Brandi Carlile talks about her youth and struggles in her new memoir Broken Horses

“Artists I love never seem to reveal themselves later in life as a person who struggled to get by in their youth and also a person who is a narcissistic, insufferable asshole at times. I just personally find it liberating to tell you this because it’s true. I can’t be seen as an angel in these times or any times, although I wish it were so. I have been lost, racist, religious, brutal, and broken before. I hurt people as much as I’ve been hurt. I began working as a barista at a curbside coffee stand, a sample lady at a grocery store, and as a roofing laborer whenever I could.”, writes the Grammy winner  Brandi Carlile in her debut memoir, Broken Horses. 

The memoir reminisces her growing up in Seattle, the tough teenage years, the conflicts with her Catholic upbringing, her coming out as a queer in a rural setting, the disputes at home,the hardships behind her…times Grammy winning persona. The book also depicts the struggles she faced in her last shows in the dawn of Covid pandemic.

The six-time Grammy winner got her start as a kid, singing backup for an Elvis impersonator.

Self titled album ‘Brandi Carlile’ earned enthusiastic reviews; she was featured on Rolling Stone‘s “10 Artists to Watch in 2005″ list.

It wasn’t until 2007’s The Story—her T-Bone Burnett-produced sophomore release—that we realised even half of what we’d been dealt. Nearly a minute into the second song, something about her shifted from promise to absolute certainty as Carlile let loose a hurricane of lung power” wrote Rachael Maddux for Paste magazine.

On January 11, 2014, Carlile sang the national anthem for the Saints vs Seahawks NFL playoff game.

“I like wearing expensive clothes, drinking champagne, standing in a spotlight, striking a Shakespearean pose, and singing for people in this kind of grandiose way,” she told Vulture ahead of the book’s release. “And then there’s this other part of me that needs to only wear ripped-up jeans, have very dirty hands, catch fish, grow vegetables, tell only the truth, and not glorify myself. What the hypnotist did for me was make me understand that those two women will fight if something is going to happen that is a risk, that threatens rejection.”

She continues, “And when they fight, the result of that is often an ailment. There’s a certain amount of meditation and mediation that needs to happen in those moments for me to acknowledge and make space for both of those people to exist.”

By the Way, I Forgive You went on to become the highest charting album of Carlile’s career, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard 200. It also reached the number 1 position on the Billboard Top Rock Albums during the same week.The first single from the album, “The Joke”, was listed on Former President Barack Obama’s year end playlist. The album received critical acclaim from critics, leading Carlile to receive 6 nominations at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, the most nominations for a female in 2019, including the all-genre Album and Song of the Year categories.

In 2018, she and her longtime collaborators, Phil and Tim Hanseroth (a.k.a. the Twins), were scheduled to play three sold-out nights at New York’s Beacon Theatre while touring behind By the Way, I Forgive You — her sixth studio album, which later earned her first three Grammy Awards — when a vocal cord cyst threatened to rupture.

In the memoir, she writes, ”School was the only thing left in my life that I felt helpless about. I hated it. It was the last place standing that still made me feel like a child. I had removed all other infantilizing institutions from my life in an effort to feel like I could control my surroundings. I was out of the closet at school. The only gay person. My brother and I were different kids there. Jay began to struggle with paralyzing anxiety and agoraphobia. He developed crippling stomach problems and had to stop playing in the band for a while. I was skipping many of my classes for fear of the embarrassment of my classmates watching me walk into the special-education classes.”

In 2008, Carlile and Tim and Phil Hanseroth established the Looking Out Foundation, a 501 organization to give financial support and raise awareness to causes in which they believe.

The Looking Out Foundation has launched numerous grassroots campaigns including Looking Out for the Hungry, Fund Racial Justice, Covid-19 Relief Fund, the IF Project, Fight the Fear and the Story Campaign. Carlile donates $2 from every concert ticket sale to the foundation.