Mickey Guyton Brings the Joy in New Album: 'This Is Who I've Always Been' (Exclusive)
Mickey Guyton may have earned her stardom as a country artist with a social conscience, but these days, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter says, she’s all about bringing the joy.
“That’s what I want people to feel,” Guyton, 41, tells PEOPLE, and if you listen to her recently released sophomore album, House on Fire, you know she means it.
Its 12 tracks overflow with happy vibes and songs about love, love and more love. Even the songs about crazy love (the album’s title song) and scary love (the actual name of the song) can’t help but bring a smile when swathed in Guyton’s soaring vocals and dance-worthy beats. One of the tracks is simply 15 seconds of pure, unadulterated bliss: the infant gurgles of Guyton’s adorable son, Grayson, now 3½.
Is there anything else that could possibly bring her even more joy?
Guyton doesn’t have to think hard: “I can’t hide who I am. I’m a Black woman and there’s a possibility of a Black and Indian woman being president. How am I not excited about that?”
Indeed, who wouldn’t want this joy for the artist who, just four years ago, released “What Are You Gonna Tell Her?,” a searing anthem about gender inequality that questioned whether young girls could even allow themselves to aspire to the White House?
“When I wrote that song,” says Guyton, “I never thought it would happen, to be honest. I just didn’t think that that was a possibility, that we would ever see a female president.”
No doubt Mickey Guyton is many things — artist, wife, mother, and purveyor of joy. But she also has worked long and hard to be all she was meant to be, so don’t think she’s ever going to forsake her advocacy role, especially in the often-hidebound world of country music.
First signed to her label in 2011, Guyton struggled for nine long years to find her voice as a Black female country artist in a white male-dominated genre before breaking through with her debut album, Remember Her Name. The music, nominated for a Grammy for best country album in 2021, showcased Guyton’s overall gifts as a singer-songwriter. But in addressing diversity themes in songs like “What Are You Gonna Tell Her?,” “All American” and “Black Like Me,” it also established her as an artist of significance.
Ever since, there’s been no going back for Guyton — not that she has regrets. Yet she did pay a price, enduring a backlash for speaking out that put a strain on her mental health. She has since weathered that storm, and if anything, the new album is a testimony to her defiance: Nothing is going to steal her joy.
“This is actually who I’ve always been as an artist,” she says.
The joy she claims has radiated especially from her home life. “My son gives me so much joy and a reason for living,” she says. “Not that I didn’t have a reason to live before, but a reason to live so well and to love the things around me, because we’re only here for a short amount of time.”
Her husband of seven years, attorney Grant Savoy, also is a prime reason for her well-being. “He has given me that safety,” she says. “‘He’s my security blanket’ is what I tell people. He understands. He knows everything about me — the good, the bad, the horrible. He knows everything, and he still chooses to love me.”
Her husband and son are clearly Guyton’s main sources of inspiration for the new music. Title song “House on Fire,” she explains, was conceived as she reflected on her husband’s response to her mental health crisis.
“It takes a very special person to love me,” says Guyton. “And that’s what that song is saying: Can you still love that person? Because it’s easy to love someone when things are good, but the true testament is, can you love someone when things are bad? That’s what true love is about. That’s what life is about.”
Guyton co-wrote “Scary Love” after Grayson suffered a life-threatening bout with sepsis that brought him to an emergency room when he was only 9 months old.
“Seeing my son like that was really horrific,” she recalls. “I’ve never felt that type of agony in my life. I knew I loved him beyond anything that I’ve ever loved in life, but I didn’t really understand the slippery slope. You’re so out of control.”
Faced with the fragility of life, she says, has made her understand that parenthood “is the most amazing, terrible thing you could ever do. It gives you such purpose, and you get to see your heart beating outside of your body. But the worry and the stress and the anxiety that anything could happen at any time is awful.” She offers a wry laugh. “It’s so bad. And he’s not driving yet!”
Most of the other songs on the album have evolved out of far more lighthearted topics. The album’s openers “My Side of the Country” and “Make It Me,” for instance, are simply effervescent jams that celebrate life and love. Guyton enlisted one of country’s finest merrymakers, Tyler Hubbard, to join her in the writing room, along with Corey Crowder, for both.
The two artists share a label, Guyton explains, and Hubbard “loved that I was fighting for diversity and inclusion, and he just wanted to write with me. I enjoy writing with him so much. We just connected instantly.”
Hubbard also contributed “Nothing Compares to You,” the only song on the album that Guyton didn’t co-write; released as a single, it’s hit multi-million streaming numbers. Along with Bebe Rexha and Jordan Schmidt, Hubbard wrote the torcher as a duet, then he decided it wasn’t for him, Guyton explains. Their label head suggested Guyton, and she invited Kane Brown to be her duet partner.
“I sent it to him, and he loved it,” she says.
The one thing you won’t find on the album is any overt social commentary — not that Guyton shies away from it in life. But musically, “I’ve said everything that I’ve needed to say,” she says, taking into account the potent content of her debut album. “What else is there for me to say? It’s time for me to continue on being an artist. That’s who I am. I’m an artist.”
She still considers herself an “outlaw” in country, and she is at peace with that label. “I definitely don’t fit the mold,” she says. “I’m still an outsider, but I’ve found my own place. I’ve made my own table.”
And finally, Nashville is literally home now. After years of living in Los Angeles, where Savoy’s career was based, the couple has recently relocated to Music City, and Savoy is able to work remotely. Guyton’s presence allows her to be even more hands-on as a source of support for other Nashville artists who are bringing diversity to the genre.
“Anybody that needs to call me, I’m always there,” she says. “We still have a long way to go, and my fear is, if people start feeling discouraged, if people don’t feel seen, they’ll leave and we’ll be right back to square one. How can I not be an encourager and a supporter after I spent four years beating it into people’s heads that let’s be inclusive in this genre? That would be completely contradictory and absolutely horrible if I did that.”
Guyton is now out on her first headlining tour, which means she’s finally experiencing the full fruits of her labor: the joy of performing before audiences who are, first and foremost, her fans.
“Usually, I’m in rooms where I’m trying to gain fans or get people to listen to me,” she says. “It just hits differently when you’re singing for your people. The crowds have been very beautiful and diverse. It’s been awesome.”
Guyton says she still has more dreams — putting out more music, winning a Grammy, maybe having a TV talk show. She also longs to have another baby. In the meantime, high-profile opportunities keep coming her way that showcase her role in country, most recently an invitation to perform at the Democratic National Convention.
She opened the event in August with “All American,” setting the tone the first night with the song’s unifying theme. The emotion of the experience still lingers.
“It made me really proud to be an American,” Guyton says, “and I hadn’t felt that in a long time. Everybody was so patriotic. They were waving their flags, and I feel like this is the America that we all knew. It felt like everybody was united. It was a beautiful moment.”
Long ago, in her finding-her-voice years, she might have chewed over whether to perform at such a high-profile partisan event. But those second-guessing days are long gone.
“I’ve just gotta be who I am,” says Guyton — and she says it as someone who’s discovered the joy in that.
'A country music renaissance': Mickey Guyton on her new album and the state of the industry
The nation is finally beginning to see that “country music is for everyone,” and Mickey Guyton loves it.
Guyton, 41, has been a trailblazer in country music for years: In 2021, she became the first Black woman to co-host the Academy of Country Music Awards and the first Black woman solo artist to be nominated for a Grammy in a country music category. Now, with artists like Beyoncé and Shaboozey making strides in the predominantly white industry, Guyton said she’s happy to see the mainstream shift.
“There’s a country music renaissance happening,” Guyton said in an interview, referring to her recent partnership with Anthropologie on a Western-themed pop-up in New York City.
“It’s infectious and everybody is wanting to be a part of it. It’s everybody’s music,” Guyton said. “Country music is a very universal music about life, and we’re all living, right? We all have different stories that nobody knows anything about, and people are finally writing about that and I think that’s really great.”
Guyton is one of the few country artists who have been vocal about Blackness and identity in their music; she released her poignant and popular track “Black Like Me” during the George Floyd protests of 2020.
She’s continuing this pattern of authenticity and bravery with her second studio album, “House on Fire,” released last week.
The new album has themes centering on family, hometown culture and Guyton’s personal life, set to dance-pop beats. “House on Fire” is Guyton’s first studio album since 2021’s “Remember Her Name,” a groundbreaking project that tackled racism and sexism. “The song, and album,” she told CMT at the time, “are dedicated to [Breonna Taylor] and giving her the justice that she deserves.”
With “House on Fire” out in the world, a new music video, and a tour that kicked off last week, Guyton said she’s ready for a new adventure in country music. She called the new album a love letter to her husband, Grant Savoy, along with reflections on becoming a mother — the couple welcomed their first child, Grayson Clark, in 2021.
“It’s me becoming free,” she said of the new project. “I grew up in the Bible Belt of America, so very conservative, and I didn’t always feel like I could live completely myself,” she said, comparing her upbringing in Arlington, Texas, to Savoy’s “wild child” California childhood.
“It’s the safety of home. Your home life is where you are yourself the most, and that’s what this album is. I hope people can take away that it’s OK to be who you are, and someone’s going to love you for that.”
And Guyton has certainly earned the rest and freedom that recent years have brought her. She has cemented herself as one of country music’s most important voices, and one who has consistently challenged the genre on matters of gender equality and race — and the larger music world has noticed.
Fellow Texan Beyoncé sent Guyton flowers after the release of “Cowboy Carter” earlier this year, thanking her for opening doors for Black women in country. Men, particularly white men, have long dominated the country music industry, and a 2021 study from musicologist Jada Watson found that only 1% of the more than 400 artists signed to the top three Nashville country music labels were Black, and just 3.2% were people of color.
With all the recent appreciation of Black artists in country music, Guyton said she was “disappointed” to see Beyoncé virtually shut out of CMA Award nominations. News of the singer’s snub made headlines, especially since Beyoncé has spoken about feeling unwelcome in the genre. Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” will compete for best country album at the Grammys, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Country music is a good ol’ boys town. It’s a community that they hold very dear to their community,” Guyton said.
“But there’s one thing you can’t stop: It’s the amount of people that are singing country music. I hope it’s not just a fad. I hope it doesn’t just go away. Even after this happened with the CMAs, I hope it doesn’t discourage other artists of color from pursuing country music.”
For Guyton, the recent years of her career have been about creating the music she wants and refusing to shy away from race and social issues. Guyton recently performed her 2021 song “All American” at the opening night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention and “God Bless America” at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships just weeks later.
“For a long time, the word ‘patriot’ was supposed to mean one thing,” she told NBC News. “When I got to sing at the DNC, I looked out at people from all different nationalities standing up, waving their flags. I want to be proud to wave my flag, too. It’s my flag too, is what it felt like.”
