It’s been a few weeks since the release of her debut, full-length project, A Songwriter’s Diary (October 25), but Lanie Gardner is far from a new face in Nashville.
Born into a multi-generational family of musicians, she began fine-tuning her craft at age 12, acquiring a deep admiration for storytelling. This project pays homage to Lanie’s Appalachian roots while giving her appreciation to her family laying the foundation for her musical identity. And according to the 25-year-old, she’s been waiting a long time for the opportunity to introduce herself and get her message out in the world.
“I wanted to express who I am and where I come from,” Gardner tells Celeb Secrets in an exclusive interview. “I didn’t get to have that opportunity in the beginning when I was launched into the music industry after the ‘Dreams’ cover. I had dreamed of being my own artist and have my own messages and to be my own person in the music industry. My words, my thoughts.”
She continues, “The overall message for this album is to appreciate home more. This album was my appreciate for home, appreciation for my roots, appreciation for my mom and dad and my family.”
The importance of family is something that remains sacred to the Burnsville, North Carolina native, and she shares that music was always a bonding factor for the Gardner’s. Track “Letters To Home” is a lullaby for her mother and father to fall asleep to at night, as they used to do for Lanie and her sister when they were kids.
“My mom used to sing us to sleep at night. She worked really hard so that was the best time that we could have to connect with my mom. She would sing us lullabies at night, and it would bring my sister and I to tears. I still believe that my mom has the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard. And my dad loves to entertain. Whenever we would have friends over, he would play guitar for everybody. I thought it was so cool how he could control a crowd and give everybody an escape from whatever they were doing that day,” she reveals.
She also expresses that she wasn’t the first one in the family with the dream of moving to Nashville.
“My grandfather has always been really in tune with music. He died when I was four, so I didn’t really get to know his dream, but I did know through my dad that he always wanted to go to Nashville. We grew up in a pretty poor town, and if he had enough money to get out of it, he would’ve. It was his dream and I kind of took that from him,” she says.
Lanie admits transitioning from a Jesse McCartney-crushing young gal to buying her first album – ACDC’s Back To Black, to a self-made country songstress who writes her own music “took a lot of guts,” as she needed to build a great deal confidence while “growing into womanhood” and nourishing her artistry.
Coupled with the album’s release came the music video for the singer’s soulful “Cry;” an offering exhibiting unresolved love and heartache that comes with your ex moving on with a new girl. Lanie reveals that the making of this emotional audiovisual allowed her to step out of her comfortable.
“I wrote ‘Cry’ when I was about 17 and it was about my first heartbreak. I look back at the song now, and I’m like, ‘What did I think I was talking about?’ Heartbreaks suck so much more, and it’s kind of become my coping mechanism as I grew and experienced more heartbreaks and everything like that. The song became more painful as the years went on. It became about several boys rather that just the one back in high school. The music video was the first moment I felt like I had the confidence, and you know, the monster created from heartbreaks.”
“I had to step out of my comfort zone and I was like, ‘I really care about this song, and I really care about the message and I’m just gonna have to do it. That was something that I found within myself that I didn’t think I had before, like the big arm movements, the dancing, and the looks at the camera and everything was definitely out of my comfort zone but I somehow did it.”
Now, Lanie doesn’t shy away from naming Miranda Lambert as a major influence on her artistry, and more specifically, this project.
“Miranda Lambert is somebody I mention in probably every single of my interviews, just how she writes and how vulnerable she is, and how true she is to herself, the good, the bad, and the ugly. She’s somebody that I took a liking to,” she reveals.
Up next? Lanie will be opening up for Corey Kent on his Black Bandana Tour, and she will also be performing at Tortuga Music Festival and Stagecoach, where she will be rocking the stage alongside headliners Jelly Roll, Luke Combs and Zach Bryan — and proving that she’s a forced to be reckoned with in the world of country music.
For more on Lanie Gardner and her music, make sure to watch our full interview with her below. Don’t forget to let us know what you think of A Songwriter’s Diary by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sliding into our DMs on Instagram at @celebsecretscountry.
LISTEN TO “A SONGWRITER’S DIARY” HERE:
