Kimberly Perry discusses her successful reinvention, new music

With her June 9-released "BLOOM" EP, Grammy-winning country music singer-songwriter Kimberly Perry emerges from an astonishingly tumultuous two-decade-long cycle as one of the genre's most vital forces in unlocking its mainstream pop-redefining future.

The release arrives as the artists, formerly one-third of The Band Perry, announced her signing to RECORDS Nashville / Columbia Records as a solo artist on April 3, as well as a global publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music and Nicolle Galyon's Songs & Daughters Publishing.

As Perry tells The Tennessean, "coming home" (she finally resides in Music City proper) to country's mainstream in the present moment allows her to represent the final piece of the genre's "100 percent natural" growth.

Perry's history attests to this growth being anything but simple.

As country music's tastes have trended more pop-leaning than ever in the past decade, discourse around what does and does not constitute authenticity in the genre has reached a fever pitch. A decade ago, Kimberly Perry and her brothers Neil and Reed were at the forefront of that conversation. They released covers of Glen Campbell songs before working with the producer responsible for Enrique Iglesias and Lady Gaga's sound.

The single responsible for that success, 2010's "If I Die Young," sold over 7 million copies.

It was an era wherein The Black Eyed Peas, Calvin Harris, Katy Perry and Ke$ha ushered in danceable electro stylings from the dance floors and festivals to pop radio. Thus, a country trio singing accordion and mandolin-driven ballads was an outlier juxtaposed against a deluge of multi-octave shouters and rappers soundtracked by zipping synthesizers.

"We're pop tarts at heart. We love all styles of music. And with the new album we made . . . we really wrapped in a lot of our love for pop music, and kind of where that cross pollinates with what we love," she stated in a 2015 interview.

In 2023, she tells The Tennessean, "Country music song-crafting is currently at the forefront of where art and commerce intersect [most considerably] in pop music. So when country dives into more complex concepts, it's important to remember how country's traditional styles can help root ideas that translate better as massively successful [pop songs]."

Fifteen years later, Kimberly Perry has resurfaced after a five-year musical hiatus involving a divorce, remarriage, pregnancy and three different label deals in a decade.

Compared to 2023, where post-COVID-19 quarantine era country chart-toppers like Ingrid Andress, Kane Brown, Walker Hayes, Maren Morris and Morgan Wallen are allowed to explore their country-to-pop crossover interests seamlessly, The Band Perry was not afforded the same luxury a decade ago.

Kimberly Perry's most significant value to country music's contemporary mainstream stylings is her understanding of how the industry has to shift itself to accept country's forthcoming pop-cultural surge.

"As a lifestyle genre, country music translates because the truth will always govern everything," Perry says.

Country music's growing acceptance of the truth of its moment immeasurably aids Perry's chances for acclaim.

Perry is no longer a fresh-faced ingenue who shares a hometown with Faith Hill and a voice flexible enough to bridge traditional country, the genre's perpetual leanings towards contemporary R&B, plus soulful, pure pop balladry.

Instead, at downtown Nashville's Soho House, she arrived at an April 2023 listening party five months pregnant in a white floor-length lace gown and black platform lace-up boots.

An almost 40-year-old working mother and wife boldly guided by needs instead of naively desiring success sings songs with a different purpose and intention.

"When everything, career and life-wise, flatlined, I rediscovered my belief in hope in the face of despair. Hope, though, requires hard work and vulnerability," says Perry.

She describes herself as growing in comfort and confidence in that labor.

Her reimagining of "If I Die Young" stems from a conversation she had after selling part of her catalog to AMR Songs' CEO Tamara Conniff. In the exchange, Perry said that after reflecting on "a creative journey that's taken so many twists and turns," she wanted to revisit her original solo write on ["If I Die Young"] and reflect her maturation.

"I want to hit listeners like a lightning bolt to the heart," Perry adds.

"My intention is not to write what's charting and selling. I'd instead write what I'm feeling and living instead."

Two of the EP's five songs are entitled "Burn The House Down" and "Cry At Your Funeral."

Stripping poetic adjectives and metaphors away from her songwriting process has allowed the purity of her lyricism's heart-driven intentionality to surge.

The previously mentioned "Burn The House Down" features the following chorus:

"I’m watchin the flame do what it does / Watchin a name turn into dust / Pourin' gasoline on a king-size mattress / Light it up with some dive bar matches / As hot as it is right now… / You can’t rise from the ashes / Til you burn the house down."

"Maturity requires owning your past and lasting beauty comes from a gentle and peaceful spirit [in that ownership]," she says, borrowing the last half of her quote from the Bible's New Testament book of Peter.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Kimberly Perry discusses her successful reinvention, new music