Having released her third studio album, ‘Provoked,’ this past August and it’s first single, ‘Bad Girl Phase’ reaching the top spot on the Texas music charts, Sunny Sweeney dares to be different with her music and chooses to make the kind of music that she wants to do. She was kind enough to call into New England Country Music to discuss her new record, the songs, and the tour she will be opening for in the spring of 2015.
Growing up in East Texas, Sweeney listened to Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter. These country legends and their old style of country music have been a big influence in the music Sweeney makes today. Sweeney made her Grand Ole Opry debut in 2007, where all of the legends she listened to growing up, had stood before her. Since then she has made her appearance on the Opry Stage, as well as the Ryman Stage, forty more times. But even after that many times, she still has a reaction every time she goes out there. “It is full of history and I’m extremely nervous every time I’m there. I guess it’s because I don’t want to mess up. It’s pretty intense.”
In 2010, three years after her first Opry debut, Sweeney had her first top ten single, ‘From a Table Away,’ off her sophomore album ‘Concrete.’ It earned her a place in the record books for being the highest-charting debut single from a female country artist in four years on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs. Although pleased that the song was so popular and grateful that it reached number ten on the charts, Sweeney is very humble about the achievement the song had made. “I really didn’t think of it as becoming a successful song. I wanted it to happen, yes, and it took a lot of blood sweat and tears to make it work. It didn’t just happen overnight.”
Nominated for Best Female Vocalist by the Academy of Country Music in 2013, which she described as “The most insane thing, literally that I have ever heard in my life. It was out of left field and it was amazing and crazy and flattering and every positive emotion that you can have,” Sweeney released her third studio album ‘Provoked’ this past August on the Thirty Tigers label. In the making of the record, Sweeney used a sponsored PledgeMusic program, a direct-to-fan platform that lets fans become partners in the creative process by helping to fund a portion of the album. A portion of the pledged amount will go to CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), a charity that Sweeney did a show for and thinks is amazing.
Making a record is hard work, and when Sweeney was working with her crew on the album, she had a say in all aspects of it’s production. She co-wrote eleven of the thirteen songs on the album, and the two she didn’t write were ones that she related to strongly. The album’s first single, ‘Bad Girl Phase,’ was one of the songs Sweeney did not co-write; however, when she heard it she knew she wanted it on her record. Sweeney worked closely with producer Luke Wooten and was involved in deciding what songs to include on the album. “Luke and I decided we wanted to work together on this record. It came out exactly the way I wanted it and I loved working with him.”
For Sweeney, there isn’t just one favorite song on the album, because she likes each one for different reasons, and to her, all of the songs together tell a story. Sweeney did say that the song that is the most fun to sing live is ‘Kiss My Ass’ because of the audience’s reaction to it. When you hear the chorus of ‘Kiss My Ass’ we think you will know why, “So, if you’re with me raise your glass, here’s to the working class, everybody else can just kiss my ass…” Definitely some fun lyrics that are bound to initiate an audience sing along during a concert.
Sweeney’s sound has been referred to as ‘bra-country,’ the female version of ‘bro-country.’ When asked if she had heard her music being referred that way she said, “Yeah, I’ve heard it, but I’m always going to do the music that I do and whoever can call it whatever they want to call it. I personally think there is room for everyone. There are so many different people in this world with obvious different tastes. Every artist makes different music. So, I just look at it as the whole way of music, like that.”
Sweeney will have a chance to take her old country music sound and songs to the stage, when she opens on select dates for Miranda Lambert on her Certified Platinum Tour in 2015. “I am very excited about that. I did a couple of dates for Blake and a couple of dates for Miranda in 2012. They are genuine people to go out on the road with.” It sounds like she will fit right in on Miranda’s tour being a genuine person herself.
We at NECM would like to thank Sunny Sweeney for taking the time to talk to us about her music, her new album and to share her thoughts on today’s country sound. We look forward to seeing her out on the road telling us “her story with her songs.”
You can purchase Sunny Sweeney’s album ‘Provoked,’ on iTunes here.
You can follow her on her official website, on Twitter, and on Facebook.
Written by Lorraine Frigoletto, contributing writer for New England Country Music. You can follow me on Twitter.