Lucie Tiger ProfileThis week sees the release of Lucie Tiger’s highly anticipated album, Small Town Scandal, with its arrival coming amongst a flurry of awards and nominations for the Nashville-based Sydney native.
Tiger’s instant cult-classic Harvest Moon won Grand Prize at the Pensacola Songwriters Festival, while her track Hummingbird won the Country Song of the Year for North American-based artists at the 16th Annual InterContinental Music Awards.
She was also nominated for three awards at the Josie Independent Music Awards this year after having won Country Vocalist of the Year at the most respected music awards night for indie artists in 2025. In addition, Tiger celebrated her ninth Music Row charting single a few months ago.
If Harvest Moon captured the Australian and US country scene, she has certainly held it with her follow-up singles, Oh Preacher, Last Call For Trouble, Hell In A Halter Top, and Cowboy Love Me.
Tiger has an undeniable knack for digging into that juicy, Southern-flavoured country rock sound and subject matter, which keeps her music in high rotation . The 14-track Small Town Scandal album is a bold and voyeuristic recounting of Tiger’s experiences in Alabama, and her broader experiences in Nashville.
Tiger does not deny her intrigue with the lives of others, particularly in a small town setting which is so foreign to her previous life in busy Sydney.
"All of the songs on this album are very, very new, very fresh," Tiger explains. "It was just a real snapshot of what I observed over that time. There's some that I really like that are a little bit different for me musically, which is cool. It was really fun in the studio to extend myself a little bit.”
"There's a lot of songs on there where I wrote them from the perspective of people doing these risky things," she adds.
While some artists are keen to leave easter eggs into the identity and messages of their songs (ahem, Miss Swift), Tiger is quick to dispel that idea – but that hasn’t stopped people wondering if she was at the centre of the cheating drama in her Last Call For Trouble track.
"I had a couple of people come up and be like, 'Oh my god, is this song about you?'" she recalls. "And I was like, 'No. Everyone's got to have a cheating song, though, right?'
"The closest that I get to cheatingis patting a cat that's not mine, which I feel is emotional cheating," she laughs. "I come home, and I see my cat, Frank, and he's looking at me, and I know he knows."
The album was recorded in the iconic Muscle Shoals in Alabama, where artists across all genres have recorded, like The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, The Black Keys, Chris Stapleton, and so many more. With a population of less than 20,000 people, it's home to renowned session musicians who have based themselves there, ready to jump in and support new and classic artists seeking that Muscle Shoals experience.
"Everyone's sort of experiencing this small town life and writing songs about it, and it's funny, but very inspirational," gushes Tiger. "I can't say enough good things about recording in the Shoals."
One of her fondest memories came about during the recording of Oh Preacher. On one of the last sessions for the album, Tiger recalls suggesting a switch to performing bluegrass.
"The guys were all like, 'Okay, let's do it!'" she remembers. "I was able to find a guy called Scooter Muse who played banjo whose son-in-lawhad written monster hits like [Carrie Underwood's] Before He Cheats.”
“It's like the craziest little connection. Then we had our keys player's wife, Lisa Silver, playing fiddle on that. And so with Scooter and Lisa in there, we had all of these really cool bluegrass textures.”
Almost one year ahead of the album's release to the day, Tiger spoke to Countrytown about her single Harvest Moon, which is essentially a murder ballad following a scorned woman who has been betrayed by her husband and her cousin, resulting in a situation where “two went to the river, only the rumour came back”.
Delivered with a sweet smile and her striking Southern bombshell appearance, it’s clear how this song became such a touchpoint for so many and has stayed one of her more popular songs. With a show schedule that has no signs of easing up in the U.S., sadly there are no slots in Australia on the horizon at the moment. It would appear that there are too many experiences and stories to be mined from these small towns that Tiger gravitates to.
"I spent two years in a small town after living in Sydney my entire life," Tiger explains. "It was definitely very eye-opening. I definitely thought people would be better behaved. And it's so funny that they're not!
"The average person doesn't move from a city of five million to a small town in Alabama. And so then you're just so exposed to what is going on."
Like her music-making, Tiger keeps herself open to different experiences, vowing that she will never just stop in for a McDonald's breakfast when there is the potential to find a diner that is a little further out and a haunt to people she has never crossed paths with.
It’s this curiosity that has put Tiger in so many different rooms and privy to the small town shenanigans of others. And honestly, we want all the details.
"I'll go to Mississippi, and I'll have alligator for dinner. When's the next time that's going to be an option?" she asks. "It really does taste like chicken.
"When you do see the sign that says 'Billy the Kid's grave that way', go and check it out and see what's there, and you'll have a story to tell,” said Tiger.
Lucie Tiger's Small Town Scandal is released September 30th.
