Warner Nashville Co-Chair/Co-President Cris Lacy is tasked with shaping the future of a vibrant label whose star-studded roster includes Kenny Chesney, Bailey Zimmerman, Dan + Shay, Ashley McBryde, Cole Swindell and Cody Johnson.

A hardcore song woman whose career was forged in how music is created, Lacy rose to her present post through stints as a singer in a band, waitress, publisher, A&R and label exec.

Upped from EVP of A&R to co-president in 2022, Lacy runs Warner Nashville with Co-Chair/Co-President Gregg Nadel, the pair reporting to Warner Records CEO and Co-Chairman Aaron Bay-Schuck and COO and Co-Chairman Tom Corson.

A 20-year vet of Warner Nashville, Lacy has an unerring sense of artist advocacy that has made her a favorite throughout the creative community. Willing to face tough moments and champion the right course of action, she seeks to build a future for Nashville artists that retains the best of what made country music inherently powerful to working people.

You’re from Virginia, and music was a family obsession. Tell me about music in the house.

My dad had an extensive vinyl collection and played classical guitar just for himself. Dad was a renaissance man. He could do a lot of things well, even though most weren’t necessarily lucrative. He taught himself to play. That was his side. Mostly instrumental, minus the Eagles or Jim Croce.

My mom and her dad sang in a barbershop quartet. When I would visit my grandparents on my mom’s side, we’d sit on the front porch, we’d sing, watch cars go by and they’d harmonize. These families grew up on farms, still live on farms, just very simple. We found connections singing together on the front porch and counting cars as they went by.

You’re in a band in high school. What kind of music?

I remember the kids loving Iron Maiden. So, the only exposure I could get was local talent shows. Mom would take me to whatever bars did local talent shows on weekends; I’d be up there with some guy singing “American Trilogy.” Then I’d come on with “You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man.” That was my go-to. It needed to be tempo, it needed attitude, it needed to be really country.

I didn’t have a voice or range like Martina [McBride]. I leaned more on the Patty Loveless or old-school Tammy Wynette. Someone knew somebody, and they saw me: “We need a chick singer for our band.” The band was The River Boys. I was the girl singer. I’d have been 16 or 17.

Were you excited to be onstage?

I was excited to get a shot. That’s always been one of my major drivers: I didn’t want to damage the trust they put in me. I knew my performance affected all their livelihoods, so I felt a high degree of responsibility.

I felt powerful in that spot onstage. It felt like, “This is where I’m supposed to be. These are the people I’m supposed to be with, what I’m supposed to be doing.” I was 100% sure I was in exactly the right place.

Did you go to Vanderbilt for the education or to get closer to Nashville?

It got me to Nashville. “What’s the best school I can go to?” because I was a straight-A student but salutatorian because I took typing instead of a fricking AP class, and they were weighted differently. But now, I’m really glad about typing. That was my mom’s suggestion. It’s been one of the most practical, invaluable things I’ve ever learned. Of all the classes I took, I had no idea typing was the one that would be my gateway to the music business.

You were an English major.

I started writing songs when I was six, so I thought English made the most sense. In English, the depth of emotion that can be accomplished with just the right word… For me, it was Faulkner and Steinbeck. Steinbeck, especially for the level of detail around the characters and the Dust Bowl. That resonated with me and my family in their own microcosm of that.

What else did you learn?

The cost of living. The dorm was much more expensive than living in a regular apartment, so my second year I lived in an apartment five minutes from the Stagecoach Lounge, the bar where I worked on Murfreesboro Road. There’s a gas station to your right. On the left was the Stagecoach and across the street was the Piccadilly Cafeteria.

It was also where all the prostitutes were. The truckers took that exit from I-40, but even better, all the artists took that exit. This was during the John Michael Montgomery era, where artists would come with their tour buses and peel off for one beer or one more beer before they went home. They’d get onstage and sing. Just really laid back: they’d get a beer, walk up, sing and then they’d be out.

You were also interning.

I interned at BNA Records, which Rick Pepin was running during the Richard Landis days. Then I interned at MCA Publishing with Jerry Crutchfield. They kept me at BNA for several semesters, then MCA Publishing, where Byron Hill was a writer. That’s how I ended up at Tom Collins Music when they were looking to hire a front-desk person. Byron gave me an endorsement, and Tom hired me based on Byron’s recommendation.

A Vanderbilt education, and you’re Tom Collins’ receptionist?

Vanderbilt was always an afterthought because I was so focused on being in the music industry. I knew I needed to get good enough grades to graduate. But I had a job in the music industry. I was getting $15,800. I never thought about what my girlfriends were making. Years later, someone was saying, “When I got out, I was only making $70,000, but now I’m up to $200,000.” Another friend, “I came out of college making a hundred thousand dollars.” I never thought about it, because I was happy. I was typing lyrics. I was touching songs. My life changed. I didn’t have to juggle two jobs and school. It felt like freedom because I had one job doing the thing I was passionate about.

Assistants have access to everybody.

And people kill time with you. I might have spent more time with some of these people than Tom Collins. It was a precursor to when I became a publisher. Writers would come in, and there’s an hour before everybody writes. You got to know ’em really well, maybe talk through ideas at the front desk, where I was perched.

Kenny Chesney talks about meeting you there.

He came through the door before he had a deal. I met a lot of people like that. But also just through the 10,000 hours of typing lyrics, you’re absorbing structure, starting to identify which songs feel like hits and which don’t. All day long I was just typing. They say if you write it or you type it, it sticks in your mind in a different way. That was a big piece for me, because it was a manual typewriter.

Who were some of the writers?

Tia Sillers and Tom T. Hall were signed there, so I spent time with Tom and Ms. Dixie, his wife, going through his catalog. Mark Allen Springer, who wrote “All I Need To Know,” and “Grandpa Told Me So,” both Kenny singles. It was a small company, probably had 10 writers, if that.

How did you evolve?

Tom hired me as his executive assistant. I told him I wanted to pitch songs. He’s like, “You can do that on your off time.” I kind of made all my time, my “off time.” I was a terrible executive assistant. I’d find reasons to run errands for him, then go pitch a song or show up somewhere.

How do you get to Rick Hall?

Music Row is a tight-knit community. People told me who Rick was; I got some backstory. Rick interviewed me. I knew the records he’d made only because I’d asked people. Muscle Shoals wasn’t a thing when I grew up; it was more Merle, Glen Campbell, Hank.

The interview process was interesting. He had this barber chair in his office. I remember sitting there and he’s playing you songs. He wants you to score the songs. I didn’t know these songs, just assumed they were demos. Some were cut but weren’t hits.

It was a test to know if you had good ears. I’ve never done this in my life ever, before or since. It went on and on and on. I had to tell him why I thought this was a five, a nine, whatever. Sometimes he’d give me a little history behind the song, who wrote it. I remember being exhausted. The last song he played, I had had enough, and said, “There’s not a score low enough. That is a terrible song.” He said, “Well, that song was cut.” I said, “Who the hell cut it?” He said, “I did.” I said, “Well, it wasn’t a hit, and it still isn’t.” I don’t know if that’s what made him hire me, because I pushed back, but I was just ready to go home. I thought, I am not getting this job. I’m exhausted. He hired me.

Lessons learned?

Rick Hall was known as this visceral, mercurial, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps producer. Rick had a tough upbringing, and there’s a lot of tragedy in his life. You heard that angst in his production. I learned that whoever the producer was, that was what the record sounded like. You had to think about that, not just listen to record and go, “Oh, I want that producer.” These things are very specific puzzle pieces, and you need the right one for the right artist, for the right type of music. Some of that starts with that producer’s origin story.

How long did you work for Rick?

A year. In the interview, I said, “I can’t wait to work with Walt Aldridge.” Rick said, “Oh, yeah, he’s going to be there.” The first week I went into the building, Walt came in and said, “Hey, I don’t know if Rick told you, but I’m leaving.”

I was crushed. Even when I was at Tom Collins, there was this little company called Island Bound that Julie Daniel was running, that had Harley Allen, Leslie Satcher and Roger Cook, Steven Dale Jones, Max T. Barnes and Max D. Barnes. Those are heavy hitters.

She was building something that felt special. Even before I went to FAME, I’d taken her to breakfast and said, “I don’t know if you will ever have an opening at your company, but I believe in what you’re doing and the people you’re doing it with. My dream job is to work at Island Bound Publishing with all of these amazing writers. If ever something comes up, please let me know.”

She did! I left FAME to go to Island Bound. These writers were starting to move the needle. There was nobody like Leslie and Harley was in his prime. It felt very fresh, very cutting edge.

They were building a new dynamic.

These were joint ventures, mom-and-pop shops that were 100% owned by the head. These other publishers were producer-owned. These new companies were run by the songwriters or publishers—the hustlers—who didn’t produce records.

We were still underdogs. It felt like we couldn’t get the meetings with the big producers, the big artists. They went to the majors because the numbers were better for them. For any independent publishing company it was David and Goliath.

How did you get to Warner Chappell?

Dale Bobo pursued me. You had all the access. I was able to take meetings I couldn’t get before. The catalog was overwhelming, because up to this point, with smaller catalogs, I’d prided myself on knowing every song in them. I went through them with a fine-tooth comb. It was my first experience where I knew I’d never know everything there was.

I want to believe anything is possible, to believe that Cody Johnson, playing for 12 people in a Texas bar is someday going to sell out a stadium in Arlington. If you don’t have that belief and can’t see it in your mind’s eye, then you have no business being an A&R person.

Biggest change?

I had to be unequivocal in my opinion. At a smaller publishing company, if you have a song meeting, you don’t have that big of a catalog. In a 30-minute meeting, you can play three songs you think are really good, then experiment; maybe it’s not great but you’ll get lucky. It forces you to refine what you believe “great” is. You have to refine your pitches to artists based on who they really are, as opposed to just “Here are the three best songs I have this week.”

How about a cut?

“I Don’t Feel Like Loving You Today” by Gretchen Wilson. I found out where she was cutting, an old-school thing I learned at Tom’s and went to the studio. I knew John Rich because he was published at Warner Chappell. They were in the middle of cutting. I walked in the door, turned around and handed him the CD. I said, “I’m sorry. This is Song of the Year, and I wanted you to hear it. I just want to know that you got it—and that’s it. You can never meet with me again. You can call and dog-cuss me afterwards. But this song is too important.”

I left it there. She’d never heard it. The label never gave it to her. She listened to the demo; they cut it. It was nominated for Grammy.

Ironically, that got you your job at Warner Nashville.

Tracy Gershon brought me into Warner, to meet with Paul Worley. I thought Paul hated me because there was a song he’d wanted for an artist he was producing. The writer was on the precipice of losing their publishing deal, and I knew we needed a bigger cut to save it. Paul actually came to my office with the artist and made me tell him why I couldn’t give him the song.

When he was interviewing me, I reminded him of that. He said, “That’s the reason I’m hiring you. You stood up for your person. You did the right thing. I want that for my artists.” Knowing that disagreeing with someone, risking the relationship because people want you to agree is what leadership is about. That was such a lesson.

You were finally in A&R.

I was the junior person, getting the stuff that wasn’t working. My job was to figure out how to move it to the next level. Shannon Brown, Ray Scott, who was probably ahead of his time because he wrote all his songs. It was a “square peg, round hole” kind of a business model that was “Go find a radio hit.” Now you have Zach Bryan, who created an audience with his songs. If he’d needed a radio hit, we wouldn’t know him.

In 2014, Cole Swindell wrote “Chillin’ It.” Things were starting to pop on XM, and Terry Wakefield was his publisher at Sony. Kerri Edwards, who I knew from her time at Arista, was managing him. We went to Noshville in midtown, and I realized it wasn’t just his music. He was effervescent, buzzing with this energy that was so positive and happening. They gave me three songs that hadn’t been cut yet but would have been hits if they were pitched. I said, “Let’s do this.”

He had this robust catalog, so once “Chillin’ It” took off, we had more to go back to. Songs pop off from artists today, and they don’t have time to create a true album. Cole spent years and years learning his craft, being in the studio, which is why I signed him. I had a feeling; I also knew he had the goods

Like Cody.

Eight years before we signed him, Trent Willmon started working with him. He said, “There’s something about this kid. You need to see him.” I went down to some little bar in Texas with maybe 30 people. He had all the vocal qualities, that richness you hear now. But there was this charisma. He looked like a bull rider, ready to go, and he took that energy onstage—for 30 people. You believed what he was saying.

He was absolutely afraid he’d lose his audience and his sound [if he signed with Warner]. He said, “These are my people, and I need to stay true to that.” He believed it would grow. We made him an offer, and it was commensurate with where he was. They turned it down, but I didn’t stop.

What changed?

He wanted to get to that next level, and I believed he could be a contender globally. He knew we didn’t have any relationship with his fans. I promised we’d protect his sweat equity, respect his music.

His energy onstage was Garth-like. That live show, knowing with us, where he could take it, where he would bring traditional but also modern country music. We had a very honest conversation, and he recognized he needed a real partner.

Traditional and modern country music.

I was told that kind of music was “old,” but I was at the shows, and 90% of the audience had an “X” on their hand. That means they can’t drink, but they’re discovering for the first time an artist who they believe in. That is the future.

In a world where it feels like everything’s coming apart, it’s protecting your values. That’s what matters, what country music has always been. That’s who he is too.