I started by welcoming Harper back to the UK, she was over here in 2024 for C2C, had she been again since?

I haven’t been here again since, so I’m excited to be back. We had taken a trip right before C2C that year and so this is technically my third time to the UK, but first time in Manchester. I spent a lot of time in Chelsea in Battersea area, which I really enjoyed.

I asked if she had been this far north before?

No, I haven’t. It’s stunning, though. The drive, we took the train from Euston up to Stockport, and it was very stunning. The train took about two hours, but all the farms, you could see all the cattle and sheep and everything, and all the acres, so it was, it was stunning. I want to see more, so hopefully I have some time. It was my 1st time on a UK train as well. I mean, we mostly used the underground and the buses in London, because I don’t ever use Uber when I’m here. I like to just try to do my best to use public transportation. You see more that way. So, I hadn’t ever taken a full train where you can stick your luggage and actually be on it for quite some time. So that was my 1st time.

Next I asked if she has played an outdoor UK festival before?

I have not played an outdoor festival yet, not here in the UK. It’s cool to walk around and see the booths and so many people are here and watching them all and they’re coming.

Had she heard of Buckle and Boots before?

Not before this, them asking me to join.

Did you understand Gary Quinn’s accent?

I haven’t chatted with him on the phone yet. It’s just been over email and Karl as well, who has the property, he has been mixing and mingling and helping me navigate at the same time. So I haven’t heard Gary speak in person quite yet, he’s Irish, right? (Yes he is!)

I wanted to ask if she had any time for sightseeing, but as she had just said that she has been quite busy, so I guess not.

Well, not in Manchester, but in London, we’ve been here for a week now, so we travelled from Battersea to Manchester, um, I guess we’re in Stockport. But we got to walk around a little bit in London. We did a lot of walking, actually, to the point where we had 17,000 steps and 8.5 miles, in these boots! So that was probably not the best option I could have chosen. They are probably not built for that, they have gotten a lot of miles on them now. I can say that.

I was aware that Harper had been doing quite a few interviews, so I wanted to ask questions that maybe she hadn’t already been asked, so I asked if she had noticed many language differences between American and the UK? So things like, we say plaster, you say Band Aid.

Oh, plaster, yes, and then even today, someone said a cheese toasty, that is a grilled cheese for us. I was like, a toastie, like a cracker, or what’s going on? But then biscuits are our cookies, and then we have a scone, and it looks not like your scone. That’s how you say it, right? Scone? Yeah, there’s a few similarities, but different wordings for the thing.

So we say queue and you say line up, so at the bar, it’s a queue while you’re like, oh, there’s a lineup at the bar.

Yeah queue, oh, that’s right. Yes, exactly. There’s different little words. Oh, on the train, where they say, “see it, say it, and sort it?” We’ve never said ‘sort it’. I don’t know what we would normally say, but we were like, oh, we were trying to remember what the third one was, because we don’t really typically say that, that much, but it’s a good saying, and it’s very helpful. And it’s memorable. Yeah. It stays in your brain. So it’s a good one.

So, you’re from Texas originally. You’re now in Nashville.

Yes. I’ve lived in Tennessee for five years now.

Did you find the transition quite difficult?

Not really. I’ve always been eager to get to Tennessee, even since I was a little girl and so, I was mostly just excited to get there. There’s a lot of parts that kind of feel like Texas, it’s definitely not Texas, because Texas is its own thing.

We then discussed how big Texas is and that apparently you can fit the UK into Texas about 3 time. I think I had heard 4 times, but Harper thought it was twice, so we decided to split the difference!

So I really do enjoy Texas a lot, but when I moved to Tennessee, certain parts felt a little bit like home and you can drive out of ways, and that’s kind of where I live now. I moved further out of town. Have a nice grassy area and close to some acres, and it feels quiet, and I can hear all the birds, but I’m close enough to get to work on time, so…

I mentioned that I had seen on her website that she does school visits and I wondered what that involved?

Yeah, so obviously, our American National Anthem. I sang that wrong when I was a kid and I was ridiculed. I was 11 years old it actually went worldwide. We had over a million views in less than 24 hours. It was played on the commercial break of the Olympics. It was pretty hard, but, I found confidence as I overcame the situation, and so going into schools means a lot to me, because there’s kids that are suffering through just being ridiculed daily, whether that’s cyberbullying or emotional bullying or physical bullying, and that part really burdens my heart, because I have experienced that too. And so for me to be able to encourage them that it doesn’t have to affect, like, obviously it affects you, but you don’t have to let it. And how can you switch your mindset and being transitioning to confidence and boldness rather than dealing with the anxiety and the stress of it all because I walked through it. And so just trying my best to encourage the students to find that hope and to find that thing to hold onto to keep them going is really something that I’m passionate about. And so that’s why going into schools and sharing the story and talking about what had happened and how I got through it is something that I want to continue to do.

That’s wonderful. I can imagine that’s healing for you as well.

Yeah, definitely. I think, I still go out and sing the national anthem, which is a bit traumatic, but each time that I do it, I feel like a new sense of confidence that I’m gaining.

I said that I was just about to use an English word then. I was going to say, does it give you the collywobbles?

Collywobbles. That’s cute, is it nerves? Yes, it does, it gives me a lot of the collywobbles. So even still… I mean, I was asked recently to do it at an NFL game, and it’s a really cool opportunity. But as I’m saying, yes, I’m also saying no in the back of my mind because it’s really difficult. But I know that if I don’t do it, that I wouldn’t be able to continue growing myself and learning and I always want to challenge myself to do the things I’m afraid of. Obviously, not the ones that are probably not good for me, but facing my fears as in going and singing something that I maybe didn’t do very well, instead of staying in my head and listening to the insecurities that I can actually train my mind to work confidently and know that I am who I set my mind to, and knowing that. I grew up in a faith-based home and so my identity doesn’t rest on the things that I did wrong. It’s my purpose rests in who created me and who made me, and I do believe that that’s the Lord. And so having that in my head as well as knowing that my passion and my purpose can align with who He made me to be, and also follow the dreams that He placed in my heart.

A friend asked me to ask Harper what year she was in American Idol, but we then found out it was 2018. So then the friend (Denise!) asked me to check with who the judges were, she was most interested if Luke Bryan was a judge and if so did Harper have much interaction with him..

All right. Judges were Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan. I did have interaction with Luke. He was really sweet. We bonded a little bit over the show. He encouraged me to move to Nashville officially. There was also a moment on one of the videos of my auditions I think in Hollywood Week, where I sang my song and on my way down the stairs, he smiled, waved at me, and I almost tripped down the stairs, I was oh my gosh, I love Luke Bryan. I’ve always loved him growing up, especially being in such music. And so, kind of a little bit starstruck there, but, he was really kind. Then fast forward, I played a festival in Texas, actually at the same exact stadium that I bombed the anthem at and Luke Bryan was headlining the festival. He had done an interview at that stadium right before the festival and had shared that he takes credit for me being able to be there and that he feels like he has a little tap on his back that he can give himself, which was quite funny, but yeah, he’s he’s great. Love him so much. It probably did help with him being there, though. It was nice, yeah, no, I was grateful. Got to see him in the back and kind of felt like a nice little achievement that I had crossed over and being on idol, and then a couple months later, going and doing this really large festival in my hometown and a judge of American Idol was there, and yeah, it was cool.

I saw your, ‘if daddy says no’, video. So 1st of all, ‘if daddy says no’, is that based on truth?

Yeah, based on a true story.

And then you’re riding a horse in a full wedding gown and the veil.

I am. Yes.

You’re obviously a horsewoman.

I would like to say so, yes. I wish I rode more as a kid. I rode as much as I could. I didn’t compete or anything like that, but I do really enjoy riding horses. So I have the basics down and can tuck pretty well. My grandma rode bareback. She was very, very good. So I, when I thought about the music video, the thing that kept coming to mind was like the runaway bride, but off on a horse. And so painting that picture with the full veil, full wedding dress. There was one time during the set that obviously we didn’t put in the video where the horse stepped on the veil, my head almost went back and I was like, okay, he’s on the veil. But that was prior to us taking off for another cut. I think we only did four takes of that so not too many. The 1st two, he didn’t run as fast. We were only doing it in like a short bit because the camera could only capture so much of the distance. So we ended up, we only had a little section for him to run back and forth for the scene, with the trees in the background because the other section didn’t have trees and we really wanted trees. So we ended up only doing it a couple times. But the last time him and I ran a bit further down the road before we came back around.

So the next question, did daddy say no?

Dad did say no. He did, but it was great.

So you are wearing a ring.

Oh, it was a fake ring! I got fake engaged. So all of the things was like, oh, this ring, this ring that I’m wearing right now is a childhood ring. But the ring that I posted in, I then wore for a couple weeks, that was to boost the song. I did it in hopes that people would be intrigued as to what was going on prior to the song coming out. But yeah, I’m single. I’m not married. Maybe one day. Who knows?

I’m going to do a Luke Combs. If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing now? Because I was wondering if you were a more horse orientated but you’ve just said that you’re not!

So, I feel like if I wasn’t doing this, I’d probably still somehow want to be doing something creatively or involved with music. I really have a passion to build an orphanage in Africa. And so I’d probably bring a guitar and just teach music in Africa or something. Or I like fashion a lot, so maybe I do something there, or baking. I love to bake. Sourdough and breads and cookies and…

Well, you’re not short of ideas.

I know, I like many things, I have tons of hobbies.

I moved on to songwriting and asked who she would you like to write with, who is on her wish list?

My dream board wish list, writers. Um… Hilary Lindsay’s one of them, she’s a phenomenal writer. I would say Hardy, as an artist, and a songwriter is phenomenal, I would also really enjoy writing with Ella Langley, I think that would be a fun collaboration.

And who would you like to duet with

I think my duet dream has always been Dolly Parton, because I love her so much, but, yeah, Ella Langley, Keith Urban would be pretty cool, Hardy and Lainey Wilson would be awesome as well.

Ideal venue, if they said to you, which venue would you like to headline at?

Red Rocks in Colorado. Because it’s so cool like in the middle of a rock. I’ve been to a concert at Red Rocks I watched Mount Joy in Red Rocks and it was phenomenal. But it’s so cool, because the cutout, the divet, and the stairway, and just the seats are literally just built into the rocks. It’s a beautiful, beautiful venue and it seats so many people sold out, so, yeah, that would be nice.

So if you were to do a festival, you are headlining on the Friday night, who do you want to be headlining on the Saturday night?

I would like to be headline… Friday. Maybe Tucker Wetmore, or…I’d say, Keith Urban? That’d be pretty cool.

So, final question. You are hosting a dinner party. You have three guests, one past, one present, and another of your choice, past or present. Who would you want?

At my dinner party, like one who’s not with us anymore. That’s what you mean. One who’s passed on, yeah, one… I’d like Jesus to be at my dinner party. Well, I guess God, because it’s so weird. Yeah. Like, Lordly? at my dinner party? I’d like Dolly Parton to be at my dinner party. And my mom.

On that note I finished using up Harper’s time, I wished her well at the festival and going forward. It was really lovely to speak to her. She went on to perform twice over the weekend, on the main stage on Saturday and then at a Songwriters session on Sunday. This young lady certainly has a bright future ahead of her!