Before the age of ten she was a nationwide finalist for the lead in the Broadway production of Annie, sang the national anthem at a Dallas Cowboy football game, and was a one week champion on the Ed McMahon hosted television show “Star Search.”
Before the age of twenty she had already recorded six CD’s on the Curb Record label, won a couple of Grammy Awards in country music categories, written a couple of books, had one of the biggest hit singles of the nineties with the song “How Do I Live” and filed a lawsuit against her father and one of her managers for swindling nearly seven million dollars from her over a five year period.
Before the age of thirty she released five more CD’s, starred in several movies, wrote a couple more books, got married a couple of times, and became a major target of the paparazzi.
Since turning thirty on August 28th she has entered a 30 day in-patient treatment facility for anxiety and stress while simultaneously embarking on a nationwide tour promoting her soon to be released and highly anticipated CD called “Spitfire.”
It’s never a dull moment for LeAnn Rimes! She’s criticized for being too thin yet she was recently on the cover of “Shape” magazine and besides, there’s got to be about a hundred pictures of her online looking fabulous in assorted skimpy bikinis. Also, there’s her marriage to the actor Eddie Cibrian that has ruffled the features of more than a few jealous internet trolls hiding behind their insipid and anonymous blogs. Eddie and LeAnn met while filming the movie “Northern Lights” back in 2009. Both were married at the time when they fell in love with each other. They both got divorced and they married soon after. Eddie happened to have two children and because of that LeAnn has been called every name in the book including names that begin with the first two consonants of the alphabet. Is it any wonder she’s stressed out?
LeAnn Rimes exploded onto the country music scene in 1996 with her debut album “Blue.” The title song was written in the late fifties by Bill Mack who wanted Patsy Cline to record it. Patsy died in a plane crash before ever getting the chance. Years later Bill was working in Dallas as a disc jockey when he first heard a very young singer named LeAnn Rimes whose vocal style reminded him of Patsy. He thought “Blue” would be a great song for her to sing. He ended up being right about that because the album “Blue” ended up selling over eight million copies world wide.
A year after the success of “Blue” LeAnn Rimes reached superstar heights when the song “How Do I Live” became the longest running single in Billboard Hot 100 history, spending 69 weeks on the chart. Hit record followed hit record and by the age of twenty-one she already had a greatest hits CD!
LeAnn’s recent recordings include a very grown-up record called “Family” which was released in 2007 and “Lady & Gentlemen” which came out in 2011. On this record, LeAnn gives a woman’s touch to an array of classic country songs that were originally recorded by men. There are songs on the disc written by such country luminaries as Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Vince Gill among others.
In early 2013 LeAnn’s newest record “Spitfire” will be released and she could not be more excited about it. This phone interview took place on the afternoon of August 23rd, just days before her thirtieth birthday. LeAnn was very animated and chatty, especially when talking about “Spitfire.” She’s really looking forward to singing these new songs and her tour will bring her to the MGM Grand at Foxwoods on Friday October 12th and then to the Warner Theater in Torrington on Saturday November 17th.
BH – LeAnn, can you believe that the little eight year old girl who was on Star Search not too long ago will be turning thirty in a couple of days?
LR - “No I actually don’t. I feel like that eight year old girl sometimes to be honest. And then I feel like, with all I've gone through, it's like I'm sixty. It's kind of a weird age but I'm excited about it. I don't feel depressed and I'm not taking it hard like most people do, I'm actually excited to get out of my twenties. My twenties were good but I had a lot of lessons to learn. Hopefully thirty will be a little more peaceful."
BH – What’s one thing that you might have done differently?
LR - “Take time to actually enjoy your successes and learn from your failures. The biggest thing that I didn’t do is enjoy the successes that I had because I was constantly moving forward. I’m still trying to learn how to do that these days because you’re constantly thinking so far ahead of time. I wish the one thing that people told me was really just stop for a moment and truly take it in.”
BH - Have you ever wondered how your career might have gone if you had landed the lead in the Broadway play Annie way back when?
LR - “God knows where that would have taken me. I just believe things happen for a reason and I was so young, I was six. What an amazing experience because they had auditioned thousands and thousands of girls and brought it down to the top ten. I walked right in the door and these girls were looking at me like ‘what the hell is she doing here?’ I was in Texas and I was all dolled up and all these girls looked like orphans because that’s what they were supposed to look like. But I’ve never done anything like that before and they brought me in first before all these girls who had worked and worked to do it. And that was my first taste, at six, of women! With the mothers and the girls there was definitely that cattiness. I kind of went ‘you know what I’m just going to rely on my talent and not go there.’ And that’s the one thing that my mom always taught me was just to go and do your best and that’s what I did and I really didn’t think about it much. I’ve been blessed with a gift. I have my moments where I’ve question things, I’m trying to do different things and learn different things. There’s not a lot of thinking when it comes to what I do. When I go out on stage I have fun. I open my mouth and I sing and I love it. I love entertaining people. I have fun with my fans and thank god I have the talent to be able to go out and do that. But who knows what would have happened to that little girl. I got a lot of experience, let me tell you, for a six year old but I don’t think I quite knew what the experience was until I got a little older.”
BH – I’m curious about the Bill Mack song “Blue.” I know he wrote it in the late fifties hoping Patsy Cline would record it. Did he try to have anyone else cover it between the time she died and the time you sang it in the mid nineties?
LR - “He might have, I’m not really sure. The original recording, the demo was completely different and I think it was a man singing. It didn’t have the yodel thing in it. That was something I just stuck in there as a child and I have no idea why.”
BH – That’s what makes the song!
LR - “Yeah, not to pat myself on the back or anything, but it does make the song. That’s the hook of the song. For some reason that’s what I heard when I first heard the song. I think my dad he didn’t love the song, so I wanted to prove to my dad that the song was good. So I came up with something that was a little different. I think that was kind of that little rebellious child in me wanted to make sure that I recorded that. I think that’s kind of what happened.”
BH – What was it like when “How Do I Live” became such a monster hit?
LR - “I don’t recall a lot of that time of my life to be honest. It was very hard as a child to go through that whirlwind of success and still remember it. I think it was almost a survival mechanism to put a lot of it out of my head and still try to be a normal human being. Because I don’t think people really saw me as a human being. They saw me as like a brilliant child with this big voice. So when you hear that constantly, all the time, it was like ‘how do I deal with this?’ It was amazing because god knows I never expected any kind of success like I had at that age. It was definitely a hard pill to swallow for a child but it was also what I dreamed about doing. But I don’t think anyone could dream that far ahead or that big, especially as a kid. It was pretty overwhelming and pretty insane.”
BH – Moving ahead, I thought that the “Family” CD with songs like the title cut, “Nothing Better to do,” and “Good Friend and a Glass of Wine” was a transition into more adult themes. Do you agree?
LR - “That was the beginning of showing who I am as a human being. I wanted to be seen not as a child but as a woman and that was kind of the beginning of it. I had been through a lot of public issues with my record company and my father and my family and I just wanted to start telling the truth. I didn’t want to sing songs anymore just for the sole fact of them being a hit. I wanted to try to expand on my writing and my talent and be a part of telling my story. And I think ‘Family’ was the beginning of that. And now with the album ‘Spitfire,’ there’s no holds barred on this record! I think ‘Family’ gave me that jumping off point to really tell the truth but ‘Spitfire’ is way far ahead of that one and I think now it’s just why not speak the truth in my music? For me now it’s about writing honest songs that hopefully someone can relate to in their life and it touches them. So I guess my vision has changed a little bit and what I strive to do has changed a ton obviously since I was a kid and like I said ‘Family’ was that jumping off point of just being truthful and honest as an artist and as a human being.”
BH – Tell me more about “Spitfire?” Will it be out soon? Did you write all the songs?
LR - “The single will be out by the time I’m touring and I co-wrote nine of the thirteen songs on the record and yeah, it’s as honest, like I said, as you can get. It takes you on a wild roller coaster ride of emotions that’s for sure. I could not be happier with a record in my life. This is the best album I’ve ever made hands down and I’m so thrilled to have people hear it. And it’s been great to perform it live because we do perform a lot of the songs live. People, the way they relate to the songs is pretty incredible. Like I said, I don’t hold anything back. It’s my truth about the past several years of my life but in no particular chronicle order in any way but definitely my truth.”
BH – Let’s talk about your last release “Lady and Gentlemen.” I see that Darrell Brown who co-wrote some of the songs on “Family” produced this record with help from Vince Gill. What was it like working with those guys and with so many songs to choose from how did you manage to narrow it down to the thirteen tracks that made the record?
LR - “We started with about eighty songs and basically I just sat in a room with Vince and Darrell and started singing a verse and a chorus of them and kind of saw what sounded great with my voice. These were songs that I grew up singing and grew up on. It’s been really amazing to have created that record of all of these great songs that were originally recorded by men and then taking them and paying homage to that but then pushing them and making them my own as a woman, somewhat changing the lyrics but a lot of times not. I believe that if I can make you believe what I’m singing then the gender part really doesn’t matter. But I love to go back to the old traditional music which is what I love anyway and it really preps me, and Darrell also, for what we wanted to do with ‘Spitfire’ which was really break it down as much as possible to these songs that were brutally honest almost so much that it makes you want to squirm because I think people are going to go ‘oh she said that!’ It’s the truth. I told the truth. I think I say a lot of things on this record that people may not be willing to admit that they probably were going through. Hopefully it will inspire them to take a leap and tell the truth or be truthful to themselves or whatever it might be. There’s a lot of things that I think were hard to say at times but it’s great for it to come out in my music. I think that’s the way it should be. As far as instrumentation we wanted to make it as sparse as possible and as cool as possible but have that similar old country sound but bring it into modern days. There’s definitely a mix of both but it sounds like an old record but in modern times. It’s super cool and I’m so proud of it.”
BH – Tell me some more about the instrumentation and any special guests you might have worked with.
LR - “There is electric guitar on a couple of songs but mostly we recorded with a steel guitar and acoustic bass and drums. Dan Tyminski from Union Station sings on it. Allison Kraus sings on it. Rob Thomas and I do a duet and there’s an amazing guitar solo on this song from Jeff Beck too. I just really went for it. I went for my dream band, went for my dream everything, and every time someone said yes I just was like a little girl still. After eighteen years of doing this I get excited when people that I really admire just jump in without even hearing the music first and say ‘yeah we want to work with you.’ Because it was such a labor of love and because it came from just a pure joy of recording music for every single person who worked on this album including myself, I think that really shows. And when music comes from a place of just the true joy of it, I think that’s when the best projects are made.”
BH – Great country music is always honest. I’ll take Kris Kristofferson singing “Sunday Morning Coming Down” over Billy Ray Cyrus singing “Achy Breaky Heart” any day of the week!
LR - “You can’t really compare Kris Kristofferson’s songwriting with pretty much anyone except Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson and that’s what inspired me too in making that last record of ‘Lady and Gentlemen.’ These men were not afraid to write about being in prison, their affairs, their drug use, their drinking, and whatever it may have been. They were just honest. It was their life that they lived and that’s inspiring because a lot of people aren’t willing to go there these days.”
BH – I understand that your contract is up with Curb Records. Will you re-sign with them or take a break or pursue other interests such as acting?
LR - “I don’t know where I’m going and that’s cool. I’ve been there since I was eleven and we’ve had our ups and downs but they’re totally on my side with this record. I’ve never had a better relationship with them than now actually and I’m so excited to go on this journey with them and they are totally with me on this album. It’s exciting to have everybody behind me and truly believing in it. But I don’t know because the business has changed so much. Everything is really online and you don’t really go buy records anymore, which is sad to me. But who knows, I have a lot of things that I want to do and acting is definitely one of them.”
BH – Your last movie was “Reel Love” which co-starred Burt Reynolds. I’ll bet that was lots of fun!
LR - “Yeah, I enjoy it and I definitely think that I’m ready to jump into some more of that. And I think that on an emotional level I’m just more in touch with every single emotion that I have more than I’ve ever been which is great for a songwriter, a singer, or an actor. I think I have a lot to offer there and I’m learning every time I do it which is great. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. It’s not second nature to me yet but I think that eventually it could be. But I’ll still make music. Usually I take a break from writing songs but I’m already working on the next record and I’ll probably be done with writing the next record by the time that this new album comes out so it’s just fun to be able to click. Sometimes you get in these creative phases and these things just come out and that’s the fun part of it.”
BH – I recently read your book “Holiday in your Heart.” I was thinking that Kitty Wells, who just passed away, could have been the inspiration for that story.
LR - “Yeah she could have absolutely. I think there were a few people that were the inspiration for that. But it was also based on a true story a little bit about my grandmother. She was battling with emphysema and she always wanted to see me at the Grand Ole Opry but never had the chance to because she passed away. So the book was somewhat loosely based on that. You know it’s hard to juggle family and business. There was so much of a mentality back in the day of get it while you can and I’ve been lucky to have over eighteen years in this business but I feel like I’m just starting over again and this time it will be family first for sure. But music and my fans are always a close second, that’s for damn sure! But family first because that’s what life is really all about.”
BH – Tell me a little bit about the touring band you’ll be bringing to Connecticut this fall?
LR - “I have four pieces that play with me. It’s half acoustic and half plugged in. That’s what’s so fun about it. I don’t really stick to the set list anymore. I still have one in front of me but it just kind of changes as we go along. It’s really about what I’m feeling and how the audience is reacting and what they’re digging. I have a lot of fun now. It feels like that wall has been broken down, that it’s not fans and star quote unquote on stage anymore, it’s just like everybody hanging out in a living room. I encourage them to talk to me and hang out with me. The best way to get to know me is to come see a show for sure.”
As these words are written a month has passed since this phone interview took place and LeAnn’s 30 day stay at an in-patient treatment facility has come to an end. She was looking great on September 20th when she attended the VH1 Save the Music Foundation’s Songwriters Music Series. Also, the first single off of “Spitfire” is called “What Have I Done?” and it will be released on December 10th. “I’m healthy and happy,” LeAnn recently told People Magazine. “I just want to be happier and healthier more consistently. I don’t want to wake up and not truly be enjoying my life and these amazing things around me.”