
Another beautiful thing about Meola’s journey to the release of Lucky To Be has been the involvement of the legend himself, Willie Nelson, in her career. Nelson features on the album track, Tumbleweeds and Chewing Gum, and has been a defining presence in Meola’s life.
“He’s the best,” Meola beams.
Nelson lives part-time in Maui with his wife, and the island is a small, intimate community. “Everyone kind of gets to know each other,” Meola explains. “He and his wife came to the cafe that I was singing at. And he sat in and sang a song with me.”
At the end of the night, he handed her a napkin, on which the names of a few songs had been scrawled down. “And he was like, ‘If you’d like to record any of these, let me know.’” The rest - including recording together and touring together - is history.
“It just felt right having him on my debut,” she says. “A 93-year-old singing those words, and a person putting out their debut record - it’s wild. The song means so much more having him on it.”
The road, though sometimes sunny, has been long and winding for Lily Meola - a fact which makes the fruits of her labour all the more sweet.
“It’s been a long journey. I’ve put in the hours. For some people it happens fast, but for me, it was a slow burn. And I’m okay with that. But now I’m ready to rumble.”
Lily Meola’s Lucky to Be is out now.
