Carly Pearce explains why she's 'unapologetically honest' on new album 'Hummingbird'

Carly Pearce is back with her fourth studio album and perhaps the revenge anthem of the summer. “Hummingbird” (out June 7) includes “Truck on Fire,” a song that’s already received a hot reception during her opening set on tour with Tim McGraw.“Honestly, it's not like this guy did ‘this’ to me and I took his truck and burned it down,” Pearce, 34, tells USA TODAY from her Nashville, Tennessee, home. “But there is that sentiment where if you do us wrong, we want to seek revenge.“Carrie Underwood keyed the car, I'm burning the truck down. I think maybe that's just the Kentucky side of me coming out for everybody.”Pearce references Underwood’s 2005 hit “Before He Cheats,” when talking about “Truck.” The chorus of the song includes the line: “Liar, liar, truck on fire. Flames rolling off your Goodyear tires."

The singer continues her run on the “Standing Room Only” tour through the end of the month. The trek hasn’t come without its trials. A vocal issue forced her to sit out McGraw’s May 11 show in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It was the first time in her career she canceled a performance because of her voice.“I started the week fighting off some kind of sickness and then just started singing on it and working at normal speed,” Pearce recalls. “Then my body said, ‘Absolutely not.’”

Pearce kept listening to her body. On May 30, she revealed that she had a condition called pericarditis, which is an inflammation of the fluid-filled sac surrounding the heart. While Pearce won’t be leaving the tour, she did note that after speaking with doctors, she will alter her set.Following both instances, Pearce received a flood of well wishes from fans. She credits her authenticity for the way people have responded to both her.“I don't want to live my life in privacy,” Pearce says. “I am a normal girl. I want to share when I'm happy. I want to share when I'm excited. I know that somebody else is experiencing something that I am. And I think the ‘29’ season of my life really showed me that, even to a degree, that I had no idea. There were so many young people that felt shame around divorce. But I almost feel like I've built my career on just being unapologetically honest about whatever I'm going through.”

“29: Written in Stone” was Pearce’s third album, which chronicled in part her divorce from country singer Michael Ray. It yielded “Never Wanted to Be That Girl,” a duet with Ashley McBryde that won the Grammy for best country duo/group performance in 2023.

“‘29’ showed me that people really care about me in the way that I view country music and the kind of country music that I want to make,” she continues. “And I think that (‘Hummingbird’) will be a reflection of that. 

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“For anybody that's just on a journey of healing and trying to find happiness, you don't have to have it all figured out to be happy. And I think that's the essence of this record.”