Tanner Adell is making country music for people who love country (and everyone else)

“I had written so many songs and a lot of them embodied such different parts of me. I didn’t want to box myself in.”

The face of country music is changing and Tanner Adell is here for it. Not just here to witness it, but to wholly be a part of changing it. “I look different, I sound different,” she tells me from her home in Nashville. “But at the end of the day, this is just something that I love.”

In the past year, Tanner has taken the country music scene – and the world – by storm. Following the release of her debut album, Buckle Bunny, last year, she has found herself in a whirlwind of music festival appearances and collaborations with some of the industry’s biggest names. From likening herself to “Beyoncé with a lasso” on her title track to then being featured on Cowboy Carter’s ‘Blackbiird’, Tanner’s rise is nothing short of meteoric.

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“It’s definitely still crazy,” Tanner says, reflecting on the past year. “Things have just snowballed and everything’s slowly turning into an avalanche for me.” One of those things, she adds, is her upcoming performances at the Ridin’ Hearts country music festival in Australia this November. Tanner is headlining alongside Riley Green, Cooper Alan, MacKenzie Porter and others for the one-day urban country experience, now in its sophomore year. “I’m so excited. Oh my god, I can’t even believe it,” she giggles. “So, yeah, I don’t think it’s slowing down at all.”

Growing up between California and Wyoming, Tanner knows what it is to have a foot in two worlds. The summers spent in Wyoming, she says, kept pulling her back to her country roots. “I’ve always connected so deeply with Wyoming,” she tells me. 

Her uncle there, who played guitar and taught her old country songs, had a profound influence on her. “We’d make a fire out in the front and roast hot dogs, and he would always play Fishin’ in the Dark.” She pauses to ask me if I know that song, I shake my head no. “Okay, you’re gonna have to go and listen to it now,” she laughs, pointing at me like a friend with a recommendation. 

There’s an infectious joy that Tanner emanates when she speaks and it’s threaded throughout her music. It makes you feel like she’s your best girlfriend, wanting to talk about breakups and partying, and then take you to the rodeo for a hoedown. Tanner’s lyrics are sharp and witty – a product, she suggests, of coming of age surrounded by music in Wyoming. “I feel like I’ve grown up on country music and it just found its way into my music whenever I would write,” she says. “It naturally just kind of happened to me. I feel like country music happened to me. 

While her songwriting is deeply rooted in the storytelling and lyricism of country music, it’s the sound production across Buckle Bunny that’s pushing the boundaries of genre and proving Tanner is an artist who isn’t afraid to experiment. 

“I made it a mix tape so that I could put things that are a little bit genre-bending on there, and not feel confined to the rules of what country music is to the traditional country listener,” she says. “I really just compiled something that I felt like told you exactly who I was. I wasn’t thinking anything of it, I was totally being myself.”

Tanner’s determination to make music that is wholly true to herself mirrors her refusal to be boxed in to any one genre. “I didn’t want to try to stick to a single lane,” she says. “I think I’ve proven myself over and over, time and time again, and it has mattered less and less to people what my music sounds like because they know who I am as a person, and I am undoubtedly very country.”

In a music landscape where what it means to be a country star is being redefined, Tanner points out that her two favourite artists have also defied traditional paths. Beyoncé, of course, being one of them. The other? “Wait, you’re Australian and I’m coming to Australia!” she exclaims through the video call. “I got to meet Keith Urban a couple weeks ago and he’s my favourite country artist,” she gushes.

“He was one of the first country artists that I ever listened to as a kid. He’s a huge part of why I decided I can do country music because he wasn’t traditionally American-looking like everyone else or sounding like everyone else. When we were talking there was a lot we had in common. I feel like I took so much advice from him and what he’s been through, and he was sharing stories with me about the struggles that he went through when he came here [to Nashville].” 

“It was not easy for him,” Tanner says. “He really had to break through a lot of the prejudice. So, I see a lot of him in me, in that I’m carving out my own lane and my own path.” It’s undeniably working, too. As country music is changing, the genre’s push into mainstream culture is attracting a wave of new listeners, Tanner notes. “It’s opening it up to sound better to more people that don’t really connect with traditional country music.”

The diversity and size of the crowds at Tanner’s shows is proof that people are embracing this new wave of country music. “Doing shows is my favourite thing,” she says. “Being able to stand on stage and people singing the lyrics back to me or showing up, dressed up,” she shakes her head in modest disbelief.

“That to me is so much more empowering than something that was just made for myself, you know? That to me is the moment that feels like I’ve created my own little safe place. And not just for me, but for other people as well.”

To see Tanner Adell perform at Ridin’ Hearts, head here.