Kacey Musgraves Talks Paying Her Dues With Reese Witherspoon

Kacey Musgraves is one of country music's critical darlings, releasing her third album, Golden Hour, this year with a headlining tour to match.

During a recent appearance on Reese Witherspoon's talk show, Shine On With Reese, Musgraves revealed that she was once like so many others in Nashville, an aspiring singer looking for her big break.

In a clip of the episode shared by PEOPLE, the pair takes a car ride as Musgraves recalls her early days in Music City.

"My little sister took my photo and my mom helped me put this little demo CD together and I had a really chubby face," the 30-year-old shared. "I just took it around to all these publishing companies and I was like, 'Hey, I'm a new voice in town. If you need a demo singer, I need the cash. I can sing my own harmonies and also these are songs I wrote.' So I was killing two birds with one stone."

The "High Horse" singer shared that she was on that route for about five years until things really started to happen for her.

"I was a songwriter first before being an artist so about a year after being in town was when I got to write for a job," she said. "And then I wrote for three years every single day with different people."

Though she called the time "intimidating," Musgraves noted that there is something positive about going after a career so many others are reaching for.

"It is very intimidating but also because it's so intimidating and because there are so many people that are in line wanting to do what you want to do, you have no excuse not to be unique and as good as you can be," she explained.

Also in the episode, Musgraves and Witherspoon discussed the difficulties facing women in country music.

"If you look at the Top 40 you might see three women," Musgraves said, via Rolling Stone. "One thing I've experienced as a woman on this path … is I can be meeting the same radio station people or people in the industry as a male artist but there's an extra pressure on me to be accommodating or nice."

"You look at the charts and you see a big lack in female voices," she added, with Witherspoon chiming in with a note on diversity. "There's a whole spectrum of human experiences not represented," she said.

Photo Credit: Getty / Steve Jennings