Miranda Lambert NO RISK, No Reward

Ahead of the release of her new album, the country music superstar talks to Us about living and loving fearlessly

- KEVIN DICKSON & CHRISTINA GARIBALDI

It’s been over two decades since Miranda Lambert stole America’s heart with her stint on the singing competition Nashville Star. Since then, she’s become one of the most powerful players in the country music scene thanks to her undeniable talent,sassy confidence and penchant for keeping it real. “I’m lucky,” Lambert tells Us. “I reached a lot of my goals early, and then you’re like, ‘What do I chase now?’ It takes a while to figure out the balance of actually living your life so you have something to write about and constantly being on the grind. And I think I finally found that balance pretty good.”

She largely credits that stability to her husband, former NYPD officer Brendan McLoughlin, whom she married in 2019 after a whirlwind romance. The pair live on a 400-acre farm outside Nashville where they tend to a menagerie of animals, while Lambert, 40, divides her time between various ventures, including her MuttNation Foundation, numerous businesses and, of course, music. On Sept. 13, she’ll release Postcards from Texas, her self-produced first album under a new deal with Republic Records, that combines her trademark honest lyrics with, as she describes it, “all kinds” of country music.

“I made this with a new energy, kind of like the energy I had at 19 making my first album,” explains Lambert, who recorded it, fittingly, in her native Texas. “This record feels like you made it home, and you’re like, I’m going to send you some letters from home for a while.” Here, Lambert talks more about life, love and learning.

How would you describe this new era of music?