Turns out High Horse singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves was riding high on something else when she conceived of her eagerly anticipated new album.
In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, the award-winning country artist revealed her creativity was piqued earlier this year during a guided psilocybin trip. Not only did the experience help her give birth to the idea of Star-Crossed—an entire record inspired by Greek tragedies—the magic mushrooms also helped Musgraves deal head-on with some unspecified personal trauma.
“I was like, I want the chance to transform my trauma into something else, and I want to give myself that opportunity even if it’s painful,” Musgraves—who last year divorced fellow recording artist Ruston Kelly—told Lowe of her psychedelic journey. “And it was completely life-changing in so many ways, but it also triggered this whole big bang of not only the album title but the song Star-Crossed and the concept—you know, me looking into the structure of tragedies themselves as an art form throughout time.”
Though Musgraves spoke highly of her own experiences with hallucinogens, she stopped well short of prescribing them to fans. “If you do any kind of research about psychedelics and mushroom and plant therapy, I mean, it’s really helping a lot of people. I’m not here to be any kind of advocate on that. I just know what kind of works with me, and I would never push anyone to do anything that they’re not comfortable with,” she said before adding, “but no, it’s incredible though.”
The Zane Lowe interview wasn’t the first time Kacey Musgraves went on the record about the therapeutic value of psilocybin. In a February Rolling Stone profile, the Texas native shared other details about her transformative experience which was apparently overseen by a doctor and set to a playlist curated by psychedelic researchers. “It was not recreational at all,” Musgraves said of the trip. “It was like mental and spiritual labor. Like, 10 years of therapy in one sitting.”
Arriving Sept. 10 alongside a 50-minute, Bardia Zeinali-directed companion film of the same name, Star-Crossed serves as Musgraves’ first studio release since 2018’s Golden Hour, a Grammy-winning chart topper chock-full of love songs. Despite the fact her previous effort was also written, in part, while tripping on acid, next month’s 15-track ode to tragedy will almost assuredly strike a different chord.
“Everyone puts out their highlight real. Nobody’s putting out their fuck-ups. That’s one of the reasons why it’s daunting but I’m excited to share Star-Crossed,” the newly single superstar told Lowe. “I think it would’ve been extremely awkward if I acted like this chapter didn’t happen for me.”
Watch the interview below.
