If anyone shouldn’t have to worry about imposter syndrome, it’s Brandi Carlile, who is readying a new album, In These Silent Days, and has won a total of six Grammys. Still, the country performer is a human and therefore plenty capable of feeling a universal emotion like imposter syndrome, which tends to be followed by burnout.
“The term impostor syndrome makes sense to me,” Carlile told the WSJ. Magazine in a new interview, adding, “and just feeling like if I didn’t say yes to everything, eventually everyone was going to find out how unqualified I am to be in the position I’m in. I’m going to stop getting invited, and I’m going back to the bars if I don’t show up for everybody’s thing. I was getting really tired and empty.”
In the wide-ranging interview, Carlile also went deep on how faith plays into being part of the LGBTQIA community. “The concept of being rejected, being queer but still needing my faith — so many gay people came to me and admitted that, and I don’t know that we LGBTQIA people have been allowed to be honest about how much of that we still want to hold on to,” she said. “Faith is so much more sacred to the people that have had to fight for it, not just have it awarded based on some birthright.”
There are some other great quotes, too, especially around Carlile’s forging a friendship with folk icon Joni Mitchell. “Joni often recounts a dream that she had where she’s in a room with an audience, and her skin is made of clear cellophane and all of her organs are exposed,” Carlile said. “You can see everything inside of her body–she’s more than naked, she’s utterly translucent. That basically says everything that needs to be said about Blue. But it sets a standard, too, for at least once in an artist’s career they really have to fully lay it out there.”
Read the rest of the interview here.
In These Silent Days is out 10/1 via Low Country Sound/Elektra Records. Pre-order it here.
Brandi Carlile is a Warner Music artist. .
