If you see country singer Hailey Whitters open for Jon Pardi this summer, you’re likely to get a set long on music but short on talking.
“When I’m opening, I only get 30 minutes,” Whitters tells Billboard‘s Behind the Setlist podcast. “So I just try to shut up and sing songs.”
The Iowa-born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter has spent a career learning how to keep a crowd’s attention. On her first headlining U.S. earlier this year, Whitters had the luxury of time to talk to her fans. The same goes for intimate shows at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville.
“I’ll talk all day long about how a song came up,” she says of performing at the famous songwriters’ haunt. “People are coming to hear the stories.” But at the rowdy honky tonk bars in downtown Nashville where she cut her teeth, Whitters will “keep it short and sweet.”
Whitters is the opening act for Jon Pardi’s tour that started July 14 at the Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas and runs through Sept. 24 at Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston. The Grammy-nominated songwriter will also perform at the Watershed Festival in George, WA, from July 29 to 31.
“I’m so grateful to him and how supportive he’s been over the last 14 years,” says Whitters. “It’s a big deal. He could have chosen anyone to go on that tour with him. For him to pick me, it means a lot.”
As an opener, she’ll have plenty of time to run through much of her third studio album, Raised, however, including the track “Everything She Ain’t” that went to country radio on June 1. The album was released through her own Pigasus Records imprint in partnership with Big Loud Records’ imprint, Songs & Daughters.
Listen to the Hailey Whitters episode at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, iHeart or Stitcher.
