It’s a humid Wednesday night and Margo Price is slinging sweat-slicked bottles of High Life and lethal tequila sodas at Ray’s on the Lower East Side. For out-of-towners, this particular establishment is known as a dive-by-design due in part to investors like Justin Theroux and Cousin Greg, meaning The Allman Brothers Band may be on the jukebox, but on the checkered linoleum dance floor there’s little but dimestore cowboys — overzealous, overserved, or both — calling out callow yeehaws. If the average patron would be surprised to learn that the woman whose ponytail swings like a pendulum with every healthy pour isn't a bartender, but a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and critically acclaimed author, then they’d probably be shocked to learn that she also hasn’t had a drink in years.
It’s a rebellious act for someone who once regarded alcohol as her most faithful friend to spend time in a spot like Ray’s, Price theorizes to PAPER via Zoom from her front porch a few weeks later. If that’s the case, then it’s downright revolutionary to be behind the bar putting hands on said friend yet protesting its comforts. Price hasn’t imbibed since 2021, but there was a time not so long ago in which spirits made Price the star of scores of stranger-than-fiction stories. Once, she woke up for a waxing appointment with a handcuff fastened on one wrist and not a single clue as to how it got there. Such reminiscences are now fan favorites from her discography. The most famous of all, “Hurtin’ (On The Bottle),” makes a compelling case for self-medicating: “Been drinking whiskey like it's water, but that don’t touch the pain you put on me.”
“I've been bartending for over a decade and I love the culture I grew up in — talking to strangers and staying out late,” Price said, noting that she remained at Ray’s until midnight. “I would have stayed even later, but I had to get up early in the morning to sing the National Anthem at the Mets game.”
That’s not to say Price’s highs have gone without hangovers. Her 2022 memoir, Maybe We’ll Make It, and 2023 album, Strays, are punctuated by self-castigation and soul-baring revelations – from an affair with her former bandmate, to the anguish she and her husband, Jeremy Ivey, survived after the death of their infant son, Ezra, to the aspirations that cost an already-broke artist a pound of flesh (not to mention forced her to pawn her wedding ring). But if both were a testament to how much Price has sacrificed to be where she is right now, then her forthcoming album, Hard Headed Woman, due out August 29, is a reminder to celebrate the struggle.
“I was actually a really fun drunk. I didn't really do things that were mean, I just made some really bad decisions. But now I'm on the other side of it,” Price told us. “This album is a lot of looking back at my days in bathroom stalls, conversations that I had, and people that I met. It's a retrospective on the last 10 years, and alcohol was a big part of that.”
For years, Price’s modern interpretations on old country tenets and bottom-of-the-bottle candor when it comes to, well, reaching the bottom of the bottle, has become beloved by fans and critics. While she doesn’t miss drinking, that doesn’t mean Hard Headed Woman doesn’t indulge another powerful substance: nostalgia. Across 13 tracks, Price sings about even the most fraught of times with fondness and the wisdom one earns from surviving them. There’s “Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down” in which Price warns herself not to allow the “tone-deaf sons of bitches” who “don't know you're rags to riches” to undermine her. And on “Losing Streak,” she jests about the seemingly endless string of disappointments that preceded her more recent success. It plays like a tribute to how far Price has come and proof that one can still be proud of their own checkered past.
The first single off Hard Headed Woman is “Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down.” How soon post-Strays did that materialize in your mind?
I began working on it with Jeremy in a hotel room when we were on tour back in 2023. It was for a movie that was being written by a friend of mine who's a really talented screenwriter. He had written this story that was loosely based off me, so we started writing country songs for this film that still has never happened. It just sat around for a while and was forgotten until we picked back up and I was really writing songs for myself again. I'm at a much freer place in my life. There was a moment of regret during Strays, the book and everything else. I was like, “Should I divulge this much about myself to people?” Like Dolly [Parton] says “Always save something for yourself.” I still have in many ways. I've learned through that experience, “OK, you can't talk about something in the moment that you're going through it.” I just feel lighter, though. I'm so happy that I went through these awkward growing pains publicly because I've been able to share with so many fans and have that grief bond that comes after talking about hard things that you've been through. After that, you can just move on from it. You don't have to think about it anymore.
How do you distinguish what to hold back in your music and elsewhere? Are there certain memories or facets of yourself that you fear you’ve exhausted?
It's funny because even still on Hard Headed Woman, I'm talking about partying, drinking, old times, and walking through a lot of past rooms in my life. Some of them I’m even looking back on with fondness the further removed I am from the situation. There was a long time that I didn't even want to sing “Hurtin’ (On The Bottle)” because I just didn't connect to it. I had to put it away for a while. But now, I've been closing my shows with it again. I feel like I'm more qualified than ever to sing about it because of what I went through to get where I'm at right now. I think you can still explore different things and even write as characters with different perspectives. You don't have to feel locked in. For a moment I thought, “Are people going to think I'm not cool because I don't drink anymore?” That was a definite fear. Like, “Maybe I shouldn’t tell anybody that I don't drink.” I don't really talk about it that much in my day-to-day life. I don't really have to think about it at all.
That’s so real. What I find interesting about the country genre in particular is that while drinking is obviously a theme, its reception is different for male and female artists. For someone like Johnny Cash, alcohol addiction not only explained away a lot of the harm he’d done, but it’s a part of his most acclaimed music. I mean, men in your genre have blamed alcohol for a lot of bad behavior yet it hasn’t had a negative impact on their legacies. Historically, women haven’t been afforded that luxury. Do you feel at all resentful of that?
That’s such a good point because there's definitely a double standard across the board. I have so many different places I want to go with this... There is such an illusion that being a reckless drunk or drug addict, for that matter, makes you cool. It’s been this myth that's been built over the years. I mean, all my heroes were drug addicts – Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, The Beatles all experimented with substances. I'm not saying that all substances are bad, but when you find yourself on the side of the majority, that's the time when you really need to step back and ask, “Am I doing this because it's benefiting my life? Or am I doing it just because I'm trying to fit in?” Actually, I think doing the opposite of what everybody else is doing is the most rebellious place that you can sit. But back to what you're saying about how men get glorified. They can throw a chair off a bar…
I find Hard Headed Woman such a compelling record after Strays because of its radical refusal to continue litigating or lamenting over the mistakes you’ve made. You got that out of your system, now you’ve written something that sounds like liberation. For an artist that doesn’t drink anymore, it’s rare–and frankly, refreshing–that all of the morning-afters aren’t treated as a humiliation ritual.
It’s like piecing together a crime scene, is what I always used to say. There’s so many funny stories from those days. Strays had some really dark, heavy moments on it. I wrote that album at the end of my drinking. Most of it was written when I was still fucking drunk on tequila and high on mushrooms. When we wrote a lot of that album, Jeremy and I went to this house in Charleston and we were partying hard. When you hear those dark moments in there, it's like “Wow, that was a different chapter.” Writing is my outlet to get out some of that frustration and try to work through it. Cheaper than therapy.
One song that’s, I think, a perfect encapsulation of the essence of Hard Headed Woman is “Love Me Like You Used To Do.” It’s an ode to a time gone by – in this case, the honeymoon period of a relationship. But when I was listening to it live at Ray’s, I realized it can also apply to what the passage of time does to any relationship.
I love that song so much. I've had it in my back pocket for probably six or seven years. It was written by a really dear friend of mine. He lives in town here in Nashville, and I met him over 20 years ago playing at open mics. His name is Steven Knutson, and he is a beautiful painter, beautiful songwriter, makes his own albums and has a voice like Johnny Cash. I respect him so much and he gave me that song. He was like, “I wrote this for you” and then I asked Tyler Childers to sing on it with me. It’s such a beautiful duet in that way. But like you said, it's about a romantic relationship and there's so many beautiful little couplets in there that just knocked me out. I’m deeply grateful for that song, because I've been through so many friendships recently too ... my band of 13 years and I broke up. I fired my husband from my touring band, too. The song’s got layers. My whole band's gone…everybody that was with me in those early days. That song could address any number of people in my life – from friends, to fans, to the 21-year relationship that my husband and I are in. I can sing it to a different person every night.
Your 2022 memoir, Maybe We’ll Make It, garnered so much critical acclaim around its release for its evocative imagery, plain-speaking poignancy and rare honesty. You tell your familial history – particularly the loss of your family’s farm in the crisis of the eighties – with so much care, for instance. A birdie told me you’re working on a new book ...
I am. Close Encounters in Country Music and Beyond chronicles my past ten years of traveling the world, playing shows and meeting other musicians. It’s a collection of short stories, dreamlike essays and traveling wisdom. It also explores and ties in themes of past lives, aliens, ghosts, sleep paralysis.
You’re a writer who clearly favors longform work – whether that’s an album or a book or an essay. Do you ever fear the industry has the appetite for that anymore?
I commiserate with journalists and writers deeply, because we're all going through the same thing. Don't even get me going on AI. I mean, I'm grateful that I'm here. I'm grateful that I can make records that I love. But I’m still mad as hell about the way that things are. The industry's just changed. It's a completely unrecognizable landscape. I like to write longform things like books and essays and full albums. I just hope that people can still connect to those things. Thank God for Substack. That’s been such an incredible outlet and a great place that still feels like there's some semblance of truth and it just seems like somewhere where people are still ingesting longer stories. I have more of a story to tell. I like the idea of the great American novel or the novelist that's writing their whole life and all those pieces together make the full body of work. I don't know … are people hungry for that? Or do they just want a 30-second banger chorus to add to their TikTok reel?
I like to think there’s room for both. Do you feel pressure to produce a 30-second banger chorus for an audience to add to their TikTok reels?
I think it's expected more on the inside of the industry and I'm just on the other side of a lot of things. I don't feel like I have to. I do think that they are one of the only places that pay you, so maybe it's a good idea to be present there, but it's not really what I'm trying to do. At the heart of what I'm trying to do is just make a great album.
A recurring theme of this album is reaching the other side of something and taking stock of the good and the bad. On the one hand, there's loss. There's no more naivety about life. The rose-colored glasses come off. But there’s also retrospect and growth. It feels like you’ve come full circle.
That was so well said. I feel that in a big way. When you're young, certain images or memories just mean something different to you than when you're old.
Photography: Yana Yatsuk
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