Pillbox Patti's 'Florida' 'hits the nerve of the truth' with unique vision, familiar beat

In 2010, Nashville-based singer-songwriter Nicolette Hayford emerged from Starke, Florida, onto a decade-long path to pop-country success. The town of nearly 6,000 residents that raised her exists between Jacksonville and the eastern banks of the Suwanee River. She describes weekends there being spent with "people dancing and getting down while high school mothers, their mothers, and their mother's mothers are drinking underage, rippin' cigs or smoking weed while sitting on a front porch stoop because the air conditioning doesn't work in the house and there's nothing else to do."

She punctuates her point with a jaw-dropper of a sentence.

"Just like the title of one of my songs, the places where I grew up gave people one of three options of things to do: eat, pray, or drugs."

Celebrating enjoying experiences like these is culturally provocative to many, but most have no honest connection. This would be why Hayford -- who is also an Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association Award-nominated songwriter for Ashley McBryde's "One Night Standards" (plus co-writes on McBryde's new "Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville" album and Lainey Wilson's October-arriving "Bell Bottom Country") would need to invent the out-sized alter ego of "Pillbox Patti."

A bittersweet heart oozing life after nearly escaping death exists between the ambient synths, scattershot Roland 808 drum machines, and steel guitars on "Florida," her debut EP from Monument Records. Listen only for the vibes of her May 2022 released tracks "Young and Stupid" and "Good People," and you'll think she's some mix of Billie Eilish blended with Bobbie Gentry and Lana del Ray.

However, meet Hayford in person, and Pillbox Patti enters the room. From there, the blend of Lauryn Hill meets Fleetwood Mac that has inspired her since her Florida-based childhood as the child of songwriters smacks you over the head.

One of those influences speaks to denim, fringe, and white, knee-high boot-style country upbringing. However, Hayford notes that "getting in trouble while sitting in a Pontiac and trying to score cocaine" isn't "drinking a cherry coke at the diner in Mayberry, North Carolina."

Directly inspired by her array of influences, she recorded the "Florida" EP with the aid of an instrument key to not country music but hip-hop's birth: an E-mu SP 1200 drum machine and a sampler she procured from Kid Rock.

"When he gave it to me, [Kid Rock] asked me, 'what the hell do you want this for?'" She then describes how her producer hacked into the machine to allow it to sample more than its factory pre-set of 32 sounds.

"None of us got into this to not try to look and sound as amazing as possible at all times," says the writer/artist. She's as much a star in her mind as she is in photographs.

She's wearing massive diamond hoop earrings, a black lycra tank top, black leather pants, rhinestone-studded platform boots, and staring down a floor-length neon pink mink coat (for her photo shoot for this profile) in East Nashville's retro-themed upscale honky-tonk Henry James Bar (a converted 70s era bank on Gallatin Pike).

The proof of what fuels her self-empowerment comes when she describes her musical inspirations' impact on her work.

"I have many influences, but [Hill and Stevie Nicks] are the biggest ones. Their songs are lyrically amazing, but they make you feel honest, gritty, and sometimes ugly emotions, with no bulls*** attached."

One look at the lyrics and inspiration of those songs blends into a composite sketch of what Hayford as Pillbox Patti is attempting to convey artistically in her music.

"'Gold Dust Woman' was really my symbolic look about somebody going through a bad relationship, and doing a lot of drugs, and trying to… just make it, trying to live, trying to get through it to the next thing," stated Nicks to Spin Magazine in 1997. And yes, while trying to get through to the next thing, as Hill sings in "Ex-Factor," Patti occupies the role of a heroine just trying to figure out "who [she has] to be, to get some reciprocity."

Reciprocity in the face of heartbreak is critical when considering "Valentine's Day," a ballad about "the last day she [felt young," that "turns statistics into human beings while not trying to piss people off," while telling the harrowing tale of how she aborted a pregnancy when she was 15.

"Man. That song was a traumatic lump in my throat for a long time. Getting it out helped me to heal and love myself more," she says, followed by a rush of grateful phrases propelled by an exhale.

"As I say in the song, I was a 15-year-old kid, on birth control, trying to do everything right. Then I'm [at an abortion clinic] and people are yelling at me while holding signs."

Exhuming trauma and crafting it into beauty has yielded Hayford a potential star-making release.

The success that has accompanied her work has been swift. Her on-stage debut occurred alongside Brantley Gilbert and Jelly Roll at their June 30, 2022 "Sons of the South" tour date at Jacksonville, Florida's 5,500-seat Daily's Place Amphitheater.

She describes hyping herself up in an offstage bathroom while "having a fear and shock-induced out-of-body experience" that she notes felt like "being scared s***less and feeling goosebumps" before performing in front of family and friends who shared in her north Florida roots.

"I thought I would be nervous out there, but it felt like freedom," says Hayford.

Summarizing her long, wild journey to the precipice of stardom allows the critically-acclaimed creator to offer a hopeful note about her future.

"Everything about getting to this EP was challenging and forced me to be more authentic and brave about who I am and what I want than I've ever been. I'm at a place where all I want to do is hit the nerve of the truth in a real, conversational way every time."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Pillbox Patti's 'Florida' EP lays bare the truth about small towns