Joseph Hudak
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Ashley McBryde released her new album 'Wild' earlier this summer. She opens up about the LP's themes on 'Nashville Now' podcast. Nathan Chapman* Ashley McBryde will be the first to admit she’s not the stereotypical woman working in Nashville. She favors grit over glam, hard truths over easy cliches.
But that didn’t stop Music Row from trying to change the Arkansas native when she moved to town. Her appearance, she says on Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast, was particularly dissected.
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“How do you feel about being blond?” McBryde recalls being asked. “I’m not tall like the other options in country music at the time. I’m not blond, I’m covered in tattoos — not as many then as there are now, and that’s how I met that advice when they were like, ‘Stop getting tattoos.’”
McBryde says everything from wearing fringe to tucking her pants inside of her boots was suggested to her at one point. She played along to a degree, but says she didn’t have to point out the styling didn’t work for her. “I don’t have to tell you it looks ridiculous. You can see it looks ridiculous,” she says.
“I have a gift for, if something makes me that uncomfortable… you will be as uncomfortable as I am,” McBryde says. “You’re giving me terrible advice. Why should you not feel the effects of this?”
