Interview: Lola Kirke on signing to Third Man and loving all kinds of country music

It's impossible for a Lola Kirke song to annoy you — even if she tried.

We say this for two reasons. First of all, the musician and actress' upcoming album – “Lady For Sale,” her debut on Jack White’s Third Man Records – is an inspired winner, pairing a honest love for classic country songcraft with a unique, unflinching embrace of vintage synthesizers and other ‘80s-rooted production choices.

But that statement is also rooted in fact, strangely enough. The album opens with the standout “Broken Families,” a duet with indie-folk favorite Courtney Marie Andrews. When the two sat down to write the song – intending to pitch it to a country artist – Kirke had an idea.

“Let's pick the most annoying melody to put this to,” she recalls saying with a laugh.

In that regard, they failed miserably. We’d bet you won’t mind at all if “Broken Families’” time-tested country tune takes up residence in your head. The album treads familiar territory, but with a distinct sonic stamp – one that Kirke found, in part, by being an open book about her influences.

“’It’s gonna be like Stevie Nicks meets ‘80s Dolly Parton,’” she remembers telling her manager. The pitch bewildered several people in her orbit – but they’ve only confessed that to her after being won over by the results.

The album’s first single, “Better Than Any Drug” might be Kirke’s boldest move. The song wraps musical nods to Madonna and Prince in a blanket of steel guitars – while Kirke, in a rich, expressive voice, details how a love interest is more compelling than any illicit substance you can name (and she names quite a few).

That’s all the public has heard so far ahead of “Lady For Sale’s” April 29 release, but Nashville fans can get a fuller picture this Saturday when Kirke plays a concert at Third Man’s “Blue Room” venue. The show starts at 8 p.m., and tickets are $15 in advance, $17 day of show.

Kirke has also just announced that Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins will be her special guests on Saturday night.

That news came after her interview with The Tennessean, but Kirke still had plenty to share. Don't assume her mission to write an "annoying" melody means she isn't into modern, mainstream country — that couldn't be further from the truth.

She also discussed the classic singers she's discovered, why she's happy to find a home at Third Man and the many, many acting projects on the horizon.

Inspiration from athletes: "This is really only my second time playing in Nashville, so I'm kind of nervous. But I've been reading all these articles...The New York Times published this big piece about how Olympians manage fear. And I was like, 'Okay, if they can manage fear about going down the world's craziest mountain, I can play the Blue Room.'"

What first drew her to country music? The "drama": "It's like the original podcast (laughs). If you turn on older country music, it's like a story...I started getting into country when I saw a kind of intersection between performance, acting and playing music. Country music gives the illusion of being quite easy to play, because it's just three chords and the truth. And when you're just picking up the guitar, that sounds quite appealing.

Then, when Austin Jenkins — who produced this record — and I started talking about this record, he really showed me a lot of country that I had overlooked, or just that really hadn't come into my consciousness as somebody who grew up in New York City. I mean, I think in New York, I remember hearing about Garth Brooks and Chris Gaines, and the Shania crossover stuff. It was very specific like that. But a lot of the other country music that now I really love was not really on my radar until Austin and I started talking about this record. At first it was Gary Stewart, who's less kind of represented in this aesthetic, but then Pam Tillis, Martina McBride, Jo Dee Messina and some earlier Shania/Mutt Lange stuff. That became really exciting. And then Leona Williams, Janie Fricke and these amazing honky tonk singers. I just got really excited about a lot of that music, and wanted to explore it and incorporate it."

On signing with Third Man: "Of all the independent labels that I have known about since I was a kid, that's really the big one to me. I had thought when we made the record, 'This feels like it would be such a good fit over at Third Man.' Because I know that they have so much investment in making things that sound nostalgic, but also with a kind of more modern twist on it. I hoped that that would work out, and I'm so glad it did."

Her new music "feels so much more like me": “The music I had been making prior to this, I look back on it, and it feels like it kind of lacked a lot of signature, and something really personal. I mean, I'm not the happiest person in the world — but I enjoy joy (laughs). It's so kind of dour. I think Austin just kind of helped bring to life what was already there, which is a warmth, a sense of fun, and obscure references that I'm already always thinking about anyway, This just feels so much more like me than what I did before.”

She's not too cool for the mainstream: "I love Miranda Lambert so much. I think she's genius. I'm really into Lainey Wilson. The Jimmie Allen performance at the CMAs, I think — I was just, like, gobsmacked by it. I find it thrilling. It's so cool because it's not concerned with being cool, in the way that I find a lot of indie music to be. There's an unpretentiousness to modern country, to me, that is just really honest.

Upcoming screen projects: Kirke is known for previously starring on Amazon's "Mozart In The Jungle." She'll be seen in HBO's highly anticipated drama series "Winning Time" (based on the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s) next month, and has a role on Showtime's series "Three Women," currently in production.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Lola Kirke interview: New album on Third Man Records, country influences