Molly Tuttle interview: “This is for anyone who’s ever felt afraid to be themselves”

When Molly Tuttle set about creating the cover art for her new album, So Long Little Miss Sunshine, she assembled a small army of selves. At the top, she’s got a halo of golden locks, and to the right she’s swimming in an auburn cascade of flower-child hair. Down below, she rocks a messy black mop à la Joan Jett. But most strikingly, there she is in the middle of the image, without any hair at all – the first time she has shown her baldness on an album cover (Tuttle has lived with alopecia since childhood).

The wigs are playful, a pop-art swirl of characters, yet the centring of her bald self hints at the deeper story behind this record: a songwriter shedding old disguises to step into something closer to the truth; an arresting display of artistic and personal vulnerability.

Tuttle has never been easy to pin down as an artist. Since her first performances in her family band in Palo Alto, California, she’s navigated a path that runs straight through the bluegrass tradition and has rocketed beyond it. Her grandfather, a farmer in Illinois, was inspired by the Grand Ole Opry broadcasts and taught himself to play the banjo. His love of bluegrass took root in the family and shaped the next generations, from Tuttle’s multi-instrumentalist father to Tuttle herself, who was already a formidable guitarist by her teenage years.

Molly with her wig collection (photo: Ebru Yıldız)

She cut her teeth in their family band, The Tuttles, before attending Berklee College of Music. Over the years, she refined her flatpicking and developed her voice as a songwriter, quickly gathering recognition as a prodigious talent, both as a solo artist and collaborator. In 2017, at just 24, she became the first woman ever named Guitar Player of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association. By 2021, she assembled her ‘dream band’, Golden Highway, with Shelby Means (bass), Kyle Tuttle (banjo), Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (fiddle) and Dominick Leslie (mandolin). Their two albums, Crooked Tree (2022) and City of Gold (2023), won back-to-back Grammys, establishing her as one of bluegrass’ defining contemporary voices. Their success meant a flood of new fans flocking to more than 100 shows a year, affirmation from a bluegrass community that sometimes resists change.

While picking up accolades and growing her fanbase, she was quietly crafting a set of songs that didn’t quite fit into any box.

So Long Little Miss Sunshine is the culmination of that parallel track, a record she’s been wanting to make for “such a long time”. Bringing her guitar work to the fore, the record feels more dexterous than previous efforts, boldly pursuing a lighter, poppier feel – there’s a cover of ‘I Love It’, a 2012 hit by Swedish synth-pop duo Icona Pop featuring Charli xcx – while folding country and rock into a collection that feels defiant, luminous and raw, guided by the impressive guitar work she’s known for.

Produced by Jay Joyce in Nashville, So Long Little Miss Sunshine sees Tuttle playing banjo for the first time on record, while navigating a tangle of moods that runs from road-trip romance to existential reckoning. In songs like ‘Old Me (New Wig)’ and ‘Story of My So-Called Life’ she writes candidly about her lifelong experience with alopecia and the insecurities she has learned to leave behind.

Over the course of our conversation, Tuttle speaks about the crooked path that brought her to this album, and why she finally feels ready to stand, bareheaded or otherwise, in her own light.

You’ve said So Long Little Miss Sunshine is an album you’ve been dreaming of for years. What made this the right moment to finally go for it?

I started writing the songs on this record around the same time I was writing songs for [2022 album] Crooked Tree. The songs for that album felt like this cohesive unit, whereas [So Long Little Miss Sunshine] felt a little more hazy in my mind. I couldn’t envision it. So, I kept chipping away at it over the last few years. And then in the last year, as [2023 album] City of Gold was winding down, I just felt like this huge creative burst. I was like, ‘It’s time!’ So, I just started writing more songs. I wasn’t sure I had a full album of songs that fit together and made a statement.

Working with producer Jay Joyce seems to have unlocked a whole new sound for you. What did he bring out in you that you didn’t expect?

I learned so much working with him. He came to see me play in Nashville last fall. Just from that show, he had all these ideas of ways to push my guitar playing in new directions, which I hadn’t really experienced with a producer before. Usually, when I’m trying to get a guitar solo for a song, I might play it a couple times, and a producer is like, ‘OK, I think we got it.’ But with Jay, it was like, ‘Can you play it this way? OK, now try it this way.’

He was trying to push me into playing more melodically, so my guitar solos would be more memorable than just ‘a nice solo without any mistakes in it’, which is what I’m usually going for. For him, my solos needed to be little compositions in themselves that might stick in your mind. He was also great with the vocals, teaching me where to vary the melody. I struggle when it’s just me in the studio figuring out my vocal parts; I start doing weird stuff like holding notes super long. But Jay had such good ears for the vocals. I would love to work with him on whatever I do next. He is just amazing.

In the title, So Long Little Miss Sunshine, who are you saying goodbye to? And who’s stepping into the spotlight instead?

It’s all about saying goodbye to your insecurities and anything that’s holding you back. For me, it’s a new chapter that I’m hoping to step into. I struggle with anxiety, self-doubt and being afraid to do what I was meant to do. The title is for anyone who’s ever felt afraid to be themselves. I’ve been singing ‘Old Me (New Wig)’, the song the title comes from, in our live show and it feels like an empowering anthem for people, even if the crowd hasn’t heard it before. They’ve been really getting into it.

The album cover is striking, with all those different versions of you. Was that saying goodbye to old insecurities, or about celebrating different sides of yourself?

We took inspiration from the different songs on the album. There are loads of different styles, moods and characters within all the songs. But I also think it reflects all the sides to who I am as an artist and different songs and sounds that I explore. I feel like a bit of a musical chameleon at times. I’ve never had a picture of me not wearing a wig on my album cover – I really wanted to have that this time. Then I started thinking about it, and I’m like, ‘well, I do wear wigs most days, at least part of the day.’ So, I wanted to make a statement of where I am in my journey with my alopecia. It’s become just a fun way to express myself visually as well as playing, and that does inspire a lot of my music. It reflects my journey of growing up looking different from other people.

How has living with alopecia shaped your music and creativity over the years?

It’s a big reason why I gravitated towards music, because growing up, I felt so different from everyone else. I didn’t know many people with alopecia. I lost all my hair when I was three years old, so I don’t really remember having hair. I first wore hats until I was about 15, then I started wearing wigs. That was a relief for me, just blending in. But, at the same time, I felt like I had this big secret that I didn’t want anyone to know about.

Music was a way for me to express myself. When I had these big feelings and I felt lonely, music was always a friend that I could turn to. And I felt a lot of comfort in knowing that, no matter what happens, I’ll always be able to play music. It just gave me a lot of confidence. It was this thing that I was good at, something that made me stand out in a good way. As I got older, in my early 20s, I started embracing who I was and stopped being so freaked out about being a bald woman. It’s not this huge dark cloud over my life; it’s a positive way to connect with people. I started writing songs like ‘Crooked Tree’ [title-track of her 2022 album], which were about that experience, and, hopefully, helping anyone who’s been in that situation feel better. I wove that theme into a couple of songs on the new record, like ‘Old Me (New Wig)’. And then the last track on the album, ‘Story of My So-Called Life’, is about coming of age and realising who you are.

The album moves through a lot of moods – longing, nostalgia, joy, anxiety. How did you go about shaping that emotional arc through the tracklist?

Before we started tracking, Jay and I already had an idea of the song order, which I’d never done before. Usually, I just track them in a random order and decide later. We wanted to start off the record with something that grabs your attention. So, the album starts with a big guitar solo moment on ‘Everything Burns’. Other than that, it all fell together, and I like that it takes you on a bit of a journey. By the end, we arrive at this place of acceptance, with ‘No Regrets’ and ‘Story of My So-Called Life’. It was nice to know where the songs were going to be placed before we tracked them, because it meant we were able to do segues from one song to the next. That helped shape the mood and tone as well.

I read that ‘The Highway Knows’ has become one of your favourites from the album. What is it about the song that feels so special?

I was sitting on the guitar riff in the chorus for five years. I kept attempting to write songs using it, and it just never came together. Finally, Ketch [Secor – her partner and frontman of string band Old Crow Medicine Show] and I sat down with the guitar part and wrote the song. But we just couldn’t get the right lyrics or form. When we took it to Jay, he came up with the whole guitar solo section that you hear, and there are some vocals in there. That really brought the song to life because it added this whole moment of excitement in the middle, almost like it’s taking you on this journey, which was what I really wanted the song to feel like. That was just one of those super exciting moments in the studio where the song became totally transformed. It was so fun to work it out, and I was so excited to finally see my riff that I’d been sitting on for a long time come to life.

You mentioned ‘Oasis’ as its sister song. What’s the connection between the two?

They’re both road trip songs that are also love songs, and they have some similar imagery. For me, ‘Oasis’ is a little more descriptive – it’s inspired by the Southwest – and it’s more about leaving everything behind. And then ‘The Highway Knows’ is more about starting a journey with someone you love. They just kind of evoke similar feelings for me.

What’s something you’d like listeners to take away from this album?

I’m really proud of the guitar playing on it, so I hope it might inspire some people to pick up a guitar and learn some of the songs. I’m scheming with my dad to make a book of some of the guitar solos or parts so people can learn them at home.

That’d be amazing, especially as this album features more of your guitar than previous albums. We also get to hear you pick up banjo on record for the first time!

Yeah, I played banjo on two of the tracks: ‘Story of My So-Called Life’ and ‘No Regrets’. That was really fun, because I grew up playing bluegrass banjo, but I never played it on one of my own solo records before. I don’t know why exactly.

Since the banjo takes you back to your bluegrass beginnings: if your teenage self could hear this album now, what do you think she’d recognise in it? And what might surprise her?

That’s a really cool question. I would definitely be surprised by the cover – I remember I was terrified of anyone knowing I wore a wig. I would be mortified if I saw the cover when I was 15! But I feel like mainly my younger self would be really excited because this feels like it’s a satisfying merging of all the music I love to play. There’s bluegrass flatpicking alongside more contemporary songwriting. When I first started writing songs, they were in a singer-songwriter style, so it’s something I’ve always wanted to do since I was a teenager – find a way to kind of marry these different parts of who I am. It just took me a long time to figure out how to do it.

+ So Long Little Miss Sunshine is out now on Nonesuch Records. ‘The Highway Knows’ appears on our compilation, track 13