Cherry Valley

For Carter Faith, Cherry Valley is a state of mind. The quickly rising country star tells Apple Music that she first came across the would-be title of her full-length debut album while driving through Tennessee, spotting the name “Cherry Valley” on a road sign and soon adopting the name for her own fantastical dreamland. It only made sense to choose Cherry Valley to title her debut outing, a delightful and often surprising collection from a young artist with a truly kaleidoscopic vision. “I write a lot of different styles of songs,” Faith says. “I have a lot of different music that I like to listen to, so I guess a lot of different influences, too, but I really could not just go down one narrow lane for the album in my brain, at least. And so I was like, ‘Well, I guess I’m the through line. My story is the through line.’” Cherry Valley opens with its cinematic title track, which isn’t so much a literal origin story as it is a spiritual one, with Faith imagining a “crystal sunrise on the lake” as strings swell behind her. “Sex, Drugs, & Country Music” ups the twang with traditional production including pedal steel and Western guitar, and vocals from Faith that recall Lee Ann Womack and Patsy Cline. Other highlights are the winking two-stepper “Bar Star” (the music video for that one stars none other than Billy Bob Thornton) and “Betty,” a clever, wordplay-heavy barn burner about a femme fatale, à la “Jolene.” Below, Faith shares insight into several key tracks. “Cherry Valley” “Cherry Valley is a place I drove through in Tennessee and it was sticky in my brain. I wrote the name down, and I always, when they say, ‘Go to your happy place,’ I kept picturing this place that I was making up in my brain and I just called it ‘Cherry Valley.’ So that’s what it is to me. It’s just like a dreamland.” “Sex, Drugs, & Country Music” “‘Sex, Drugs, & Country Music,’ we took 30 minutes to write. Because it was just like, ‘I should just put it out there, for better or for worse.’ I tell my dad that song’s a metaphor for sure, but it’s very true.” “Bar Star” “We shot [the music video] at Magnolia’s Motor Lounge in Texas, which is a little bar that I love and that [Billy Bob Thornton] loves. We have a mutual friend who plays music there… Somehow we both had the same day open. I brought my whole team down. My mom came—she wanted to meet him—and he brought all the Landman people. It was just fun. We just had a good time. And it was cool seeing him in action, too.” “Betty” “I had that idea, but I thought it might’ve been dumb. So I was like, ‘Honestly, I met a chihuahua at a truck stop named Betty, and she had her nails painted.’ I was like, ‘If that dog was a woman, she would steal my man for sure.’ I was writing little poems about it. I just couldn’t stop thinking about this damn chihuahua. And I went out to California with Tofer [Brown] and we were going to write with Shane [McAnally], and I was like, ‘Is this idea dumb, Tofer? Tell me. Betty, bet he. Is that too songwriter-y?’ And he was like, ‘No. Shane, of all people, will crush that.’ And I brought the idea, and then Shane wrote the song, basically.” “Six String” “We wrote that song and the lyrics were inspired by The Beatles, but the sonics were definitely inspired by ’50s country. I love the drama.” “Burn My Memory” “I changed a lot of the words so that the person knew it was about them. There were different little things in it that were still very specific, but more like in the room that sounded good. And then as I was doing the vocals for it, I was pissed off, and I was like, I’m changing this. He’s going to know it’s about him.” “Sails” “Lauren Hungate brought that idea in, because she had just had a little baby boy, and she said she was watching him sleep when that idea came. When she brought that in, I was thinking of my younger self, but then when we wrote it, it makes me think of my little brother. And I know Tofer, it makes him think of his little nephew. In the moment, I’m always thinking of my feelings and myself. And then it’s funny how when I’m finally done with the song and I got my feelings out of it, it attaches to someone else.”