One of the more unique childhood experiences I've ever heard of.
Miranda Lambert is a guest on Bunnie XO’s
Dumb Blonde podcast this week, and in one of the promotional clips, she shared some really interesting insight on growing up with parents who owned a private investigation business. It's pretty obvious that many of her early songs were inspired by what she saw growing up with so many stories most kids would never see so up close, and it's something I don't think a lot of people know about Miranda because she doesn't go into a lot of detail about it super often. Her mom, Bev, started the company, and eventually convinced her dad, a police officer, to be her partner in the family biz too:
"My parents were private investigators. My dad was a police officer, and my mom was a PI. And my mom talked my dad into being her partner, so they were Lambert & Lambert, I'm like, real clever guys... do better. I'm a songwriter, that's not acceptable. So they had a PI firm my whole childhood, and they mostly did divorce and child custody, which is where I think I got a lot of my early songs, because I'm like 17 writing divorce songs." Miranda's mom actually took her on her first job when she was three years old, which was her first time on a plane going to make friends with a mother/daughter duo at Padre Island in Texas as part of a case:
"But yeah, mom took me on her first job, she had a job that was like going to I think Padre Island, and she had to make friends with this lady and her three year old. And she was like, 'Perfect, I have a three year old.' And so she brings me, that was my first plane ride. And I guess the person we were working for won the case, because I became best friends with this three year old and my mom knew all the dirt on this lady." But the best story Miranda told was about the time she was in high school and a member of the cheer team, which her mom certainly used to her advantage. Bev had her daughter skip cheer practice, and go to a house they were investigating in her uniform to scope it out and see if they had liquor anywhere:
"One time, I was in high school, I had to be in high school, I was a cheerleader and my mom took me on a job where I had to put my cheerleading uniform on and pretend to sell cookies for the cheerleading squad. And she was like, when you get in their house, ask to use their bathroom when they're getting their money out, and when you get in there, see if there's any liquor because they're not supposed to be drinking. I'm like, I'm 15. I'm like, I should be a cheer practice right now. She's like 'No, this is what we're doing.'" I can't even imagine helping with something like that at 15, but it sounds like it wasn't out of the ordinary for Miranda and she didn't really think twice about it. But the best line out of the whole clip was when Miranda talked about her mom picking her and her little brother Luke up in her "tinted window, shady Suburban" from school when she was a kid, bringing snacks and coloring books to keep them occupied while they went to stake someone out for five hours:
"So it just was normal for us. And I tell people all that, they're like, that's so interesting, because it was. She would pick me and Luke up from school in her like, tinted window, shady Suburban. She'd be like, 'Here's your coloring books and a snack, we're gonna be staking out for about five hours." And it all makes sense where she got her musical inspiration from for songs like "Gunpowder & Lead" and "Kerosene," though it certainly wasn't a conventional childhood experience. I could seriously listen to her tell these kinds of stories all day... it really is fascinating and helps you understand a lot more about Miranda as an artist and a person. You can watch the full clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z7QrZfamOM And I have to leave this here now too...
"Gunpowder & Lead" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWQdEDtveB0
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