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There are really only two ways to approach an all-you-can-eat buffet.
You can either stick with like-for-like foods and load up on your favourite dishes one at a time, working your way slowly through the various cuisines on offer. Or... you can pile your plate up with as many different things as you can feasibly fit on it and find out exactly what jam roly-polys taste like when you pair them with Kung Pao chicken and cheesy chips.
When it comes to making music, rising Cali-bred country star Tanner Adell has adopted the latter approach to getting the most out of an all-you-can-eat buffet experience. Piling her sound high with everything she loves, it’s like a taste explosion going off in the middle of country music right now.
Southern California was where she spent her school years – she grew up acting and modelling and she’s been in movies since she was six years old. But she spent her summers in Wyoming, learning how to drive a four-wheeler at eight and a car at 10, living what she calls a “free-spirited” childhood in the country, fixing fences with her grandpa, wearing cowboy boots and pink rhinestone jeans.
Nowadays she's letting these two worlds collide in her music. Genre never really entered her mind growing up, and artists like Josh Turner and Johnny Cash were just as big of a deal to her as Beyoncé was as she danced in her garage to Keith Urban and Shania Twain.
"I was listening to country music before I knew what country music was,” she says. “When you’re little, you don’t think about what a genre of music is."
Mixing a love for 90s and early 2000s country with trappy hip-hop beats, Tanner Adell has been perfecting her recipe for pop country ever since she served up her early singles ‘Country Girl Commandments’ and ‘Honky Tonk Heartbreak’. Now with her new country mixtape, Buckle Bunny, out in the world, she’s staying true to her roots with a sound that’s as delectable and eclectic as her influences.
“I’m like Grace Kelly in a cowboy hat,” Tanner Adell announces on ‘See You in Church’, one of the most exciting country singles to come out this year. With her sultry country twang set to a breezy dancehall beat, it sounds like Miranda Lambert working with Chaka Demus & Pliers.
On ‘I Hate Texas’ she lays out all the reasons she’s turning her back on the Lone Star State following a bitter break-up, while ‘Throw It Back’ draws some important life lessons from some simple fatherly fishing advice.
‘Bake It’ and ‘Trailer Park Barbie’ are bouncing club ready bangers that will get your boots scootin’ and your finger guns clicking as you sass out lines like “Brown sugar caramel / Ding ding Patti LaBelle / Sweet potato pussy pie / Set the timer”.
The title track flips the historically derogatory term for a rodeo groupie into an anti-slut shaming, party popping summer anthem. If Beyoncé does ever get around to making that country album she’s been hinting at, she’s going to find Tanner Adell has already beaten her to it.
Surly but soft, girly but gritty, fierce and absolutely fucking fabulous, Tanner Adell is a post-genre country pop star ransacking the dressing up box and trying on everything all at once in a flurry of fantastic outfits and feisty one-liners.
Holler sat down with her to talk about her upbringing, her influences and what’s coming up next for her.
Where are you from and how did that influence you?
I grew up in Manhattan Beach, California, and my summers were spent in Star Valley Wyoming. I am exactly half glam and half absolute country and you can tell in my music!
What did you grow up listening to?
I listened to everything! My dad is a huge jazz buff, so I really grew up appreciating the women of jazz music.
Do you remember the first song you wrote?
I started writing music super young, so I can’t say I remember the first one, but I do know that I was writing even more then than I am now, and was making videos of my original songs!
How would you describe your sound?
Country hip-hop with a classic pop diva vocal. although people seem to think that my music an R&B fusion, I really don’t classify it as R&B at all.
What can you tell us about the Buckle Bunny mixtape?
The Buckle Bunny mixtape has eight songs on it with three brand new tracks and the other five being tracks I released as singles this year.
Where’s the most unexpected place music has taken you?
Kennett Wisconsin, is by far the most unexpected place I’ve ever been! I played the main stage at the festival there and ate my weight in deep fried cheese curds.
Where do you get your inspiration for writing songs from?
I feel like I’ve lived 1 million lives already so I tend to just pull from my personal experience and sometimes old memories will just pop up and will inspire a song!!
If you weren’t doing this what would you be doing?
I would 1000% be a dog groomer.
If you could time travel back to any time when would you travel back to?
I would love to see some dinosaurs tbh.
Which person from history would you most like to meet?
Any classical composer! Bach or Chopin would be ideal
What would be your Spice Girls style nickname?
Diamond Spice. I looooove diamonds and anything that glitters.
Do you have any hidden talents?
I can juggle but i don’t know if that’s a talent.
What’s next for you?
I’m so excited to be filming the music video for Buckle Bunny and I just want everyone who has been waiting for Buckle Bunny to know that its coming and they are going to absolutely love it!!
Buckle Bunny is out now on Columbia Records
