I started by welcoming Mackenzie back to the UK. She was at C2C last year when she played the Indigo stage with her brother.

“I am so happy to be here! Second time at C2C. First time main stage, can you believe that?” 

I said I could believe it as I saw her not just at C2C last year, but also at The Long Road. 

“The Long Road was so much fun. I loved that show. I loved Rugby.  I’m so excited to be playing the main stage this year at C2C. I honestly don’t even know what to expect. Last year I got to do a little presenting on the main stage and just walking out there to say my lines, I was nervous. But I think I’ll feel a little bit more at home with the music.” 

I asked if her brother, Micah, was with her again this year?  

“He’s not. He stayed back home this year, he is taking a break. He needs some rest. He needs to put his feet up, you know?”

Mackenzie grew up in Hull in Georgia (I had to look up where that was!) I asked if she knew there is a Hull in the UK. 

“I just recently heard that and I’m like, maybe I need to take a trip there!” 

I asked when she knew that she wanted to take songwriting seriously rather than a hobby?  

“I would say I was always performing and singing and very musical growing up, but my dad is the one who told me that songwriting really existed, probably when I was around, 12 or 13, and so I just started writing songs, actually being like I need to figure out how to write songs around then. But the funny thing is, I have journals from when I was tiny, writing songs. When I didn’t even know the difference between a D and a B. So I would write my letters backwards, I was writing songs and you’re like, wait, what does this even say? Because I was not really good at writing my alphabet yet. So I do think it was always in my blood. My grandmother was a poet, she like loved to write poetry. And so I think that it all just kind of trickled down to me.”

I circled back to Micah as he is a songwriter too, I asked when did they 1st start joining forces? 

“So he was like just natural. He was also an athlete growing up and he was always struggling between fully pursuing athletics or music. And so he went off and played college baseball, and I moved to Nashville to chase songwriting and music. And then, honestly, I’m not gonna say he got a little jealous, but he was just really excited by the things that I was experiencing and just seeing that it was like a real world that you could embrace. And so then he moved to Nashville and we started working together. In that period, before he moved and he was in college, I would go visit him and I’d be ‘oh yeah, I wrote this new song’ and then I think he kind of started while he had some free time, writing songs and we would then compare them to each other. Honestly, I don’t know when our official 1st song we ever wrote together was, but his 1st trip to Nashville, we did some co-writes and he just fell in love with it too.” 

I was going to ask how her parents feel about her songwriting, but obviously Mackenzie had already said her father encouraged her. 

“Oh, yeah, they honestly love it. They think it’s so much fun. They have their own their own business and so they have flexible hours. They love to come and follow along and be a part of the whole shebang they’re actually coming this weekend.” 

Have they been to the UK before?

“That’s a great question. I believe so, but they’re making a little trip out of it on the front end and the back end. Right. But yeah, we’ll see them at all 3 shows.” 

I told her that when the interview opportunity to speak to Mackenzie came in to CountryLowdown, Leslie & I argued about who should interview her as we both wanted to do it! I won as Lesley had interviewed her last year before C2C, when her album, ‘Hey Country Queen’, had just come out. I pointed out Lesley actually flagged that as her album of the year. 

“No? No way. Well, you’ll have to tell her thank you so much. Oh, definitely. That means the world to me. A year later, honestly, it’s so special to me, it’s like, a stamp or a monument of Mackenzie Carpenter. The debut album, so much work and time and dreams poured into it. And so I think that it’s really cool that I even got to, put out an album. You know, it’s something I dreamed of as a kid growing up. So, I feel like it still means a lot to me, and I still love playing those songs. There’s songs on it that it’s gonna be really hard to switch up on, you know, as more music comes out, like Dozen Red Flags, Only Girl and Wish You Would. Some of those songs really, hold true.” 

That lead me on very nicely to Wish You Would and Midland. I asked how it was working with them as I would find that extremely daunting as you never know what they’re going to do next. 

“That’s so true. They were a little tricky. Honestly, I feel like they’ve like grown up and changed a lot. And they’re not like the wild boys that they once were, but I know there’s still 3 of them and they’re all running around in different directions, hard to wrangle them in, but they were very, very kind and very, very helpful, they jumped in headfirst with the song. I think that they were a great collaboration. When I heard them sing it for the first time on the track, I was, blown away. I was like, that’s exactly what the song needed. Yeah, and so then they fully incorporated it into their set, like their band fully plays it in their sets all year round, and we got to meet and play it for the 1st time live last year at Stagecoach. Then we got to play it at the Long Road. So there were so many amazing moves.” 

I pointed out that Mackenzie was a rotten tease at the Long Road, as she sang it in your set solo when Midland were due on stage straight after her. We were all like, what’s going on? She’s sung it on her own. Is she not going to sing it with Midland?

“Isn’t that funny? We couldn’t decide what to do because, technically it’s my song that I featured them on. So I want to play it in my set, but then we were there together. So obviously they want to play it in their set too. We were like, screw it. We’ll just sing it twice!  It was a lot of fun, a really great memory.” 

I moved on to more recent work, namely Meghan Moroney and her latest album ‘Cloud 9’. Mackenzie and her brother have co-written four songs on that album with her.  

“Oh, she’s a dream to work with. I’m so inspired by her, her artistry and the way that she has just made a whole movement out of her brand. We’ve been writing songs together on all of her albums and her debut EP. So I think it’s really cool how she sticks with the people that she has the right formula with, that she’s gotten success with. Those 4 songs we wrote on a beach trip. On the same trip we also wrote, ‘You Had To Be There’, the Kenny Chesney duet. So out of one writer’s trip, we got a Kenny Chesney duet, an Ed Sheeran duet, and a Kacey Musgrave duet. Isn’t that crazy? It’s not really even believable.” 

I wondered if those people in mind while they were writing the songs? 

“The Kenny Chesney one was very specifically written for Kenny Chesney to be on it, if he would choose to accept. The other two, Belles and Whistles was not originally a duet. That was something that happened after the fact, because Megan is a really big Kacey fan as well as me. It was a dream collaboration for her. And then Ed Sheeran was an odd choice. He is dipping his toe into the Country scene, I think he’s like leaving some signals. Like he’s giving us some hints, maybe, where he’s going.” 

I mentioned that when Luke Combs headlined C2C a couple of years ago, Ed Sheeran came on stage with him for one song.

“No. Wow. That is so incredible. I wish I could have seen that. But, yeah, he actually, reached out to her because he was like, I’m a fan, my family loves your music and they played at the Bluebird together. And then they just struck up a friendship and then she asked him. She told us that she sent him a few different options, and this was the one that he chose. So that’s pretty cool.”

So did you actually meet them?

“Nope that is still on the list. Hopefully one day I’ll get to see them sing it live.

I moved on to Mackenzies latest single ‘Drunk Cigs’, I mentioned that somebody had said to me last night, it sounds like she is singing ‘drunk sex’!

Laughs “Ah, you know, actually, I’ve gotten that. A couple people have said that. We have to really pronounce drunk cigs. Honestly, I didn’t really think about that at all. When we wrote this song, because I just assumed everyone, gets it. You know, drunk cigs don’t count. But, people could say that about it as well, I guess. Or people have said drunk texts! There’s a lot of things that anyone could relate to along the whole spectrum. From innocent to uninnocent!”

I said I love the opening line, though ‘They say denial is a river’

“Isn’t that good? I love that song so much. I’m a little biased. But I just love that song.”

I remembered that when Mackenzie was over last year she had said that she managed to fit in quite a lot of sightseeing and I asked if she planned to do some more this year?

“You know, I actually have just visited a couple other neighbourhoods and other restaurants, some other stores. We did Big Ben last year, we did Buckingham Palace, we did Borough Market, we did so many things. You know, the one thing I haven’t really hit is museums. So I probably should do that. Well, there’s plenty of them, but no time as I am off to Belfast. And then I have got to go over to Glasgow. And then back to London on Sunday. I am gonna be dizzy, what are they doing to us?”

I was beginning to run out of time by now so I quickly asked if any more new music was coming?

“Yes, I have a lot of new music coming. We haven’t officially made any announcements yet. But a lot of new music that I’m really proud of and really excited for that will just follow along after ‘Drunk Cigs’. So, don’t bat your eyes because then a new song will be out. We have an idea on timings, but we’re not telling yet, but I’m very excited.Hopefully, there will be some tour dates coming up too. There’s definitely some conversations, but nothing set in stone. But, in the US, I’m headed out on tour with Riley Green and Jason Aldean this year. So that’ll keep me busy. That is just in the States though. They need to come over here and they need to bring me over.

It was fun chatting to Mackenzie, the time really flew, I thanked her for her time, and said to have fun with C2C

“Thank you so much. Oh, thank you I wonder what’s next!”

Catch up with all things Mackenzie Carpenter here – https://www.mackenziecarpentermusic.com/