Hailey Whitters opted to go against the grain and fully embrace her Midwestern identity — including by claiming her title as the reigning Corn Queen — as she blazed her own trail in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Iowa-born country star recently caught up with Morgan from The Bobby Bones Show at the historic Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Tennessee. The iconic, cozy venue has hosted performances by rising singer-songwriters and legends alike throughout its decades-long existence in Music City. Whitters — who recently announced that she and husband Jake Gear are expecting Baby No. 1 — reminisced on her experiences at the Bluebird Cafe and other seemingly “impossible” moments in her career. She’s taken the stage at the legendary Grand Ole Opry, had a song of hers recorded by Alan Jackson, and receiving a Grammy nomination. Morgan asked the Corn Queen artist about the significance of embracing her Midwestern background in her personality and in her music, and Whitters shared the story behind it.

“I definitely felt like a fish out of water when I first moved here because I did grow up very country and the ‘bro country’ thing was happening when I first got here. I was like, ‘woah, I have no business in bro country.’ So I’ve always just, you know, really felt like I gotta just stick to my roots, stick to who I am and just wait it out. …Everyone always says Nashville is a 10-year town, and I was hitting year 10, 11, 12, and, you know, I was still waiting tables, trying to make things happen. And it was the first time I kind of looked up and I was like, ‘this may not happen for you.’ And I was starting to get really homesick. All my friends back home, they’re on Baby 2, Baby 3, bought the house, buying the boat, and I’m still super broke. And I just started writing a lot about where I was from. It just kind of snowballed, I guess. I put out a record called Raised, and had a big hit on it, ‘Everything She Ain’t,’ and it kind of turned a lot of people on to me. My fans started calling me the Corn Queen, which I thought was just kind of a really silly oxymoron because I’m, you know, pulling graveyard shifts in a van, putting bags under my eyes, sleeping on airport floors. There was nothing royal about my life at that point. But I think that’s kind of what, you know, I learned makes a queen to me, is somebody who works really hard and, you know, rolls up their sleeves and keeps their head up when things get tough, and someone who it hasn’t just been handed to. Someone who’s had to work really hard. That makes me proud and those are the queens that I adore. …I’m just very Iowa. Very Midwestern. It just kind of oozes out of me.”

Throughout their in-depth conversation, Whitters talked with Morgan about the moments she felt as though she should step out of the box and try the things other artists were doing to be successful (it was an “instant nope,” she said), the rule she lives by to boost her confidence, what she’d do differently if she could travel back in time 10 years, and more. Whitters said if she could craft a “bucket list” of seemingly-impossible goals, she would want to sing with Dolly Parton, headline the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, and win a Grammy at some point in her career.

Watch the full interview presented by Impossible Foods on the Bobby Bones Show YouTube channel here:

Corey Calhoun