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MaRynn Taylor has dreamed of making a life out of music since she was a kid. Now, she’s opening up for one of her idols on a national arena tour — she will perform at PPG Paints Arena on Feb. 7 as an opener for country artist Kelsea Ballerini.
“It’s such a dream come true, so amazing. I’ve wanted to do this since I was little, so to go on a tour in the fall and then go on an arena tour with Kelsea this winter and spring is everything I’ve ever dreamed of. It keeps getting better and better each show,” Taylor said in an interview.
The Rockford, Mich., native grew up listening to the women who shaped country music in the 1990s and 2000s, including Trisha Yearwood, Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert.
“I just had all their CDs and I went to concerts early on,” she said.
She first saw Hannah Montana in concert at age 6 and fell in love with country music. Being from the Rust Belt, she faced a lot of doubt in her younger years when she brought up a career in the genre, but her dreams were persistent.
“I persevered and when I was 15, I was like, ‘OK, this is like actually what I want to do for the rest of my life.’ And then when I was 17, I moved to Nashville,” she said.
The momentum of her career has been rolling for some time — in 2023, she was named one of CMT’s “Next Women in Country.” Her stint supporting Kelsea Ballerini on this current tour comes after a fall 2024 tour with fellow country artist Dylan Schneider.
In 2024, she released two EPs: “Get to Know Me” in May and “Christmas Is” in November. She also released the single “Season 2 of Friends” in September, a song that Taylor wrote about her experiences in her early 20s.
“You can see a lot of people in your 20s getting married and having kids and you look at them and you’re like, ‘wow, they got their stuff together, they’re so ahead of it’ and it’s like, we have time. We’re only on season two of ‘Friends,’” she said.
Songwriting has been a passion of Taylor’s since her middle school years.
“It’s that age where things just are so dramatic, like making things so overly hard that don’t have to be hard. But when school days were hard and girls were mean, my outlet was writing about it and that’s kind of what got me through those hard times. It was like therapy for me. I was getting to sing and then getting to play guitar, and then also writing down all my feelings. It was very helpful for me during those times and still to this day,” she said.
She doesn’t shy away from love songs; the title track on “Get to Know Me” was a particularly emotionally charged writing experience.
“It’s about someone that I loved very, very much and they hurt me very, very bad. It was a situation where I kept going back and kept going back and finally, I was like, ‘I need to find my own peace, I need to find my own happiness.’ When I wrote that one, I was going through it that day.”
She has a new single called “Same Girl Same” coming out on Feb. 21, with a particularly interesting backstory: it blossomed as an idea after an ex of only a month brought his new girlfriend to one of her shows.
“You see a girl with your ex and it’s like, I know the exact shoes you’re in right now. I know exactly the things he’s saying. I know the places he’s taking you and I know all of the things,” she said.
The song will be released next month, but the audience at PPG Paints next Friday night will get to hear it before it’s available on streaming platforms.
Taylor described the experience of touring with Kelsea Ballerini as “surreal,” especially since Ballerini is one of her idols, both as a person and an artist.
“On the first night of tour, I was so nervous and I texted her, ‘I’m so nervous to go on the stage right now.’ I was also very, very excited. Right before going on, I was walking to the stage and she grabbed my arm. She was like, ‘I’m gonna walk you there. We’re gonna walk there together.’ And it was kind of like this girl power moment of … big sis helping little sis go up on the stage.
“Music-wise, she’s so honest and just so herself and that’s really inspiring to know that you can be yourself and it can work,” Taylor said.
While Taylor dreams of fame and awards, she also hopes that the future of her career will mean building a tight and positive community of fans.
“When I was in high school, I didn’t have a lot of friends and so when I’m meeting fans, I look at it through a different lens in a way because they love music, I love music, we’re the same.”
She also hopes to inspire young fans who are drawn to music the way she was as a child. The response from fans so far has been overwhelming, in a good way.
“As a new artist, to look into the crowd and see people knowing the words to your songs that you wrote is insane. … I literally can’t believe it’s happening to me. It’s been awesome so far,” she said.
MaRynn Taylor will open for Kelsea Ballerini at PPG Paints Arena on Feb. 7. For tickets, visit ticketmaster.com.
Alexis Papalia is a TribLive staff writer. She can be reached at apapalia@triblive.com.
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