\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOh, come on,\u201d Brandi Carlile<\/a> says, motioning me into a booth and pointing to three pizzas on the table between her and her wife, Catherine. \u201cYou can\u2019t not have a slice. It\u2019s so good.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s midafternoon in Nashville at the Urban Cowboy Bed and Breakfast, where Carlile is hosting a listening party for her new album, Returning to Myself<\/em>, and though I just ate lunch, it\u2019s hard to resist grabbing a plate: when Carlile tells you to eat the pizza, you eat the pizza (and she is right). In a few hours, this room will be filled with friends and collaborators like SistaStrings, Brandy Clark and, of course, her bandmates, Phil and Tim Hanseroth, who whoop and cheer while the record plays. By nightfall, she\u2019ll be a few cocktails deep into a karaoke set at lesbian bar the Lipstick Lounge, high-fiving the crowd and belting out the Chicks. Lately, she\u2019s been feeling a little like a kid again, \u201cjust sitting in my bedroom, wishing I could get a ride to Seattle from the trailer park.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tCarlile has, for the past five years, been in a constant state of yes. She has made records with her idols, Elton John<\/a> and Joni Mitchell<\/a>, produced albums by Clark, Lucius, and Tanya Tucker, and been a part of country supergroup the Highwomen<\/a>, not to mention running multiple annual festivals and a charitable foundation. But when she stepped off the Hollywood Bowl stage after organizing and performing at Mitchell\u2019s two-night Joni Jam stad last year, she was just plain exhausted.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cEverybody came out of Covid with all this toxic energy, including myself,\u201d Carlile says. She\u2019s wearing a striped blazer over black trousers, her hair with fresh streaks of blonde. \u201cI just wanted to explode onto the scene and accomplish and collaborate and be everywhere and do everything. And I think there\u2019s been a little fallout from that. People pushed themselves to the limits of their mental health, in terms of what they were willing to do to make up for lost time.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tCarlile hadn\u2019t been thinking about making a new record when she agreed to fly to New York and meet with Aaron Dessner<\/a>, the day after she finished that last Joni Jam. She had a general idea that, when she got around to it, she\u2019d make an album with Andrew Watt, producer of her John project, Who Believes in Angels<\/em>. But when she found herself alone in Dessner\u2019s barn, hungover, lonely, and even a little bit panicked, the silence set it. No applause, no entourage. Who was she without a stage filled with collaborators? And was that even a question she wanted to ask?<\/p>\n