Capitol Records Nashville’s Caylee Hammack is sharing more music with fans, releasing the head-turning new track “Just Friends.” Co-written by Hammack with Mikey Reaves and Aaron Raitiere, the song manages to channel the tones of country icons Alison Krauss and Dolly Parton in the fluttery first 29 seconds. Co-produced by Hammack, that open leads into a guitar-driven core that pays homage to ‘90s-era alternative tracks by Everclear and Weezer. In the end, Hammack moves in yet another direction, closing with rich piano chording that comes direct from a gospel playbook. “Just Friends” tells listeners much of what they need to know about Hammack. She is all of those things – the country expressionist, the grungy firebrand, the spiritual seeker – pulled together in an intoxicating, yet cohesive way.
“We sat in the studio that day, bouncing between two extremely different melodic ideas I had started about the same theme the day before; inspired by the aftermath of a breakup I had recently gone through,” explains Hammack. “We finally decided to attempt to tell both sides of the emotional rollercoaster I was on by intertwining the two melodies into one song. I loved the idea of the clear juxtaposition between the two and how this song gave us a moment to tip our hats to the older country that raised us and the 90’s alternative music we all found solace in when we were teenagers.”
“It’s one of my favorites to perform live,” says Hammack, “I love to start crooning the opening lines at shows and watching people start to slowly sway, then snap back into focus when the electric guitars start screaming on the second verse. It shows both sides of my personality in a few minutes, which is cathartic for me.”
About Caylee Hammack:
Caylee Hammack constantly felt like a self-described “hippie in a hillbilly town” in her tiny hometown of Ellaville, Georgia. “I used to pray every night as a kid, ‘God, just please make me different. Don’t make me like everyone else,’” she remembers. Hammack is indeed refreshingly different. And at only 25, she has already packed a full life into just a few years, using fake IDs to get gigs around South Georgia, turning down a college scholarship for a love that burned out just a few months later, sleeping in her car when she arrived in Nashville and then losing her home in an electrical fire. “My dad has always said that the most beautiful and strongest things are forged in the fire,” she says. “Iron is nothing until you work it in a fire. Glass cannot be blown without intense heat. You can’t make anything beautiful or strong without a little heat.”
Tested by the fire, Caylee Hammack has been molded into an artist with incredible depth and a powerhouse voice that can effortlessly veer from fiery and demanding to quiet and vulnerable. Her life experience and relentless curiosity have coalesced into a country cocktail that’s rooted in tradition but expands with shards of modern pop and rock. Her self-penned songs tug on her own life story – bad decisions, secret affairs, broken hearts, a quirky family lineage – as she invariably turns the lemons of her daring life into sonic lemonade. Notching spots on upcoming tour slots, fans can catch Hammack on the road with Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert and Brothers Osborne and can be seen at country music’s biggest festivals including CMA Music Festival, Country LakeShake, Faster Horses Festival and more. Hammack has also been the noted as an “Artist To Watch” by outlets such as The Bobby Bones Show, Rolling Stone and HITS Magazine for her “voice to move mountains” alongside her “clever story telling that keeps it all in motion” (Rolling Stone). For additional information, visit cayleehammack.com.
