Country Singer-Songwriter Caitlyn Smith Talks Solo Tour and Upcoming Album, 'High and Low' (Exclusive)
Country singer-songwriter Caitlyn Smith will soon unveil her new album, High and Low, which will be available to stream on April 14. Ahead of them, however, Smith is embarking on a solo tour of North America, which is currently underway. PopCulture.com recently had a chance to speak with Smith about all she has going on, and she shared what she's most looking forward to while touring, as well as shared some insight into High and Low.
"My favorite way to show people my songs is in a small, intimate setting," Smith confessed when asked about the first leg of her "Great Pretender" solo tour — named for one of her new songs — which comes on the heels of opening gigs for artists such as George Strait, Reba, Little Big Town, and Old Dominion. "It definitely is a huge juxtaposition from massive venues to tiny little rooms. But it's my best-case scenario for sure." When it comes to her favorite parts of the U.S. to visit when she performs, Smith offered, "We did a really fun tour last year, the West Coast chunk of our High and Low Tour. We took our RV out because I wanted to add a vacation on the front end and the back end of the tour. Getting to play places like Jackson Hole and Boise and Bozeman, just areas that are on the west side of the US are some of my favorites."
She then admitted, "There's nothing like playing Minnesota, you know hometown. It's the best. It's so fun to look out and see my mailman [or] Second-grade teacher. It's like, this is cool. I love it."
In 2022, Smith released High, a selection of new songs that help make up the complete new album with features remarkable songs such as "Good As Us" and the title track, "High." For the final iteration of the project, Smith has blended the songs from High and its counterpart, Low, together. This makes for a beautiful musical journey that is less akin to a roller-coaster and more of an emotional hike across a metaphorical landscape with soaring mountain peaks and deep valleys.
"What I had originally pictured of this album was the part one, part two, the High and then the Low," Smith explained. "But then when it came to making the track listing, I realized that even in some of the high songs, they still hold a little bit of pain. And even in some of the low songs, there's still a little bit of hope. So there wasn't ever like, 'Oh, this song is truly low.' Or even a sad song about missing someone still has this sweetness to it that has this high... So I ended up just playing with mixing them together and really loved the feeling of that because it also feels like the emotions that I go through in one day," she then quipped, "Or 20 minutes."
Smith continued, "I move from one to the other pretty quickly. So yeah, it was definitely intentional. I was thinking from a listener standpoint, I was thinking about it on vinyl, and I was like, 'Well, we could do one high side and then go to low side.' And I'm like... I don't know if as a listener, I want to go sit and listen to all the low at one time. It seemed like a steak dinner, and so I was like, "Let's break it up and give the listener a bit more of a ride than just... listen to good and then listen to bad."
One of Smith's recent singles from High and Low is "Lately," a melodious piano-driven tune that builds to a bluesy, bass-heavy peak with Smith's vocal range fully present, from soft and sweet to perfectly controlled power. "The overarching concept of this song is obviously about missing someone," Smith said of the song, "and I was in a season where I was thinking about that and I happened to write it during COVID on a Zoom session with a couple of my good friends, George Sampson and Troy Vergis."
Smith went on to share, "I was living in this pattern, I think we all were, of just trying to fill the day and fill the time with some things that distracted us. So the entire verse is really just a collection of the things that I was doing in my life to distract myself from thinking about stuff that was painful. Everything from reading Dostoevsky to watercolors to I don't know how many puzzles I did. So, I mixed the things that I was really doing to distract myself with this feeling that we all have of like, 'Oh, I'm thinking about you, but I don't want to think about you.'"
Interestingly, Smith has received some surprising, albeit welcomed, responses from fans about the song. "It's been such a beautiful thing to release ['Lately'] and have it mean one thing to me, but some people have written to me about how they've lost their best friend or how they've lost their husband, and they connect to it in that way of loss, or they've broken up with their boyfriend," she revealed. "One person messaged me about how it's their song and their goodbye song to alcohol. That was pretty incredible. I had never even thought, all the things you do to get your mind off of wanting to drink. And that really meant a lot that people are inserting their own stories to it."
She added, "It honestly is one of my favorite things of the entire process. To create a song that's so near and dear to my heart, and then have someone else connect their life to it and have it be a soundtrack. I mean, that's the damn goal right there."
In addition to the studio recording of "Lately," Smith also ended up performing a live A capella version — which can be heard here — during a film shoot. "We were actually in the middle of filming something for 'The Great Pretender,' and we were just in between moving cameras and someone's like, 'Hey, it's really echoing here. You should just sing something.' And I was like, 'Cool. All right.'"
She continued, "The cameras just started rolling, and I sang it once, and then they were like, 'Hey, you turned your back pretty far.' I just sang it twice. They're like, 'Actually this is really cool. Just maybe look at the camera a little more. Or so we can get your voice.' So it was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. I absolutely love how it turned out too. It's just this little moment in time of singing in a beautiful old church."
Fans can hear High and Low when it debuts in less than two weeks, but some will be able to catch her live before then. Click here for more details about "The Great Pretender" solo tour. Keep it locked to PopCulture.com for more great music news, exclusives, and interviews!
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