Country singer MaRynn Taylor walks us through her seasons of life ahead of PBR show

Photo Courtesy of MaRynn Taylor

Over the past few years, country singer MaRynn Taylor’s career has grown by leaps and bounds. Thanks to some very excellent singles, including “Dads and Daughters” and “Shakin’ in My Boots,” along with this spring’s Get to Know Me EP, Taylor knows how to craft a song sure to get you lifting your cup whenever it comes on.

Her latest single, “Season 2 of Friends,” seems like a song custom-made to seize the zeitgeist of comfort viewing and hanging out with your besties, with a video to match. As we’re absolutely unable to resist the charms of a well-crafted audio-visual, we spoke with MaRynn Taylor to discuss the new single, her career thus far, and being on the road ahead of her stop at PBR Big Sky with Dylan Schneider as she opens his Bad Decisions Tour on its stop there on Thursday, Oct. 17.

The Pitch: It’s been a big couple of years for you.

MaRynn Taylor: It has been. I feel like my first, I like to call it, big girl tour. ‘Cause I’ve done one offs here and there where I just go to a show for a day and then come back to Nashville, but I’m gone for a whole month on this run, which is really new for me.

What’s it like being away from home? You’re used to making changes, given that you moved to Nashville, basically immediately after high school, but I’ve got to imagine being on the road’s a little different.

It’s very different. I feel like it’s kind of inconsistent in Nashville and I’m a person who loves consistency. So I really picked the wrong job for that, but in Nashville, sometimes I’d have vocals, sometimes I’d have meetings, and sometimes performances at night, and it was just all over the place. But right now on the road, we just have somewhat of a schedule of like, “Okay, we’re eating at this time. We’re loading in at this time. We’re playing at this time.”

I’m really liking that. I started doing music right out of high school, and I’ve just learned to adapt to my surroundings and be like a sponge in every situation that I’m in and just learn from the people I have around me.

Given that you’ve been a fan of country music for so long, did moving to Nashville make getting to be on the Grand Ole Opry last year for the first time a little more of a big deal when you’re there in Music City all the time?

It was the biggest deal of my life. I was just astonished, I guess, that I got to be able to do that. When I was 12, I took a vacation to Nashville and I got to go to the Ryman and just see the history, know that country music is just born here, and really just thrives here and to be able to step into the circle—and to actually be invited to step into the circle, too—was a huge deal to me.

I sat on stage, I sang one of my songs “’01,” which I wrote it about my younger self. I told the crowd that night, “I feel like I’m not the only one who gets to make my Opry debut. I feel like I’m bringing my younger self along with me in a way that’s showing her like, ‘Hey, we did it. We got where I wanted to be.’” That was a really special moment.

I’ve read a lot of stuff where you talk about how much you love ’90s country, and your music very much has that feel, but it also feels like you’re, as you just referred to, making a lot of music for your younger self. “Season 2 of Friends,” “Dads and Daughters”—These are songs where you’re looking at a younger version of you.

I feel like it’s when I really knew I wanted to do this, and I’ll be honest, my younger self was going through a lot and all she wanted to do was play music. I almost look at her as like a second person, like I’m getting to be able to do this for her. So when I write songs, I sometimes will think like, “What would she do?”

I do love ’90s country. I love 2000s country. That’s what I grew up on. And I love pop. So there has that a little bit in my music, as well. I just write what I love and it’s as simple as that.

You have so many videos, and I love that, because they’re all very different. But in all of them, you seem to be having the best time, especially “Season 2 of Friends,” your new single. What’s it like getting to reenact all of your favorite bits? I feel Friends is a show that, now, even if you’ve never seen an episode, you will recognize a lot of the references in this video.

For sure. And thank you for saying that, ’cause at first I was like, “If you haven’t watched Friends, are people going to get it?” I am the biggest Friends fan ever. If there’s a trivia night for Friends, I am there. I just know the show through and through. I relate everything in my life to Friends, basically, especially now being in my 20s.

I wrote the song for myself and everybody in their 20s, but I got the idea from my cousin, Brooke. We were on FaceTime and she was just, “All my friends are having babies. All my friends are getting married. All my friends are thriving in their jobs. And I still can’t seem to figure out like anything, it feels like,” and the only thing I could say to her was, “We’re only on season two of friends,” meaning we still got time. We’re still figuring it out and it’s all right. It’s okay.

After writing that is when I really was focusing on, “Okay, what does this music video look like? Like, holy crap, we could do so much.” Both of my cousins came to just be the three girls hanging in the apartment. It was Brooke and Erica. We made the trifle. Beef sautéed with peas and onions. We ate cheesecake off the floor. We threw the ball for as long as we could. We did the Monica/Ross New Year’s dance, but we figured out a way to make so it was like three of us.

We had the best time. It was just like how we normally hang out and then we get a music video out of it. It was so fun. Brooke is a huge friends fan as well. She was really thriving with the outfits and how to act and stuff.

What does being on the road do for your live performances? You don’t have to wait for the next show, it’s literally the next night. Does that let you adjust how your performances are going?

Absolutely. ‘Cause it’s the same set every night and it’s a different crowd every night. I get to play how I sing some lines or how I move different places and use my stage presence. Every stage on this tour is kind of different. I love that, in a way, it’s like a challenge: “This is what I have to work with. What are we going to do?” I love the challenge.

I love meeting people. The first night in Vancouver, Canada, there was some girls in the front row and they were singing every word to my songs and I pointed them out, ’cause that doesn’t normally happen to me, especially in a different country. That was really, really cool. I love getting to meet everybody and to be able to just sell merch that I got to help create. I really love tour life a lot. I think it’s fun.

What does 2025 look like for you?

There’s a lot of things I can’t tell. That’s a good thing. Honestly, that’s a good thing. We love that I can’t spill the tea on anything. But it looks very, very exciting, but I will say at the end of the year, I’m releasing a Christmas project with two Christmas songs that I wrote myself and then four other songs that are just classics.

We got to do a whole Christmas show, basically, through the project and got to just make it fun. Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. Like the “Friends” video, I don’t hold back. I’m going to go all out if I’m really loving something and so that was really, really fun. That’ll come out Nov. 1, which I don’t know if I’m allowed to say, but I said it anyway.

MaRynn Taylor opens for Dylan Schneider and his “Bad Decisions” Tour on its stop there on Thursday, Oct. 17, at PBR Big Sky Bar. Details on that show here.