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'i lost myself': after eight years in nashville, country star meghan patrick ready to blaze her own trail
it was just over a year ago when meghan patrick turned ...
aug 14 2024
6 minute read
country star meghan patrick. photo by ford fairchild.
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it was just over a year ago when meghan patrick turned to fellow canadian expat terri clark for advice.
it was the pep talk that the canadian singer-songwriter needed and clark was the right person to deliver it. patrick was at a low point professionally. covid-19 seemed to derail much of the considerable momentum she had enjoyed up to that point, which led to a crisis of confidence. patrick had burst onto the scene as a solo artist in 2016 under warner music canada. but since the pandemic, she had been dropped by her label, experienced financial difficulties and had a falling out with some members of her management team. so, it wasn’t surprising she turned to clark. the country star was not only a friend and mentor, but also a role model who had found success in nashville on her own terms while earning a place at the grand ole opry, the canadian country music hall of fame and the canadian music hall of fame. her advice seemed straightforward enough: at some point you have to “go all in on yourself,” she told patrick.
“i came tumbling down from this mountain i worked so hard to climb and i got kind of desperate,” says patrick, in an interview from her home in nashville. “i wanted to feel seen and heard and relevant and successful again and i got caught up in a place where i wasn’t following my gut. i was listening too much to the people around me. some of them had good intention and some of them didn’t. i lost myself a little bit. it was kind of my rock-bottom, to be honest, for me with my career. but what was beautiful about that was that it just changed my view about how i would approach things moving forward. i went through a lot and did a lot of healing on a personal and emotional level and got to a place where i was able to get to a place where i was able to truly find myself and learn how to love myself.”
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since that conversation with clark, patrick has vowed to follow her own instincts at all costs. she was going to write the songs she wanted to write, make the record she wanted to make and work with the people she wanted to work with regardless of the feedback from nashville’s gatekeepers.
which is exactly what patrick is currently doing. her upcoming album, titled golden child, will be out later this year and will be her most personal collection to date. it is a turning point for the bowmanville, ont.-raised artist’s career. so much so that she is producing a docu-series for her youtube channel called golden child: the making of to document this evolution. in episode one, she discusses her frustration with the business with candour and more than a few f-bombs, revealing that she lost all her “(expletive) money” and had a horrible “blow-out” with her old team, all of which led to some tough, career-altering self-analysis.
“i looked back on my career and realized how much i had often compromised on my creative vision and listened a little too much to people around me,” says patrick, who will be performing at country thunder on sunday at confluence historic site & parkland (formerly fort calgary).
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a follow-up to her 2023 ep, greatest show on dirt, golden child will be her second release for nashville’s riser house entertainment, the label she signed with after warner dropped her in the summer of 2022. she has released two new singles so far this year. that includes whether you love me or not, a tough and defiant burst of self-affirmation that seems to perfectly sum up patrick’s new attitude; and the twangy and more contrite what shoulder, an equally snarling piece of navel-gazing that has the singer reporting how her guardian angel “finally gave up on a hell-bent rebel.”
“a lot of this music and the record i’m working on is centred around self-love and healing and telling my whole story,” she says. “some parts of that story are hard to talk about. they’re heavy.”
it’s not that patrick hasn’t had career struggles before. as with many young singer-songwriters who make the pilgrimage to music city, her early years in nashville were not easy. she had shown prodigious musical talents as a child and teenager growing up in rural ontario, although she didn’t really connect to country music until she was in her early 20s.
she formed her first band at the age of 13, studied opera and jazz in university and once led a 10-piece funk outfit. she eventually discovered bluegrass, which she describes as her “gateway drug” to country music, and formed the successful bowmanville/toronto acoustic-roots outfit the stone sparrows. she signed with warner music canada in 2016 as a solo artist. on the website for the grand ole opry, where patrick debuted in april of 2023, she talked about the day she signed her record deal, arriving at warner in a beat-up pickup truck on gas she paid for with borrowed money. the truck “died” after she pulled into the parking lot.
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patrick left for nashville nearly eight years ago and, while it was tough, she has never regretted the move.
“i moved here not really knowing anyone, so i was starting all over again and trying to create a new friend group and find my place in this town,” she says. “the biggest reason why i wanted to move here was obviously for my career. anytime i wasn’t on the road, i wanted to be writing songs. i wanted to be surrounded by the best musicians and the best songwriters and other artists because i wanted to be constantly inspired and pushed and motivated and also humbled. nashville did a great job of all those things.”
the city feels like home for patrick. in 2022, she married fellow songwriter mitchell tenpenny and says she has “built a wonderful life” in nashville that includes bonding with a number of talented friends.
“we all work in the same industry and it helps, because if you’re not in this industry it can be hard to understand the nuances and the ups and downs,” she says. “it’s nice to be surrounded by people who know what i’m going through.”
parts of those ups and downs have included patrick realizing that she has to stay true to her vision in order to carve out the long-term career she wants. in fact, she has to fight for it.
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record labels “have a job just like i do and our interests don’t always align,” she says. “their job is to make me successful and to make money, essentially. while it is also my job and my hope to be successful and to make money, it’s also important for me as an artist to create something that has meaning and has depth and that is going to matter beyond making some money on radio. i would like to believe there is a world that exists where i can have both. it’s just harder. it’s a harder path and it’s a longer path. when you want to do things that will lead to success but you want to do it the right way, it just takes a little longer and it takes a lot of fighting and blood, sweat and tears. for me, it took a lot of courage and to feel comfortable that i was totally alone in my goals.”
meghan patrick plays country thunder on sunday. country thunder runs from aug. 16 to 18 at confluence historic site & parkland (formerly fort calgary). headliners include dallas smith (friday), hardy (saturday) and luke combs (sunday.)
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