Meghan Patrick's 'Greatest Show On Dirt' offers frank empowerment wrapped in pop-country sounds

Meghan Patrick is standing in the kitchen in her West Nashville home preparing bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers filled with brown sugar, garlic and soy sauce-marinated duck breast slices on a bed of melted cheddar and cream cheese.

Her candid conversation with The Tennessean lacks a bottle of whiskey, tall boy cans of beer and perhaps the setting of a tattoo parlor from feeling precisely perfect.

Aside from also being married to chart-topping country artist Mitchell Tenpenny and having her latest EP, "Greatest Show on Dirt," out on May 12 via Riser House Entertainment, the 36-year-old Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada native is a career and life crossroads where her best-made plans have been superseded by life as boldly lived as her jalapeno poppers are savory in their flavor.

Patrick's been a country music artist for over half of her life. In that time, she's worked with iconic Canadian creatives like Gord Bamford and Nickelback's Chad Kroeger, become a two-time Canadian Country Music Association Female Artist of the Year, plus an 18-time CMA Ontario award-winning performer.

This would be amazing if Patrick weren't a competitive gymnast and snowboard racer for the other half of her life.

Given her competitive spirit, she is keenly aware that there are as many radio stations in Canada overall as in Texas alone.

Patrick's also a hunter whose jalapeno poppers come from a duck hunt in Alabama ("We should normalize having beers and breakfast after early morning hunts"). Her love of hunting also showcases her love of community and empathy.

"I love cooking food for my friends that's organically sourced and that I've had a hand in every step of how it's arrived from field to table," she says.

The entirety of her life -- though now at a place where she has taxidermied fowl hanging on her walls and she's building a life with her husband -- is still all about happiness being best found as the result of thrills being sought and found.

"I have so much adrenaline going on when I'm playing these days," Patrick says.

However, the drive to achieve feeling her best self being actualized via her musical output supersedes any sense that she's trying to surge to the top of Billboard or Mediabase's charts.

"Competing against myself keeps the gratitude and joy I find from and in making music and touring alive," she says, mentioning that her break from Warner Music Canada arrived after the two parties' "mutual love and respect for each other couldn't be cultivated further and evolved in different ways."

Patrick's now at a place where she defines herself and her art via a refreshed vision of her branding.

Her latest career era? Her management team at Make Wake Artists (also the home of Luke Combs and Hailey Whitters, among many others) characterizes it like this:

Meghan "F***ing" Patrick.

"I don't give as many f***s as I used to about my work. I'm over being frustrated and creatively depleted. Discovering freedom via songs reflecting me pushing myself and removing boundaries best reflects the experience and wisdom I've gained through my career," she says.

Part of that arrives from Patrick arriving at a place where she's nearing being five years removed from being named Canada's best female artist. The relief of shedding how making music she felt was "derivative of cookie-cutter ideas and trends that had already happened in Nashville" is apparent on her latest EP.

"I love where I came from and the people there, but being in Nashville allows me to grow artistically."

About her EP's latest single, "Ours," she states that the song accurately reflects many nights she's had at midtown Nashville haunts like the Red Door Saloon where she's seen ex-boyfriends "hit 'copy and paste' with [a new girlfriend] by taking them to the same bar, doing all the same things they did with you and to top it all off, they [dare] to dance with them to the song that used to be [your favorite]."

Regarding her latest release overall, its general vibe is reflective of her candid humorous takes about falling back in love with being a female artist who likes country music, rock and soul "who has forgiven -- but not forgotten -- years of toxic men," as she stated via social media.

EP track "Truck Breaks Down," being referred to as a "problematic love song," makes Patrick cackle.

"If you're coming to break my heart, I hope your truck breaks down. But, it could be worse -- I could've slashed all four of your tires, really messed it up and maybe even killed you. I mean when it comes to country lyrics, it can always be worse."

If needing a sense of where and how Patrick and her longtime Nashville friends like Ashland Craft, Nicolette "Pillbox Patti" Hayford, Faren Rachels, Kasey Tyndall and hitmaker of the moment Lainey Wilson are different from country's mainstream expectation of the past two decades, it's here.

"We're country a** redneck tomboys who have the same interests, aren't afraid of earning our success and don't like feeling like we have to compete with each other. They're my sisters for life."

When asked to summarize finally arriving at a place where her career has smashed Canada's glass ceiling and achieved American stardom, she weeps but persists with an answer.

"There are so many times when I didn't imagine the country music industry would respect my art. But my fans are showing up for me enough to the point where maybe I can realize that not everyone and everything in country music may be against me anymore."