Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott on Grace & Good Friends

Narrator:  Hi everybody, my name is Remy. Welcome to the For the Love Podcast, with your host Jen Hatmaker, my mom. She writes books and speaks to crowds. But she mostly loves talking to amazing people every week on this podcast. Thanks for listening! We hope you enjoy the show.

Jen:  Hey, guys. Jen Hatmaker here, your host of the For the Love Podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome! Welcome to the show!

We’ve got a good one today, you guys. We are closing out our terrific For the Love of Music series. I mean just wowsers. Right? And I have just loved it. Every Single guest we’ve had in the series has just brought it with their talent and then their wisdom and their thoughtful approach to life and their humor. And I already know for sure this will not be our last music series. That I can promise you. We need many, many more artists on the show. I hope you’ve had as much fun as we have taken all these trips down memory lane, watching the music videos Amanda has been putting on a transcript page. Go check those out if you missed it. Music’s just special to so many of us. It speaks to us in ways that nothing else does.

So today is a super fun and different kind of day on the podcast. My microphone and I took a little road trip to meet up with today’s guest at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo, which is a *thing* down here, you guys. I mean, like, this is a whole thing. Cowboys and country music is about as Texas as it gets. So add Lady Antebellum and Hillary Scott to the mix and boom, we had a party.

So I met up with Hillary backstage at the Stock Show and it was just delightful. We have followed each other for a few years and we actually met at the CMA three years ago for the first time. We talked about that just a little bit. So she’s just finished up the first leg of Lady A’s Vegas residency. So you’re going to hear about that super cool stuff. I just think a world of her. We have several mutual friends and this one is talented and beautiful. She is a good mom and a good friend with a good head on her shoulders.

So just to give you a little context. Hillary Scott, as I mentioned, is part of Lady Antebellum one of the most successful country groups of the 21st century, and they’ve been together for like a dozen years. It’s a great story on how they got together, which we’ll discuss. But of course Hillary has like never been a stranger to the stage. She grew up in Nashville. Both her parents were the industry in fact her mom Linda Davis did an amazing duet with Reba in the early 90s, which you will absolutely remember if you listen to country music. “Does He Love You?” That was her mom who sang with Reba. It won a Grammy as sheriff and Hillary’s dad Lang Scott was a backup vocalist a guitar player and Reba’s band. So obviously country music like runs in her blood and the minute she opens her mouth to sing you get it. I mean she is incredibly talented.

She’s going on to win her own Grammys and she has performed like tip top hits like “I Run to You,” “Need You Now,” “Just a Kiss,” “Downtown,” love “Downtown.” So many more. Lady A’s songs are all like that. I mean they just get. They get you right in the gut.

She is so so talented in country music but also her family released a gospel album a few years ago called Love Remains and if you haven’t heard her it yet. Crank up Spotify because the Scott family will literally take you to church. I’m not even kidding.

So on top of all this Hillary and her husband drummer Chris Tyrrell have three adorable girls. They’ve got a five year old and, you guys, 1 year old twins. Oh my gosh. So there the weeds of parenting littles and just doing a bang up job making it all work. I could go on and on and on about her, but I think it’s time to let her show you herself. So you’re going to. You are going to love this conversation and you are going to love her.

Thrilled to share my wonderful wonderful chat with the beautiful and fabulous Hillary Scott.

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Hillary: Welcome to my living room for the day.

Jen: Oh my gosh. Your life. I was just happy to meet you. I honestly feel like we just know each other. We just have so much crossover in our circles.

Hillary: Yes.

Jen: And followed you for years.

Thank you also for saying hi to me at the CMAs. I was a normal person, so I am like, “What is going on at this place?” I was red carpets, and that’s very outside of my element.

Hillary: Did you enjoy it though?

Jen: It was a blast.

Hillary: Yes.

Jen: You probably remember that was the CMA with Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake.

Hillary: I was jumping out of my skin.

Jen: I about lost my mind.

Hillary: Yes. Is that the first award show, like, red carpet, you’d ever walked?

Jen: Yes. Oh, but I did not walk it. Kim [Williams-Paisley] was like, “Come on, just come with me.” And I’m like, “If you think I’m walking down that red carpet . . . ”
I’m not joking.

I shimmied along the back side of the curtain. I’m like, “”No ma’am.”

Hillary: Can I tell you a crazy story?

Jen: Yeah.

Hillary: How another way our lives are parallel?

Jen: Okay.

Hillary: The first person I ever took to the Grammys? Annie Downs.

Jen: I know that story!

Hillary: So she came to the Grammys with me.

Jen: Oh, I forgot that.

Hillary: We had  In and Out after the show but we got to go together as best friends and she was the same way just wide eyed. Like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t imagine . . .  I can’t believe this is your life.”

I was still, at that point, so green and like, “I’m experiencing this with you.” It was actually the second year we went, but the first time I ever took a date, she was my date!

Jen: Are you serious?

Hillary: Yeah.

Jen: I don’t remember how you know Annie.

Hillary: So it’s a crazy story. I met Annie through a mutual friend who she grew up with in Atlanta. When she was moving to town, they connected us and were like, “You need to know Annie, y’all are going to be really great friends.”

Then we started a small group with two other of our friends, and then we’ve been so close ever since. Just watching her, her ministry and her star just rise like . . .

It’s just, I love that through her books—and I know I’m going to feel this way after spending this time together—the friend that I have in Annie, everyone gets to experience with how they read her books.

Jen: That’s a nice thing to say about her.

Hillary: And I just believe it because just the way she can communicate and connect with people, it’s just so—

Jen: Oh, that’s real.

Hillary: . . .  Amazing.

Jen: I love me some Annie Downs.

Hillary: Me too!

Jen: She’s been a good friend to me when I needed a good friend. For me, I don’t forget that. I’m like, “Okay, I wrote that down in my book. I’m gonna do the math for you.”

Hillary: Oh, one of my favorite quotes is Brené Brown. I saw an interview with her and she was like . . .  it was talking about vulnerability and how not everyone needs to be invited into your vulnerability or into the things that you don’t feel proud of about yourself or whatever.

She goes, “You need to go to your ‘bury the body’ friend.”

Jen: Oh, my gosh, I love that quote. Yes.

Hillary: I’m like, “Yes.” Annie would be one of my “bury the body” friends, for sure.

Jen: She would. She would. Oh, I love Brené.

So I have told my listeners that we’re here at the San Antonio Stock Show, which is so fun and you’ve played this a bunch of times, right?

Hillary: We have, it has been . . .  The last time we played it, I was pregnant with Eisele.

Jen: Oh, yeah.

Hillary: So almost six years. Six years. But we played it four years in a row up to then. I’ll never forget, I forgot my suitcase in my front foyer. And I woke up in San Antonio, pregnant, needing maternity clothes and not having them.

Jen: Gosh. How now?

Hillary: So our sweet runner, he got us from the airport and I was like, “Oh my gosh. I have this vivid memory of having to go buy maternity jeans at this maternity boutique a few miles away.” He goes, “Yeah, I took you.”

Jen: Oh, my!

Hillary: It’s the same guy!

Jen: Oh, no way!

Hillary: Yes. He was like, “Welcome back!”

Jen: Oh my gosh. That is hilarious. You and I probably cannot adequately describe to everybody listening what the Rodeo was like. I don’t even know how to describe it. We’ll just put pictures up on the transcript page, you guys, ’cause it’s a situation.

Hillary: We’re in a cinder block room right now.

Jen: That’s true.

Hillary: With really amazing carpet.

Jen: Utility carpet. Yes.

Hillary: And you walk through the halls and you smell dust and cowboys.

Jen: Yes, that perfect.

Hillary: And horses and cows.

Jen: What does that sign say, Sarah, that came as we were driving in?

Sarah: Pedestrians and horses.

Jen: Oh, yeah. “Please stop for pedestrians and horses.” It’s not ironic. It’s true.

Hillary: No, it is fully this life.

Jen: So this is like another day at the office for you and none of this is unfamiliar. You grew up backstage, right?

Hillary: I did, yes.

Jen: So I wonder if you could talk for just a minute about what it was like growing up in Nashville with your parents, which your parents they are really special too.

I mean, this is your birthright, essentially. You went on the road with them, surely?

Hillary: I did.

Jen: Did you go on stage?

Hillary: I did.

Jen: What was your childhood like? That’s the only one you knew, so I don’t know how you assessed it from inside of it.

Hillary: I’ve assessed it as I’ve gotten older, I think.

Jen: I bet you have.

Hillary: But I think it felt normal. I will say music was everywhere, you know? It was like breathing in our house.

I remember learning to sing harmony on the drive to family vacation and to a Doobie Brothers record. I just have so many vivid memories of music but also this kind of by osmosis music business, knowing it, just because I grew up in it.

So I have crazy memories, like, being on the bus. I was homeschooled kindergarten and first grade. We traveled on the tour bus, and then my parents got hired by Reba McEntire and they were in her band. Then my mom did the duet with her, “Does He Love You?”

So I have memories of my mom sitting me down, talking me through that music video and that, “Reba doesn’t really blow up your mommy. I’m right here, everything’s okay.”

Jen: All right.

Hillary: We should link to the video right now, ’cause it’s hilarious.

Jen: Oh my gosh, yes.

Hillary: But just seeing my mom on TV, going to award shows with my mom as a young child, and now doing that with my oldest daughter, which is just crazy.

Jen: It’s true.

Hillary: But it was a really weird way to grow up, but a really awesome way to grow up. I mean, my parents traveled a lot.

I have a really close relationship with my dad’s parents, my grandmother and my papa, who’s passed now. But they were like second parents to me because they’ve moved, they uprooted their entire world in South Carolina, moved to Nashville to take care of me because my parents just sacrificed a lot to travel. So that was hard, you know.

Jen: Of course.

Hillary: I mean, there was definitely . . .  there’s been a lot of moments of reflection in why I am the way I am that have been hard but beautiful kind of revelations as to giving my parents grace, giving myself grace, now being in the same seat and having three children that I bring with me on trips, but I also have to leave at home a lot of time.

It’s challenging. But I will say both my parents dreamed so big with faith and risk and courageousness, moved from their tiny little towns that they grew up in to pursue music in Nashville. Then they met and this beautiful love story was beginning.
So as an adult, I look back on it now, and I’m like, “Thank you for just being you.”

Jen: That’s a great thing to say.

Hillary: They were so authentically themselves, and it was hard to be away from them. But now that adult to adult, I’m like, “I see you in the fact that you love what you do, and you’re passionate about it.”

They still are, and they go on tour. My little sister who’s 14 years younger than me, she goes too and she’s about to graduate high school. So it’s very . . .  what’s the word? Unconventional upbringing.

But I will say, I never doubted for a second where I stood with them and how loved I was. I think—I’m rambling—but the other thing that I learned is how . . .  and what I’m seeing in my own girls is how special connection with others is too.

Jen: Like your band, your crew.

Hillary: Yeah, and friends or caregivers.

Jen: Oh, yeah, I see what you mean, of course.

Hillary: Honestly, watching my daughter connect on such a deep level with our very first nanny, and the couple we’ve had since, at first, what began as like, “Oh man, I’m Mom and I’m watching her,” has now become like, “She wouldn’t be who she is without her.”

Jen: Oh, I agree.

Hillary: You know? But it’s on us, I think, as working moms, to get to that place of confidence in your role and a mom that I am, but also knowing, “I can’t do it all. I don’t want the pressure on me.” By the grace of God, He gives us grace and what we need. Hopefully, they’ll remember more good parts than bad parts of their upbringing. But being thankful for the other hearts in our life that pour so much into our girls.

Jen: I love that observation. I travel for a living too. Not as much as you, but we have a ton of kids. They’re older now, but when they were little—

Hillary: So beautiful.

Jen: They’re beautiful. There’s so many of them. It’s like they live with us, all of them.

But I remember when I first realized, “I need a nanny to help keep the wheels on,” and I went through all that same, “Is this good? Is this bad?” I’ve come to the exact same conclusion that kids cannot have too many adults in their lives that love them.

Hillary: Yes.

Jen: That are speaking wisdom into their lives and offering different perspectives. We’ve run through several nannies over the course of our life and they’re all precious to us and they’ve mattered.

So I think there’s a humility that moms have to reach for it to go, “Maybe I’m not the moon and the stars, I’m just the moon. Let’s put a few more stars in their world.” It’s a good thing.

Hillary: Yes, oh that’s beautiful.

Jen: Did you pull any different levers? Because it is interesting to think this is how you grew up and now you’re doing it like cycle repeat.

Are you from pulling from your own experience? Are you doing anything different? Are you like, “This is a thing I’d like to . . . ?”

Hillary: I think I’m intentionally doing things differently, but I also more than that . . .  to be perfectly honest, I can’t even think of an example right now.

I think by the grace of God, with the way that our career has come together, I didn’t have to make the choice that my parents made to not bring me along. Because they were in—and I think about my band guys like our drummer . . .  Well, our drummer’s single—but all of our other band guys who have wives and children at home and that they’re there to take care of their family while they’re out on the road.

So I think I have understanding and empathy with their wives and their kids because I was that kid. But I’m also very grateful to the Lord for a different scenario that puts me a little bit more like with the reins to be able to make a decision to bring everybody along.

Now, I will say, it was a lot easier when it was Eisele, years zero to five.

Jen: Can only imagine.

Hillary: She was four and a half when the girls were born.

So now we just traveled to Vegas for our first stint residency for 11 days, and having all three was too much. Chris and I, my husband, we would have never known it had we not attempted it, but it was too much.

I’m in this really present space of having to grieve that it’s not going to look the same anymore.

Jen: That’s great.

Hillary: And it’s sad because I love having everybody with me all the time.

But having to put my wants down and go, but what’s best for them is a little bit of travel here and there, but the consistency of home.”

But I’m like, I’m right in the thick of—

Jen: Girl, you’re—

Hillary: . . .  really kind of hating that truth that I just discovered but accepting it.

Jen: Mm-hmm. Sorry.

Hillary: Yeah. It’s like, “But it’ll be okay.” You know?

Jen: You know it will, and who knows? I mean, when the girls are . . .  let’s say they’re seven. They may be ready to jump on the bus.

Hillary: Yes. Yes.

Jen: Like, “Let’s party in Vegas.” Just maybe not when they’re one. Maybe that feels like a lot.

Hillary: It is, yeah.

Jen: It frankly feels like a lot to have twin one-year-olds ever, like, just ever in Nebraska or just anywhere that you are. But yeah, I helicopter your life into Vegas and I’m like, “That is intense.”

Hillary: We survived. We lived to talk about it.

Jen: It’s a story.

Hillary: It is.

Jen: When you’re a song writer or writer like me, everything’s material. I’m like, “Nothing can’t be repurposed into a paragraph.”

Hillary: The song of our Vegas experience was definitely, “I Will Survive.”

Jen:  So, for lots of us, we’re growing up and we’ll hit a season or an age or a year that’s kind of monumental. This is a big shift. This year mattered. So, I hear that for you, it was 14.

Hillary: Yes. So much that so that I got it permanently in my body.

Jen: Literally have a tattoo at 14, on your wrist. Can you talk about that year, why that mattered?

Hillary: There were a lot of reasons. I think the biggest reason was that was the year I was no longer an only child because my parents got this beautiful gift and surprise of my little sister Riley. They thought shop was closed up, and it wasn’t.

Jen: Yeah, I bet they did. What were you, a freshman in high school?

Hillary: Yes.

Jen: Surprise.

Hillary: Yes. So that was just a monumental year of just being so excited to welcome her into our family and to be a sister, to have a sibling. Because, really, I’d had friends and then my cousins that I was close to, but it’s lonely as an only child.

Jen: Totally.

Hillary: And especially getting to the middle school years where you can really recognize that. So, that was huge.

Then when I started high school was when I really realized I wanted to sing, that I felt God call me to the same call that my parents had, and just knowing that I was meant to use that gifting.

By the grace of God, He introduced me to this amazing friend. Her name is Jennifer, and we’re still in touch to this day who had this big belting, like, Christina Aguilera voice. She was working on her music, and she helped me find mine.

Jen: Yeah. While you were in high school?

Hillary: Yes, and would sit with me in my bedroom and punch my diaphragm. Like, “You’re not singing from your diaphragm.” Like, honestly giving me voice lessons, almost.

So she pulled me along and then we started leading our chapel every Wednesday at my high school that I went to. That was where it all began. Then to fast forward a couple years after that, my mom got the opportunity to do a family Christmas show at Opryland, which is this resort in Nashville.

So then, I got to actually use what I’d been learning, what I had innately been given, but then was learning from my friends and other people in my life to actually go on stage and perform, and we did that for three years in a row.

Jen: And it was thrilling or was it nerve wracking? Both?

Hillary: Both.

Jen: Yeah.

Hillary: But man, I loved it.

Jen: Did you?

Hillary: From the beginning. I mean, it took me a bit to get comfortable up there, and this kind of parlays into my career now and being in Lady Antebellum and a part of a trio. I’ve always felt a lot more comfortable on stage with people.

Jen: I love that.

Hillary: I’m a very relational person. I don’t want to just . . . I like my me time. Especially now as a mom, I like it a lot more than I ever knew I would.

Jen: Yeah, of course.

Hillary: But when it comes to experiencing things—highs, lows, travel—I can appreciate the solo time, but I experience it in its fullness when I have someone or people to do life with.

That has been a huge part of who I am, even then. So sharing the stage with my family and then now to be sharing it with Charles and Dave, it’s just, I just love being able to succeed and to fail with people.

Jen: So great. I learned that later in my career. I was sort of . . .  I did solo work for so long and I thought that was the only way. I didn’t know that there was another template. I, as a speaker and a teacher, I was just always flown in by myself and I just had no idea how low that loneliness was crushing and exhausting me.

I always blamed it on the travel. I’m like, “I think I’m just maybe not geared for travel.” I mean, I would come home like a shell of a person. I would be an absolute monster for two days. And I’m like, “Maybe I just can’t travel.”

Then about four years ago, for the first time, I traveled with a team on a tour and I was like, “Wait just a minute. This is the deal. It’s so fun!” And it’s sink or swim together and everyone’s rowing the boat, and my loneliness evaporated.

Hillary: Oh, that’s amazing.

Jen: And I didn’t even know that was the culprit. I just thought it was the exhaustion. But it was that being by myself. So I am here what you are saying.

Let’s go back to the beginning of that because it’s a great story. It’s 2006, you’re 20, you’re a baby.

Hillary: Yes.

Jen: You’re out on the town, your town, and you recognize a guy across the room from his, Myspace photo, which I want to just moment of silence for Myspace.

Hillary: Yes. I know. Yes, RIP. Actually it’s still exist, but I think there’s maybe a dozen people on it.

Jen: Yes, and you are some sort of gutsy girl, ’cause you just walk across the room and talk to this guy. I would love for you to tell that story.

Hillary: Yes. That’s basically it. I mean, I’m an extremely friendly person. I wouldn’t consider myself forward. If anything, it was like, “Oh, I recognize you, and I’m a fan of your brother Josh Kelley,” who’s an artist, incredible songwriter. So he was a great brother and had Charles and his top eight friends on Myspace. So then I recognized him and I’m like, “You know what, I’m going to just go say hi.”

He loves to joke and say that I was trying to flirt with him.

Jen: Great.

Hillary: And I truly just wanted to say hi and, “I love what you do. You’re working on your career. I’m working on mine, and it’s just really cool to meet you. And I like your voice and love the songs.”

So then he kind of . . .  we struck up a conversation and he goes, “Well, my buddy, Dave, just moved out from Atlanta. He just quit his accounting job and cashed in his 401(k) and sold all his furniture. We are bunking up here in Nashville just trying to write and become—”

Jen: Literally like a country song.

Hillary: Literally. So we got together within the next couple of weeks and started writing. It was just serendipitous, like, truly. Where they were living—I’ll never forget—I walked into the room, Dave was sitting at this upright piano and Charles said, “Dave, play what we’ve been working on.”

The first song we ever wrote, it’s this song called “All We’d Ever Need.” It starts, it’s very piano driven and the chorus, it goes, “I should have been chasing you.”

So we had that part and I literally saying, “I should have been trying to prove.” Then we completed each other’s sentences, and then it was off to the races. So that song originally was supposed to be mine, just a female solo song. As we were recording it in this makeshift studio that Dave was playing every instrument and running the Pro Tools and everything, I said, “Can we make this a duet?”

Then once both of our voices and then Dave with the harmony, it was like, we all got goosies.

Jen: It was like magic.

Hillary: And we’re like, “Maybe this is something.”

Jen: Oh my gosh.

Hillary: So it just was meant to be.

Jen: I just can’t handle that.

Hillary: It’s crazy! I mean, so many people you would be shocked, “So who put you together?” Early on, when we would go on radio tour and early interviews. And I’m like, “Nobody.” We truly find if he had shown up 30 minutes later or I’d not in that moment walked up and said hi, we wouldn’t be here. You just think about like God’s plan and how one door closes and another one opens.

A little bit more of the backstory is I had just showcased for a label in town as a solo artist, female solo artist, and they’d passed on me. That was in March of 2006.

Jen: Wow, is it that bad?

Hillary: It was like, sold out show, the head of the label at that time even said, “Where are you going to dinner to celebrate?”

Jen: Really?

Hillary: I was like, “Well, family is in town, we’re probably just gonna go grab a bite to eat whatever.” The next morning they’re like, “Sorry.”

So two months later, I meet them. It was like . . .  the saying is “God shuts the door, He opens a window.” I feel like it was the opposite. I feel like God shut a window and then busted a door right open.

Jen: That’s exactly what happened.

Hillary: Because it was just . . .  and how he just takes care of us.

Jen: It’s good.

Hillary: If I truly play the tape out of what a career would be by myself, now, there are definitely things that are difficult about being in a group and the compromise and the three schedules and those dynamics.

But even on the hardest day, when I lay my head on my pillow at night, I’m just so thankful to have two of the closest people in my life to walk through all of this with and to do it with and to create with, to experience it with, because it’s so much more fun that way.

Jen: So much fun, so crazy. I mean, you just didn’t set out for that. You stumbled into sort of this ensemble cast when you were going to be a soloist. It’s just, I love when people just decide to show up for their own life just . . . in all your gifting, putting all your yeses on the table and then just hold it kind of loosely. Like, “I think this is going to look a certain way. It just may totally not.” Then having this adventurous spirit that you had to go, “Maybe we’re going to be a band.”

Hillary: “Let’s see. Why not?”

Jen: “Maybe I’m going to two or two guys, I don’t know.”

Hillary: Then add like seven more onto that, and I’m the only girl on a bus.

Jen: Yeah, that’s a lot.

Hillary: Oh my gosh.

Jen: Yeah, that’s a lot. What is it like being you’re the sole girl energy in this band of brothers?

Hillary: Well, it’s ironic that I’ve only had daughters, to me.

Jen: It is. God is blessing you.

Hillary: Yes, with more estrogen.

Jen: He’s like, “Well, you deserve some girls in your life.”

Hillary: Yes, and incredible women that we’ve brought into our crew. I mean, we have, honestly more than any other crew I know in the country music world, we have more women in our day to day operations like production, just because-

Jen: Oh, I like that.

Hillary:It’s honestly organically happened that way, and it’s awesome because it’s nice to have that balance, because it is such a man place so much of the time.

Jen: It’s a man place in a man industry, honestly. So, yeah. The girls . . .  where are the girls? They’re on your crew.

I met a lot of your girls in your team. They’re cool, they’re fabulous.

Hillary: Thank you.

Jen: They help balance all this man-ness out.

Hillary: Yes. Oh, and yeah, we all are emotional all the same time and that give each other grace and laugh and joke about it and it’s fun. It makes it like a family out here. It really is.

Jen: Yeah, that’s exactly right. It’s interesting because you and Charles and Dave, you’ve been together a dozen years, is that right?

Hillary: Yeah.

Jen: So when you look backwards, aside from some of the obvious things like selling out arenas, that’s new. That was new from the beginning, but what else is different? How have you guys evolved together, and what’s different from the beginning? What’s better than the beginning or what’s harder than the beginning or all of it? What’s happened over 12 years where you’re like, “Wow, that really arced a certain way.”

Hillary: We all communicate very differently. I think early on in our career, we got with a communications specialist—a therapist, really—that established some like, “Here’s how . . .  Here’s some tips and tools of how to best communicate.”

Well, then you start getting busier, and you’re playing, and you’re gone 250 days a year and the maintenance of working on that. You’re just in survival mode.

Jen: Totally.

Hillary: So the battles you pick or you don’t, it’s like in any relationship. It’s like sometimes you should probably have said something sooner, and then sometimes you should have probably not said anything at all. Just massaging that all at the same time with us finding our spouses and starting our families and having ebbs and flows of success, how the world defines success within our industry.

So it’s been a dance to find. Over the last year and a half, we’ve really reestablished our way of communicating.

Jen: That’s great.

Hillary: And are encouraging all of us to use our voice and use it clearly and without any fear of judgment or I’m at the place now to where . . .  and it’s hard for my personality. Because, I’m the type of person, I’m a 2.

Jen: I was just gonna say, I know Annie has made you to do the Enneagram. You’re a two?

Hillary: Yes. I am a 2 with a 3 wing.

Jen: Yeah, that’s what you are.

Hillary: I’m very much, “If you’re okay with me, I’m okay.”

Jen: Totally.

Hillary: So that can lead to super unhealthy place, and it has in certain relationships over the course of my life. So re-establishing my voice and actually stating what I need—and I’m still not great at it—but to where we are now, especially right now with one-year-old infants and just a daughter in kindergarten, there’s just some days where I can now, finally, after all this time, look at them and be like, “Guys, I’m drowning today. I just need you to know you might have to pick up a little bit of my slack.”

Jen: It’s good.

Hillary: I don’t say it every time I probably should, but there’s that safety that we’re growing into more. Charles is a very big personality. He’s a very tall human, and he’s also just a very passionate, big personality.

Dave has a tendency to be a little bit more, like, he’ll speak, he’ll talk, but it’s quieter. It’s a little bit more passive and very thought out. He’s probably thought about what he’s going to say a million times before he says it out loud.

I fall somewhere in the middle, so it’s this beautiful balance, but at the same time it makes for us some—

Jen: Tension.

Hillary:  Tension.

Jen: Of course.

Hillary: But I think the theme that I’m learning this right now in this season is, in that tension and in the ways in which we are contrasting, that’s where the magic is and it’s just how we respectfully dance through that and navigate it.

That’s the exciting part of where we are now. Is just we have a new label, we have new music that we’re working on, and there’s so much to be excited about and that we’re looking forward to. We’ve also just been given this really awesome toolkit of how to treat each other with respect and love and understanding and apply  what we’re learning in the midst of all of that, if that makes sense.

Jen: Have you talked the guys into doing the Enneagram? What are their numbers?

Hillary: Yes. So Dave is a 9, peacemaker.

Jen: Yeah, of course.

Hillary: Charles, I don’t know officially if he’s taken it, but he’s very much a 7.

Jen: Oh, fun time guy.

Hillary: But he’s very much a 3. I want him to take it and be able to like officially know, but I feel like some people, my husband for example, he’s a 6 but he really resonates with a couple of other numbers.I think, in our full health, we’re a piece of all of them. But it’s just, there’s no denying what I am, I know.

Jen: There’s just some good numbers of travel that actually, it’s every team needs a 9. So, that’s useful. I really wanted to be a 7. When I read that, I’m like, “I want to be, I’m fun. I’m such a 3.” I’m like high 3. I’m like, “Am I a little bit 7? I’m actually not.”

So, darn it. I wanted to pick my own number, but I’m married to 2 and it’s just a wonderful person to have around you. The 2s are the greatest.

Hillary: Yes. Nurturing . . .

Jen: Oh, the greatest.

Hillary: I mean, even just with him in the room for . . .  I’m like, “Don’t leave. You’re just such a . . .  calm. There’s so much calm that just comes from—

Jen: That’s what you 2s bring to your morals and I was like ambitious 3s drive everybody crazy with their big ideas but low execution? Or like, “We need you.”

Hillary: Well, that’s where I wing sort of 3. It can totally relate to that and that actually reminds me, you said something so kind about just like my jumping into to this and just chasing after it. Well, that’s honestly just how I’m wired. I go and then figure it out. Because I just trust, I truly have this probably very naive blind faith of like, “Lord, if you put this desire and in my heart and I can feel you’re pushing me, I’m just going to go.”

Jen: So great.

Hillary: That drives my husband crazy, and I’m so sorry, babe.

Jen: More like a planner, is he? Yes.

Hillary: Yes, but I feel like it’s not just erratic. There’s always a purpose. I just sometimes have to find out what it is along the way.

Jen: Same. Oh my gosh, I’ve just steer the car around a blind corner going 80. I’m like, “It’ll work out. I’m not exactly sure what’s over there, but I feel like I’m in my lane. So whatever, I’ve got people around me that will help.”

Hillary: I’m the same way.

Jen: Let’s talk about your Vegas residency. Pretty big deal. It really is.

Hillary: Thank you. Thank you.

Jen: I mean, it’s an honor. This is not common, to get this opportunity. It’s a pretty big deal. You’ve made it.

Hillary: Thank you.

Jen: So how has that been going? You’d literally just finished your first leg of the race. What was your most favorite thing and the least favorite thing about it besides having your whole family there, which as previously mentioned, no, just no.

Hillary: Just challenging.

Jen: What’d you love? What’d you learn?

Hillary: So this show was just honestly a career in the making because we took a video camera around with us. From the very beginning, we would do these silly webisodes that were all over YouTube and we’ve just brought our fans as they’ve grown with us along on our journey.

So this show, there’s three separate acts, and it takes you on through the timeline of how we started and where we are now and in a little bit of where we’re headed. So it’s the show we’ve dreamed of putting together.

Jen: Is it?

Hillary: Yes, and it’s in a theater, and it’s 2400 seats, and you can see everybody. So the connection with the crowd, it’s just . . . with amphitheaters and arenas, you can have some of those moments, but especially in amphitheaters, you’ve got people that are there tailgating at noon and we can’t . . .  in Vegas, we do 20, 25 minute acoustic set where we play new songs, we bring out a songwriter. We kind of bring Nashville to Vegas, like, the Bluebird Café in that moment.

You can’t really do that. Your mic can have one slow acoustic moment in a big setting like an amphitheater

Jen: Right, it just demands a higher energy. Yeah.

Hillary: Yeah, and so a lot of songs that we really love to perform, we can now.

Jen: Yeah. Right.

Hillary: And it’s just neat to be able to just connect and have these spontaneous moments. Charles runs out in the crowd, and I’ll never forget the first night. If he’s picking on you, he loves you. He’s that kind of guy.

Jen: Yup, yup, got plenty of them.

Hillary: So a couple people straggled in a little late at the top of the show, and he on mic is like, “Welcome, we’re so happy you’re here.” And kind of roasted them a little bit.

Jen: I like it.

Hillary: So it just makes for—

Jen: It feels kind of homey.

Hillary: Yes, and every night is different. Every night is its own thing. That sounds like such a marketing pitch, but truly, if you come to one show, it is not going to be the same show the next night.

So I feel really excited to be able to say that with full honesty that every night is different and every night is great for a different reason.

Jen: It’s so fun. Plus, you looked—whoo whoo!

Hillary: Thank you.

Jen: I was like, “Look at that dress.”

Hillary: Oh, you can borrow it anytime.

Jen: So fun. I mean, Vegas kind of demands a certain sparkle, a little razzle dazzle.

Hillary: You can’t have enough sequins, glitter.

Jen: No. You’ve got to come correct to Vegas and you did it. You looked so fantastic.

Hillary: Thank you.

Jen: One of my favorite projects that you’ve ever done was your gospel album that you put out with your family a few years ago, Love Remains.

Hillary: Oh, thank you.

Jen: It was really special and poignant and beautiful. I’m curious about that project. It seems maybe for a lot of your fans it’s kind of like a one off or it’s a different genre, but you grew up in church, you grew up around faith.

Hillary: Oh yeah.

Jen: So I’m curious from a faith standpoint, what are your kind of best practices for nurturing just your spiritual side and for keeping yourself and your family grounded and rooted in such an unusual life?

Hillary: Yeah, it’s very strange.

Jen: It’s so many moving parts and so visible and famous weird.

Hillary: Yeah, it is weird!

Jen: Yeah, it just it is.

Hillary: Because we’re human beings.

Jen: Right. It’s a weird construct. So what have you learned over the course of your really public career and how to stay faith rooted?

Hillary: That’s a really great question. I’m so thankful to have a rooted spouse. My husband idea is so disciplined in his practice every day, getting in the Word, journaling, he’s so good.

I mean, the way he sets the tone in our house in the mornings, he’s up before me. I’ll wake up, grab a coffee, he’s got worship music on. It’s just, he sets a beautiful tone to every day, and he has that discipline that I am trying to adopt more and more on a daily basis.

For me, a lot of times when I travel, I feel super connected to the Lord when I travel. Like in the air, I’m on flights, I feel like that’s when anytime I’ve got a really quiet moment where I’m trapped, so to speak, I put a podcast on, I listen to a sermon, I read the Word, read a book. So trying to make that consistent.

One area that I’m really trying to just get more conversational is in prayer. Just, like, having that ongoing conversation throughout the day with God and that relationship being so fluid.

Jen: I love that.

Hillary: That’s something that I think a lot of people struggle with.

Jen: Absolutely.

Hillary: Because as much as I’ve grown in the church and with a deep faith and with models around me to really adopt their practice, it’s hard to make that connection sometimes of like, “Oh yeah, I can talk to God exactly how I’m talking to you right now. ” And how much He yearns for that, for that interaction and for that communication.

So that’s something that I’m trying to implement myself to show my children. Truthfully, there’ve been so many times, like, what I would call “dry seasons” of questions, of struggle, and I really try to remind myself whether it’s through a journal or a note in my phone, when something happens and you know there’s no denying God is seeing you and what you’re going through and is giving you a direct message, write it down. Because there’s going to be another season where you’re like, “Where are you? Can you just give me anything?” And to have that reminder of His faithfulness and of how he showed up for you and you can’t say, “That was for me and for . . .”  He knows  our inmost being and what we need. So I try to really reflect back on those moments, on those markers, spiritual markers.

But it’s hard. I mean, it’s hard. And to know when to speak and when to stay quiet and when to like . . .  it’s a really fine discern . . .  I pray for discernment and ask for others to pray for discernment for me, because we all know. It’s a very tender place to be in a public forum all the time and to have people look to you for how you feel about things.

It’s a burden. It’s a mantle that feels really heavy. So I think, that’s where we can support each other and pray for each other as we navigate that in whatever sphere you’re in.

But yeah, and as a mom now, like—

Jen: Right. Add that layer.

Hillary: Whew. And that’s all everything—wanting to protect them, but knowing that they’re these incredible discerning souls in their own right, but I want them to know the truth. It’s just all of that.

Jen: Oh, I know. I’m so glad that it’s not upon us to just always get this all right.

I think when I was younger, I used to think a lot about faith and I grew up in such a way that it was a little more systematic. Like, “These are the things, this and this, and these are the systems and these are the practices.” I’m just never been good at any of that. So I felt like a spiritual failure for so long.

So learning that so much of my own spiritual development is fluid and my connection to God is fluid and it’s not so persnickety. It can bend and it can shift with your seasons and with what you need at the time.

Hillary: I think a big transformation happened ’cause I got really passionate about missions in Haiti in 2011.

I went in March of that year for the first time and seeing the world more than just through our Western lens, it wrecked me in the best way, and I did not care about so much of that anymore because I had seen what was real, what felt like the most tangible, real community struggle, beauty, all these feelings and all of these things that I was watching and experiencing in this incredible place that I’ve always said, if you can’t find me, I’m probably there.

I just came back and I was like, “I don’t care.”

Jen: It clears the deck.

Hillary: Then I had my daughter and then I’m like, “If she thinks I’m cool, I’m good.”

Jen: That also clears the deck, yes.

Hillary: I’m so thankful for those experiences because they truly like I don’t . . .  every now and then, I’ll read, but I can let it roll a lot more now. Not to say that there aren’t certain days that it’s like, “Oh, that really like stung,” but you don’t know me.

Jen: Absolutely.

Hillary: I just kind of have to go through what I know is true.

Jen: I think that gets easier every year.

Hillary: Yeah, maybe it’s my 30s. I’m like, “I love my 30s.”

Jen: I’ll go right to your 40s. You’ll be like, “I don’t care! Tra la la. ”

I think, I can’t wait till I’m in my 50s. I’m like, “Maybe nothing ever will stick to me then.”

Jen: One thing that I love about you is the way that you do friendship, and you’re really good at this. We have a really good friend in common, Danielle Walker. We both just had little stints on her food tour. You were Brooklyn, right?

Hillary: Oh, don’t you wanna do it everyday?

Jen: That’s what I want my life to be. I’m like, “How did you figure out this life for yourself? Because you’re just going around and cooking and eating food and get your hair blown out. I want to do what you’re doing.”

Hillary: Oh, my gosh, and healing people with your recipes.

Jen: Wasn’t that something?

Hillary: I get chill bumps just talking about it. It’s just . . .  yeah.

I think I’ve told her this so many times. I’m like, “You just need to hold on to your haunches because things are about . . .  You are successful and you have, made such a career for yourself up to this point with all of your books and what you’re doing. But you just need . . .  you just better hold on because—”

Jen: I’m serious. I’m with you. I remember sitting in that room with her at her Austin  stop and just listening to the stories pop up. I just kept reaching out, I’m touching her, I’m like, “Are you listening to this?”

I know she hears this every day, but I’m like, “Our lives are transformed. You’ve changed our lives, like you’ve rescued them from the brink of health destruction.” Anyway, she’s phenomenal.

Hillary: Yes, she sure is.

Jen: You make time for women. You make time for your friends. You love hanging out with your little sister. It feels important to me to watch that. It feels like nurturing and genuine and true and sincere.

I’m wondering if this has just always been important to you: girlfriends, women in your life, connected like that, or if you’ve learned that as you’ve gotten older? Did that emerge at all out of being an only child for so long?

Hillary: I think so.

Jen: And being like, “Gimme the connection, all the connection.”

Hillary: Yeah, and I talking about getting okay with “if I’m the moon and the stars or 11 on our kids” like you talked about, I had those stars around me, women who came alongside me when my mom couldn’t be there, who really mentored me, walked with me through all of the things: first breakups and, and going to college, and even younger.

I love that. I love the sisterhood. I love the tribe. One of my dearest friends, she was my postpartum doula with my twins. Now she’s in my life. We go to workouts together, and we prepare meals together, and just she’s overall just helping me with my wellness like body and mind.

Jen: That’s great. Well, good for you.

Hillary: Her name is Jemena, and she talks about her friends referring to them as aspens. If you look at the root system of aspens, they look like they’re these trees that are standing alone, but underneath all of the roots, they’re all intertwined together. That’s how I feel about my sisterhood.

I think with my twin girls being born, there’s been a boost of that. There have just been a lot of women who have come around us that we’ve brought into our home to help us take care of them, to help us take care of ourselves, that have been far and above people that you just call who take care of you or your children. They’ve truly become our family.

So it’s just been this resurgence of I cannot get enough of the nurturing that women give each other. We need it now more than ever, especially when you’re in new seasons of life.

It’s been all ages. It’s been my sister’s age that I’ve loved and connected with and gleaned so much from her. It’s been my mom’s age. It’s been 10 years older than my mom. It’s like all the different generations of women that we need that we can be for people, and then we also need at any point in our journey because  that is just like, that’s the good stuff.

Jen: It sure is.

Hillary: That’s the wisdom. That’s the helping you remember what it felt like to fall in love? Walking with my sister through her first serious relationship, and I’m like, “Oh man, you’re just so giggly!”

Jen: It’s cute.

Hillary: But then watching her have to end it and just all of these different things and experiences and you’re just like, “That’s why.”

Jen: Oh, man.

Hillary: That’s why we exist in community together, and everybody needs to be all shapes and sizes and ages, and it’s beautiful.

Jen: Oh, you’re singing my song. I mean, that’s the draw my bank too. I laugh all the time just joking, but I’m like, “Look, if something terrible ever happens to Brandon, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna marry my two best girlfriends. I will cook their dinners, we will live in a very well organized home—”

Hillary: Yes, Marie Kondo’d.

Jen: Yeah, they will be my wives, we’ll live happily ever after.  The community of women is something else.

Hillary: It really is.

Jen: It’s irreplaceable.

Hillary: It really is.

Jen: I always tell women that if you’re lonely, it is so worth the risk to build it. Ask, reach out, and invite community in, and you’ll just not regret it ever, ever.

Okay. Almost wrapping it up because you’ve got a show tonight, girl.

Hillary: I’m loving this.

Jen: It’s fun for me to hear you talk about your sister. My brother, actually, this is my sister-in-law sitting here, married to my brother. My brother’s 10 years younger than me, so we also have this big age gap. But it’s so fun to be grown ups, to be grown-up siblings, it’s the most fun thing.

I’m curious if it has been fun for you to watch Eisele become a big sister.

Hillary: Oh yes.

Jen: I mean, it’s so special!

Hillary: I have the funniest story. The band’s assistant, her name is Anna. And she’s new to our world and she’s so incredible and she’s great with the girls because she comes in and out of the house and helps me get packed up and choose outfits for the show tonight.

She came to the house a couple of weeks ago and Eisele said, “Anna, do you want to see something?” And she brought Anna into  our master bathroom. The girls were getting a bath she goes, “Look at these chunky little girls!”

Jen: Oh my gosh, is that what she said? That’s so cute.

Hillary: She’s so proud of them, and now that they’re . . .  because for the first several months they were preemies, and they were still kind of cooking.

Jen: Oh, they’re now chunky now, girl.

Hillary: Oh, my gosh, you can’t hold them both at once.

Jen: They got fed. No, those legs. The thigh meat, I can’t handle it.

Hillary: Oh, it is the best, and she is so proud of every roll too.

Jen: Its cute.

Hillary: Eisele, she’s just like, “She said ‘Dada!’ She said, ‘Mama!'” Everything is just such a big deal to her.

Jen: She’s such a fun, shiny age to have these babies of her life.

Hillary: And she’s so patient.

Jen: Is she? Lucky mama.

Hillary: I could cry with just how . . .  she’ll fight for our attention, Mama and Daddy’s attention. But not once has anything ever, any frustration been towards her sisters.

Jen: How sweet.

Hillary: I’m so blown away. I have so much to learn from her, and just how she just goes through her days as a big sister to those girls. I mean, it’s really, like, it’s amazing.

Jen: That’s precious. Also, precious was watching that video from the Backstreet Boys.

Hillary: Can you believe they pulled her up on stage?

Jen: I almost died.  Were you freaking out?

Hillary: Yes!

Jen: Because as a mom, when you’re watching your kid have the most spectacular moment of their young little life, you can almost can’t handle it.

Hillary: Yes, and the funniest part is she blew off our show to go see the Backstreet Boys because they were on the same night.

Jen: Right. I saw that.

Hillary: So, Chris and Eisele, they had a daddy-daughter date.

Jen: Oh, yeah, I would say that’s right.

Hillary: So then all five of the Backstreet Boys, they pull her up on stage and then they all kneel around her. Between her dad taking her to the Backstreet Boys and getting pulled up on stage and all of the kneeling and handing her a rose, I’m like, “Her future husband, good luck.”

Jen: Good luck. Good luck to you and her little face.

Okay, everybody listening, you’re going to want to go to Hillary’s Instagram account because the videos are uploaded there. This is me looking at them, grinning at my phone like, “Oh, what a memory. What a memory. I love it.”

Hillary: Just sweet, quick story is I saw they gave Eisele this rose and then after the show the confetti flew everywhere at the end of the show and she grabbed it and she wrapped this confetti’s like silver confetti around the rose.

Then she went backstage and gave it back to Brian, and she was like, “I want you to have it.” He goes, “Well, but we gave it to you as a gift.” She goes, “No, I want you to have it back.”

So he texted my husband and I, a couple of days ago, and was like, “Her gift is still alive!” And it had all the confetti around it.

Jen: That’s cute.

Hillary: I mean, they’re the sweetest.

Jen: That is the cutest thing, and also props to you that your kindergartener knows Backstreet Boys. That’s good parenting.

Hillary: It was . . .  I can’t remember. We were driving her to school, and she loves Russell Dickerson. We were out with Russell Dickerson last summer, and she fell in love with him.

I was trying to explain to her like, who is someone when I was younger that I loved their music like you love Russell. Then I played The Backstreet Boys and then she was like, “Oh!” and it just clicked with her.

Jen: That’s cute.

Hillary: Then we played in Atlanta on tour, and Brian came to the show and then she got to really make the connection, and then it was over.

Jen: Oh, yeah. The charm was set.

Hillary: Yes.

Jen: So, okay, we’re gonna wrap this up. This is a series on the podcast that is For the Love of Music. It’s been so much fun. So we’re asking all of our music guests these three questions, just like—

Hillary: Rapid fire?

Jen: Top of—yup.

Hillary: Cool.

Jen: When you’re in the mood, you want to be set right, who do you put on the record player?

Hillary: So, like, hype or . . .

Jen: Whatever you think. You just tell me.

Hillary: Okay. So on the plane today, I was listening to Ed Sheeran’s record ÷.

Jen: Yeah, why is he so good?

Hillary: When “Galway Girl” comes on, I’m like, “What?” I just go . . .  I love him. I got to see him a couple of months ago in concert, and I love him.

Jen: He’s just a talent.

Hillary: If I’m in like a pour glass of wine, it’s like just last night at the house we were playing Continuum, John Mayer‘s album or Carole King Tapestry from going, like, something that my mom showed me that just gives me all of the feels. I never tire of that one. So I gave you three.

Jen: Oh, those are great answers.

How about this: do you still have a musical bucket item on your list? Somebody you want to perform with or write with or a venue you haven’t played at or a project that you would love to tinker with?

Hillary: I would love . . .  We’ve done some EDM collaborations like with Audien, with Steve Aoki.

Jen: That’s cool.

Hillary: But a true pop collaboration would be amazing. Whether it was to co-write and write a song for an artist, the dream would be to sing on a song with Justin Timberlake that we wrote together, or Beyoncé. I love her or . . .  there’s so many. Ed Sheeran, to write with him would be amazing. That to me would be . . .  We’ve gotten pretty close, like, writing with Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic. We’ve had some moments like that, but to really fully immerse into that.

Then the other thing that I would have got so inspired after The Greatest Showman, I was like, “What an incredible challenge to write an entire soundtrack for a movie”

Jen: I lost my mind over that musical, yeah.

Hillary: And it’d be a musical like that to be like the writers of that and that would be a big, huge undertaking but I’m like—

Jen: I know, but I would love to see what you would.

Hillary: . . .  putting it out there because I really would love to try to rise to the occasion.

Jen: Did you watch all the back videos about the guys writing it? I mean, sure I couldn’t get enough.  I went down the rabbit hole so hard.

Hillary: Like the rehearsal where you can tell everybody in the cast is feeling it. It brings me to tears every time I watch it. That music, the way that it’s written, the melodies, it makes me weep. It’s just the perfect blend of melody and lyric and story, and it’s just like my head explodes.

Jen: I know, my head exploded. And the guys who wrote Dear Evan Hansen and watching them collaborate and write those songs together, I was like, “This is magic. I’m watching it in front of my eyes. You write this . . . ”

Okay, so we’re telling the universe—

Hillary: Yes, I would love to do that.

Jen: I’d love to see you write the music for an entire movie. That’s fabulous.

Hillary: It’d be fun.

Jen: Here’s the last one. You are so dear. We actually ask every guest this one at the end of every series. I don’t know if you’ve ever read Barbara Brown Taylor, but she’s just like a real feely, Episcopal writer that I love and she’s real introspective.

Anyway, she asked this question that I just love it, and this you can answer this however you want. It can be like very earnest and sincere, or just absurd. It’s your choice.

Hillary: Okay. Love it.

Jen: But here’s the question. What is saving your life right now?

Hillary: Gosh. I think being okay with . . .  finding my way to being okay that things can be beautiful and messy at the same time.

Jen: That’s a tough one.

Hillary: Every day is a new day, and it’s the attempt to be present in all of it. It’s challenging my life, but also at the same time, I think how it’s saving my life is that I’m feeling deeper.

Jen: That’s good.

Hillary: Than I’ve been able to in a really long time. And it makes the hard stuff really hard, but it makes the beauty off-the-charts amazing.

So, that would be my introspective answer. That is really as raw as it gets for me right now.

Then the other thing that’s saving my life is coffee.

Jen: Same. What would we do? I mean, what would we do?

Hillary: I’m so thankful that I can have more than one cup a day, like, when I was pregnant and nursing the babies because I was like, “This is not going to fly.” I’ve got my Venti, right here.

Jen: I mean, as we speak, it’s right in your hand, here in the middle of the afternoon.

Hillary: Yes.

Jen: You know what? You deserve it. You’ve got to do a whole show. You’ve got to power through. If I drink that much coffee right now at like 4:00 in the afternoon, I would see 4:00 AM ’cause my eyes would never shut, but you’ll be exhausted.

Hillary: I could go take a nap right now.

Jen: That’s fair.

First of all, I want to thank you for doing this.

Hillary: Oh my gosh, yes.

Jen: Thank you for letting me come in your cinder block dressing room.

Hillary: It’s so vibey.

Jen: I mean, so vibey, honestly, if you guys can’t see it.

Hillary: I don’t even have a candle burning, it’s like shame on me.

Jen: Yes. Thank you. And you’re fresh off a Vegas . . .  you’re tired and you’ve got a lot going on today. So first of all, thank you.

Also, just thank you for being who you are.

Hillary: Thank you.

Jen: It’s just, we’ve loved your music for over a decade. I mean, I could sing it all. So if you need me to come on stage tonight—

Hillary: Come on!

Jen: I just wanted you to know that I’m here. I’m not necessarily skills at music, but I know the lyrics and it’s just, your music has made a lot of us happy for a really long time.

I thank you for all your work. It’s costly.

Hillary: It is.

Jen: You’ve poured a lot of blood and a lot of sweat and a lot of tears into your career, and essentially to make people happy. And you’ve done it.

Hillary: Thank you.

Jen: So you’re a good friend.

Hillary: Thank you.

Jen: And you’re a great sister and a good daughter, a fabulous mom, a good partner to your crew. It’s just great to watch you. Thanks for being a good example in a thousand ways.

Hillary: Oh gosh, wow.

Jen: In a thousand ways.

Hillary: Thank you.

Jen: So were just cheering you on, girl.

Hillary: Thanks. Well, I feel the same way. I mean, I just look up to you and admire you so much and appreciate the friend you are.

Jen: Thank you.

Hillary: And that’s like, I’m just so excited that we finally, over this podcast, got to have our girl time.

Jen: It’s on now. It’s on.

Hillary: And now it’s over like forever.

Jen: It’s over. I knew like—

Hillary: Let’s go on a girl’s trip.

Jen: This is what’s happening and we’re going to seal it and cement it, and then we’re going to walk on new pavements.

Hillary: Yes, absolutely.

Jen: So, anyway, thank you.

Hillary: Thank you.

Jen: What a delight. I mean, just a delight. That girl, man.

So after this interview, we were in San Antonio with Brandon and my brother Drew my sister-in-law Sarah. And so we went to the rodeo, which was before the concert. Her concert last night, and it was . . . I’ve never been to a rodeo. Like, I’ve lived in Texas for over 20 years. And it’s my first time to go to a rodeo, and it was, I mean, I was on the edge of my seat. So this is all a sidebar, but I’ve just never been to a rodeo. And it was so nerve wracking. Anyway. It was so much fun. And then they gave this killer concert to a packed arena, and it was just so fun to watch them do what they do so well. So she’s so great, and go download all her music immediately.

Everything we talked about on this show is over at jenhatmaker.com under the Podcast tab. Amanda’s built out a whole page for you. We’ve got some bonus pictures, music videos, links to everything, so it’s a one stop shop for all things Hillary and Lady A. And you’re going want to check that out, for sure.

Gosh, I have loved music series. Loved it so much. Every single week just gave me immense joy, just immense joy. I hope you loved it too. And all these guests, like, just musical heroes! Honestly such fun, such fun.

Now you are going to want to come back next week because we are kicking off a brand new series called For the Love of Faith Groundbreakers. We did a Faith series last year and it was so well received so popular and so downloaded, we knew we needed to do it. So we are bringing in some of the most interesting and provocative and courageous voices in the Faith space. And every one of them is phenomenal. You’re going to love this series as much as you loved the first one, so don’t miss next week when we kick it off.

You guys, thank you for joining me week in and week out. You’re The best podcast community on earth. Have a great one, see you next time.

Narrator: That’s it for today’s show. Hope you enjoyed this chat. Be sure to subscribe to my mom’s podcast and give it a “thumbs up” rating if you like it. From the whole Hatmaker family, hope you have a great week and see you next time!