How Lucy Hale Helped Inspire Carly Pearce to Reach Country Music Success

Carly Pearce is on her way to becoming a bonafide country star, but her road to get there wasn’t always easy.

When she was 21, she landed a record deal with Sony, but after her A&R rep was fired, things didn’t work out. She took a series of odd jobs including nannying and cleaning Airbnbs, and eventually got a job singing backup for Lucy Hale in a music video.

That video was for a performance of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” and Pearce’s vocals impressed Hale so much that the actress asked Pearce, “Why are you singing backup for me? I YouTubed you last night, and I don’t understand.”

Pearce shared with Cosmopolitan that she then moved to Los Angeles for three months to tour with Hale, a move that helped Pearce regain her confidence.

She then put out a single independently, which made its way up the charts and eventually helped land her a record deal with Big Machine Records in Nashville. She released her first album, Every Little Thing, in 2017, and debuted the first single from her sophomore album, “Closer to You,” in November.

“Never ever let ‘no’ dictate who you are,” Pearce said, sharing that she wants others to never lose hope no matter what things might look like.

Over the past year, Pearce has seen huge success, with her debut single, “Every Little Thing,” hitting the top of Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart and the singer scoring spots opening for country giants Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton on tour.

With all those milestones, it’s no surprise that Pearce has evolved as a person, recently telling Rolling Stone that she’s no longer the same woman who covered her debut album.

“As much as I love that album, and as much as I love that girl, I am not her anymore,” she explained. “I feel like I have pieces of her in me, but I have grown and blossomed into who I am supposed to be, and who I am meant to be.”

The 28-year-old added to The Boot that she decided to choose a new song as her next single rather than a track from Every Little Thing because she’s grown so much.

“I already was writing and feeling inspired and had just grown so much as a person and as an artist, and started to realize that fans wanted the next chapter because they see so much and I’ve been so honest about everything going on in my life, she said. “It’s just an evolution of what you know me to be, and I’ve never been happier and just rooted in who I am as a woman … I’m just really excited to get to dive a little bit deeper into who I am and show them the next side.”

Photo Credit: Getty / John Shearer