Thursday, Jan 26, 2006

Knight Ridder Newspapers

You never know what's going to happen when you sign to a major label: You could languish in obscurity as you did before, or you could turn into Miranda Lambert.

Lambert hasn't quite hit household-name status, but the gritty country singer's getting there: Her major-label debut, "Kerosene," has been a steady seller since its release this year, and after her appearance on the recent CMA Awards (in which the stage was set on fire, literally), it's not like anyone's gonna forget her anytime soon.

We recently stole a few minutes of the 22-year-old singer's time:
Question: I haven't talked to you since the record came out and all these great things have happened to you. So how's it feel to have done so well?

Answer: It's been awesome. The record just went gold, so I got my first gold plaque - the best Christmas present I could ask for. I went on tour with Keith Urban. (This year) I'm on tour with George Strait.

It's going so well that it's hard for me to imagine that it's happening this easily.

Q: Wait. You're on tour with George Strait?

A: Yes, THE George Strait, the king of country music. There's no other tour as big as this. It's me, him and Tracy Lawrence.

(The tour will stop at Albany's Pepsi Arena Thursday, Jan. 26.)

Q: You put on quite a show at the CMAs, with the pyro and all.

A: My manager came up with setting the stage on fire. I'm a new artist, and people are going to forget about you if you don't make a good impression. I think I did. You could feel the heat 30 rows back. Everybody has ballads out now, and so that's what everybody was playing, except me and Big & Rich. Everybody seemed laid-back, then we set the stage on fire and woke up everybody.

Q: When you first started out, where'd you play?

A: Well, there wasn't anywhere to play in East Texas, so I played Dallas a lot. My first gig was at a dive bar in Longview (Texas) called the Rio. I had the house gig there for a while - three nights a week, four hours a night. It was tough. But it taught me how to play bars and interact with audiences. I did bars every weekend for two years before I got on "Nashville Star."

Q: That's right - you were on that show, sort of a country version of "American Idol."

A: Yeah, I came in third. Buddy Jewell came in first, John Arthur Martinez came in second.

Q: How funny that you're doing better than either of them.

A: Well, I didn't want to win first place. I know a lot of people say that after they lose, but I got on there to try to get a publishing deal for my writing, not a record deal. I wasn't ready to win. I was only 19. I'm a little older now, and I feel like if I would have won, it would not have turned out this way.