"The Grass Was Always Greener": Abbey Cone Pulls Back The Curtain On Her Journey to Her Debut Album

The saying goes that you have your entire life to make your debut album. No pressure, right?

You have unlimited time to compile a collection of songs that capture your essence as an artist, serving as your introduction to listeners and potential fans everywhere, and often, the first chapter of whatever lies ahead.

In Nashville and the music industry at large, so much pressure is put on an artist's debut project, but what if that first chapter isn't what you wanted to say but rather what you needed to say?

Born out of two life altering breakups – one professional and the other personal – Abbey Cone's long-awaited debut album, Greener, isn't the record that she ever envisioned for herself, but it's the story that she needed to share.

Moving to Nashville from Argyle, Texas, a 16-year-old Cone had a publishing deal and a dream that would eventually lead her to signing with Big Machine Label Group. Armed with a shiny new record deal and what felt like the final piece of the artist puzzle finally in place, the sky was the limit... until it wasn't.

Despite signing with the label right around the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Cone's debut EP, Hate Me, didn't arrive until April 2022 and marked the only music released under that deal.

“I had that EP completely made before I even got my record deal,” Cone shares with Holler. “My worst nightmare happened, which is I got shelved, essentially.

“That music was three years old at the time, so it's not that I didn't love it, I just wanted to move on and go back into the studio and cut other songs, but they just wouldn't continue the conversation with me about putting music out." She explains, "I was just so miserable and I was completely creatively stifled.”

Eventually walking away from her label deal and, soon after, her management team of five years, Cone headed into the studio as an independent artist. “It was 2023 and I was playing Stagecoach and CMA Fest for the first time, but I hadn't released music in almost a year. I had written 'If You Were A Song' by that time, so I cut some music,” she recalls. “I decided to do it myself.”

At the same time, her personal life was rocked. Her five-and-a-half year relationship came to an end, directly impacting the blueprint of what would become Greener.

“This isn't how I thought my first album would come together. It truly is like a quilt,” Cone offers. “It's not the album that I thought I was gonna make. Everything that I thought it would be like – what I thought having my first record deal would be like, what I thought my first serious relationship would feel like – wasn’t how I expected it would be at all."

"It's 10 songs that made sense to put out because of what I went through over the last nine months," she adds simply. "If I don't put it out, then I feel like I can't move on from this period of my life. If I don't do anything with the songs, then the energy just kind of sits there and stays in my life."

While it may be an album made out of necessity, and one crafted more for its creator than anyone else, Greener is so much more than just "10 songs."

Ranging from the idyllic, rose-tinted glow of 'If You Were A Song' to the shattering 'cry that it happened', to a fresh start on 'i kissed my friend last night' and the ultimate peaceful acceptance in its title track, Greener is pieced together like a patchwork of grief, in all its beauty and pain.

At its center sits a woman poised to flip the page and begin writing her next sprawling chapter, both as an artist and as a girl simply trying to figure it out one step at a time. Now in a healthy relationship, finding love again and putting a final pin in the last five years, Cone has learned first hand that the grass really is greener on the other side of heartbreak

"As a songwriter, it's so nice when you find the perfect word for what you're feeling, and ‘Greener’ is the perfect song for what I was feeling," Cone reflects with a smile. "Grieving someone while also falling in love with someone else has been so weird, and doing it at the same time has been so odd.

"'Greener' is just so accurate."

Abbey Cone goes on to discuss her journey as an independent artist, collaborating with John Osborne & Joy Oladokun, what's in store for 2025 and more.

"The saddest part about [being signed to a label and being shelved], which happens to so many artists, is the artist comes out of it feeling like they're the problem. I felt like I was the problem the entire time, like I wasn't doing enough. I wasn't posting enough on TikTok. My songs weren't good enough.

Making music as an independent artist and as a baby artist is hard, because I would love to be able to go into a studio and have all these musicians, but that's just not where I'm at. I had to piece it together. Before my breakup, it was gonna be completely different songs and then after, it was like, 'Well, I'd rather die than put out love songs right now.'

I put 'If You Were A Song' on it because it feels like that's where this whole independent journey started, but it's not a concept album. I hope one day I get the time and the luxury of being in album mode, but I'm doing everything all at the same time. I'm writing, I'm making music and I'm touring. As baby artists, we don't get the luxury of taking three weeks off to write. I can't really turn down opportunities when I get them right now.

"I think for the longest time, I wanted to be Carrie Underwood, like all the girls that love country music and watch American Idol. I wanted to be on country radio and I wanted to open for Keith Urban and I wanted to win a CMA Award. It would still be so cool if that happened, but if I end up being a writer for other artists, then that's great, too."

"I do think there is merit to country music, from a production standpoint, but ultimately, I think if people could open their minds a bit, a country song is more about the structure of how it's written and the story, because country songs tell stories, historically.

That's very popular right now, everyone is specific in their songs. Pop songs are telling stories right now, like Grace Abrams, Phoebe Bridgers, people like that are. Big pop anthems don't really say anything, in the best way possible, but country songs have always been saying things.

There's really not one of my songs that doesn't say something. I don't really write big, generic, vague songs. I've been here for 10 years. I've never even gone to LA to write and I wouldn't be opposed to it, but country music is deeply rooted in my life. It's not even about what I think country is about. I don't need to argue with people about whether I'm country or not.

I think country's more rooted in the story and the writing than the production."

"Joy and I have the same agent, and I asked if my agent could send it to her. Joy didn't respond for a while and then we ran into each other at a CMT event. She was like, 'Hey, I owe you a song,' then she put her vocal on it in like two days. There's a solo version of it, and she made it so much cooler.

Then, with John, I know his sister Natalie and I've met them before. Since the record deal, I'll try to make anything happen. I don't care if it doesn't happen, but why not try? 

'I Hate Springsteen' is kind of a short song and it had a really long outro, which I really liked and didn't want to cut. I just asked, 'What if John Osborne played on this?' So I sent the song to him and he said, 'Yeah.' He didn't ask for any payment or anything."

"I'm already working on another record that I have no plans for yet. I don't know what to do with it. I'm sure time will tell me, but it's my favorite thing I've ever done. I hope to have half of another record made, so I hope to figure out how to finish that and create a world for that to exist in.

I feel like I have this creative energy that I'm looking forward to putting toward that. That's why I needed to get this album out now so that I can start the next chapter. The goal is to move on to another chapter."

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