Listen to the track premiere of Erin Rae’s 'Bad Mind'

The folk song comes from Rae's forthcoming album 'Putting On Airs'

(Credit: Courtesy of Erin Rae)

Straight out of Tennessee comes Erin Rae: an effortlessly talented singer who fuses folk, indie-rock and psych-rock sounds together.

Because of her genre-fusing ways, the Southern singer has worked with modern country artists like Margo Price and Andrew Combs.

Now, she's gearing up to release her new album Putting On Airs in June.

Premiering below is the new track "Bad Mind" - a wistful folk earworm that sees Rae coming to terms with her own sexuality.

Of the song, Rae says, "Growing up in Tennessee (Jackson and Nashville) in the '90s/'00s was a tough time for a girl to be learning about her own sexuality. Even with the amazing parents that I have, and the progressive and open-minded household I was raised in, I felt overwhelmed by the social messages that surrounded me, and that still surround a lot of us today - that “straight is normal” and anything outside of that is not."

It's something she dealt with, even though some of her closest family members and friends were gay.

"When I began to discover that I had crushes on girls and not boys, anxiety and panic took over completely, and I worked my entire middle school and high school life to get it to go away. I did not want to be different or weird, and I’ve realised now that underneath that was fear of really painful things that can happen to a person, just because they are gay. This song is about reckoning with that fear and anxiety as an adult, processing it and retraining my brain to allow my true feelings to come to the surface."

Listen to the premiere of "Bad Mind" below.

Read a Q&A with Erin Rae below.

Tell me about "Bad Mind". What prompted you to make this song?

"Bad Mind" was written as a way to self-soothe, and as an attempt to understand more about my fears and reservations around sexuality. I had been trying to uncover it for seven years, and let it go, and it was still an undercurrent in my mind. I grew up in a loving & accepting family and couldn’t figure out why I had this inner-homophobia. It didn’t make sense.

The story of this song is so personal to you - can you take me through how it affected your family?

It was terribly sad and painful. More so for my aunts and my cousin, but also for us. I was six years old. I think when the court case began and my aunts lost custody of my cousin. My cousin was only allowed to be at her mom’s house if her partner was absent. They banned her from seeing a parent figure that she had bonded with from age three. It was devastating and confusing for all of us.

How does this record differ from your last? I feel like your sound has evolved.

I hope it has! It had been 3 years since I made Soon Enough. Soon Enough was made in 2 days, live-tracked with the band I had been playing with for a couple of years, The Meanwhiles. That record is dear to me, but with this new one I was gifted resources to take some more time and approach the songs in a new way. I had been touring with Dom Billett & Jerry Bernhardt, and I knew I wanted to work with them after playing with them and hearing the music they loved in the van. Dan Knobler loaded a ton of his gear up from his studio in Nashville and we travelled up to The Refuge in Appleton, Wisconsin. We got to spend 8 days with the 35,000 sq. ft. building mostly to ourselves, running amps in to the chapel and tracking vocals in there. Having no distractions, and obviously the musicianship of the guys helped the songs into new territory.

Tell me about signing to John Paul White's label. Why choose this one?

I am so grateful and excited to be working with them, and I keep finding more and more reasons that affirm that. My favourite record of 2017, Light Country by The Kernal was made & released by the Single Lock team, as well as another favourite, Cautionary Tale by Dylan LeBlanc. What I’ve since discovered is that every artist they have on their roster is incredibly talented and genuine, and it is such an honour to be part of that group. We played a show with The Kernal at their venue in Florence, Alabama at the end of a summer tour last year and most of the Single Lock team were there. So that’s how we got connected. I really love having a smaller label so you have a lot more honest conversations and you don’t feel confused about what’s going on. I love everyone there! They are salt of the earth.

How does this song tap into the understanding of sexuality in general?

Since writing it, and talking about it more lately, I’ve discovered that for me it is not black and white, and I have a lot more to understand. Writing ‘Bad Mind’ helped me to see that there was a thick layer of fear shrouding sexuality for me and I could not be in touch with what my feelings are as long as that fear remained unaddressed. That is no way to live. When my relationships and decisions are just reactions to fear I make a lot of mistakes and miss out on a lot, I feel. So each verse is kind of looking at where the fear came from, honouring it, and hopefully letting it go now that I’m not 11 years old.

Who were you listening to when you made this record?

I didn’t really listen to anything while we were in the recording process, but on steady rotation during that time were Feist, Michael Nau, Wilco, Weyes Blood, Richard Hawley. Those were staples in the van.

How has Nashville influenced you and your career?

If I didn’t live here I wouldn’t have a career, I don’t think. My parents moved us here at the start of my sixth grade year, and the musician friends they made led me to my mentors, and showed me examples of people making music as their career. I quit college and lived at home the first several years of learning to write music and hung out at an open mic which was densely populated with insanely talented musicians from all around. That’s how I met "The Meanwhiles" and that’s where I cut my teeth. I don’t know that I would have had the gumption to move here if we were from somewhere else, and I always admire people that do. I think it’s brave. Nashville has been such an inspiring community. I listed some of the more well-known artists I listened to in the last question, but what really moves me is the music made by my friends. Kelsey Waldon, The Savage Radley, Caroline Spence, The Kernal, Tristen, Mia Dyson, Good Buddy, just to name a tiny few. That’s where I get goosebumps and cry. It’s a magical place.