Christian music artist Anne Wilson on Beyonce's pivot to country

The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmeade. And there you go. That is Annie Wilson, Grammy-nominated American Christian musician and songwriter.

She had made her debut back in 2021 and is rocking up the charts, especially with her appearance yesterday on Fox and Friends Weekend. That song was called Strong, from Strong, right? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Great to see you, Annie. Yes.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. You bet, man. You just tell me your schedule.

I mean, is it hard? Tell everybody what you've been doing, where you've been going. Yeah, I've been on tour with Scotty McCreary, and then we got here yesterday, played Fox and Friends, and we leave tonight, go back out on tour. But you were up in Syracuse, too, in between? Yeah. We were in New York and Pennsylvania and Boston. What happened to your album once you were on Fox and Friends?

Apparently, it spiked really high, which is awesome. That is fantastic. So how would you describe your mix and genre of music? Well, I grew up on Christian and country radio, so I love the message of Christian radio and or Christian music. I'm a huge believer in my faith and everything. But then I also love the sound of country music, so I really had this vision when I was about 18 years old as I was starting to write songs of what would it look like to combine these two genres and actually combine them, like the message of the gospel, but also like the sounds of country. So that's what I've tried to do. See, I know in country music, they sing a lot about God, but they always mix in the drinking.

Yeah. So have you left out the drinking? No, I have a little bit, but I do have one song with it. You still have some of it.

I really like, I just write about what I believe in and what I have found that has filled me up in life and what's given me joy and hope and all of that. So who taught you the fundamentals of music? Oh, well, I grew up, my mom and dad kind of forced us to take piano lessons growing up. And so I had taken piano from about five years old up until I graduated high school.

Picked it up right away. Classical piano lessons. No, I actually didn't.

I took a while to get there. But my mom's brother is a phenomenal musician. He sings and plays guitar. And he was one of those people growing up that really kind of poured into me and helped me. He saw something in you, you think? I think so.

Maybe. I didn't really sing ever until I was about 15. But I do think that he saw in me when I was younger, like when I would play piano and stuff that maybe I had a gift. So tragically, your brother passed his way at 23 in a car accident.

And then at his funeral, you sang. Yeah. Could you talk about what led to that and then what happened after?

Yeah. So yeah, my brother was killed and my life obviously forever changed. I have an older sister and me and my parents and we were devastated. And I remember like my faith really becoming real at that moment in my life. I knew that I couldn't survive his loss without God and I knew I wasn't going to get through it. So I remember kind of making a decision just to trust God really was like, I'm going to do this with you.

As hard as it is to trust you, I'm going to trust you right now. And that led to really me feeling like God was calling me to sing at the funeral, which was very weird because I'd never sang in front of even my parents. Like I did not sing at all. Did you sing in church?

Never. I did not sing. I had no desire to be an artist or to sing. Was it clear to your family how great you sang? No. They had never heard me sing.

Wow. I mean like if I was at church sitting next to my parents, I would sing like the hymn that we were singing or whatever, but it wasn't like I was up on the stage or in choir or anything like that. So my parents, my mom overheard me singing like maybe two days after he passed away and then she runs in the room crying and she was like, Anne, I had no idea you could sing.

Like where's all this coming from? And that was the moment that she was just like, would you be willing to sing at the funeral because we can't find anyone to sing and we really want someone to sing at our son's funeral, obviously. And it was like so heartbreaking. So then I ended up singing at the funeral. I got some friends together that I knew that could play guitar and violin and I played the piano and we put together a version of this worship song called What a Beautiful Name and sang it and it was such a special moment.

So you thought you leave the church special moment, tragedy, you're never going to forget it obviously for your family, your brothers passed away. Did someone post it? Yeah, so we ended up filming like a video of it a few months later just to kind of have it to look back on for just to say, you know, this was the moment that, you know, to honor my brother really was what the plan was. And then it went viral in like a couple of days. And that was the first time I'd ever really put anything out there before Instagram, Facebook, and it was on YouTube.

Oh, yeah. And then some manager found me and from Nashville said, Hey, I'm a manager from Nashville. Can you come to Nashville and meet with me? I want to talk to you about what it would look like to pursue music. And at the time I was 15. I was living with my parents. I was in high school. Obviously I was in my sophomore year of high school. So at the top of the year of 2018, me and my parents went to Nashville and met with him. And then really the rest is history. I signed a record deal the following year when I was 17, I was still in high school.

And then I moved in 2020, I graduated high school that year and I moved to Nashville all by myself. And do you want to, you chose to write your own songs. Yeah. There's so many songwriters around who would love to have got your song, but you wanted to write your own.

Yeah. I think I've always kind of had a vision for my music and specific, like a specific vision of what I want it to sound like and what I want the lyrics to be about, especially because of my brother passing away. There's just certain things that I really believe in and just that I think should be in a song. So I really wanted to be at least in the room with people when we were writing songs together. How unique is the genre of Christianity and country?

How unique is that mix? I feel like God is, like you said earlier, a lot in country music. So that was something that's kind of already there, that connection point. But it is different, I think, to write a song that, I think for me, I view my music as not necessarily worship music, but more like songs about God or songs about my faith. And so that's probably been a little bit easier for me to go.

I'm going to write a song about God and faith, but also country and where I came from and my roots and all of that. And so it's definitely unique. Yeah. Am I right that the name of your album is Rebel? Yeah. How does that fit in with who you are?

Well, it's funny people always say that, like you're just this little short girl. Like why are you calling yourself a rebel? For me- No tattoos? No, I don't have any.

Okay. Because I would think a rebel would have to have a tattoo. For me, it was a moment about two years ago. I had a song come out and it was a Christian song, very like Christian message. And people were like, well, we're not going to play it because it's too country sounding. And honestly, that kind of like lit a fire in me to go, well, I'm going to just be authentically who I am, play my songs or not. I'm going to write songs about my faith, but they're going to sound country. That's who I am. And then it was also the message of being a rebel, because I feel like for my generation to be a Christian in the world that we live in today, literally makes you a rebel.

It's like everybody's always trying to tell you what to be or who to become or whatever. But it's like the people that have faith and they believe in Jesus and they stand firm in it, like we're the odd ones out. And so that really made me feel like, I'm just going to dive deeper into this and put out a country record that's all about Jesus. And I know it had a big impact on Fox and Friends.

I heard it was fantastic. Thank you. Now there's a couple of things. I remember Taylor Swift started in country. I guess she goes back and forth. Now Beyonce is going into country. How do you feel about that?

I don't know. I feel like there are some artists that can do all of it and they can do it amazing. So you're right with that. Yeah, I'm fine with it.

Whatever they want to do. So have you met other established artists? Scotty McCreary, I remember when he came on, I remember when he was a finalist on American Idol. Yeah, he's amazing. He's not gone away. He's gotten bigger and bigger. He's such a good guy. So what is it like on the road with him?

It's been awesome. Do you see both groups mix? We do, yeah.

We have separate tour buses, so we don't see each other a ton, but when we do, he's such a good guy and he's just a phenomenal singer and artist and performer and so it's been awesome to be on tour. Do you find that Nashville looks at you and says, is it like sports, very competitive where, okay, who's this Annie Wilson? She comes out of nowhere.

She's 21. I got to look out for her or do you think they're supporting you? I think, I mean, obviously I definitely feel supported and I also do think like the more and more time goes on, I do think every artist kind of has their own lane.

It doesn't even really feel competitive to me anymore as much as it just feels like everyone has really come around me and championed me in this season. All right. So Strong Men, the song we bumped in on Means? Strong?

Yeah. I wrote that song really after, well, I mean, through the last couple of years of just going through life without my brother and needing a reminder of a strength that's greater than my own. And Wilson, how do we get your, how do we download your album?

Everywhere you listen to music and it will be out April 19th. It's called Rebel. And Eric, what are we bumping out with? This is called My Jesus. All right.

Anne Wilson. Great to see you. Thank you so much for stopping by. Thanks for having me. Hopefully it will not be the last time. Yes, thank you. Just the first. Best of luck. Thanks. Listen to the show ad free on Fox News Podcast Plus. On Apple podcast, Amazon music with your prime membership or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.