Calling from her Nashville home just a week before her national television debut on the Today show with Hoda and Jenna, singer songwriter Kelleigh Bannen is a flood of confidence on a Monday morning. She’s a force to be reckoned with a slightly raspy tone woven into a Southern twang – it’s nonetheless a wave of warmth and proof in the pudding that her new album Favorite Colors is a culmination of hard work and determination. 

Favorite Colors, the follow up to Bannen’s The Joneses EP keeps the listener highly engaged in all 14 lively tracks. Bannen co-wrote all of them, a skill she started in her 20s, and worked with producer Jaren Johnston (The Cadillac Three, Lee Brice, Jake Owen and more). Bannen, 38, said she wanted to make a bold statement with the packed song list.

“We went back and forth how many is too many,” she said. “And I think for me, not knowing where albums are going and having been at this full time for the past decade and not having an album out, we kind of thought ‘what if this is the only album.’ Like what if this is the only album that we put out, what would I be sad about if we didn’t get to put on there.”

The title track is a moving tale and contagious chorus: “I know all your favorite colors, I know your sign and your height and your weight, I know you had a lot to live up to, And I know your father’s middle name, How many drinks you gotta drink ‘till you’re drunk, All the words to your third favorite song, Even so I don’t know where love goes when it’s gone, where love goes when it’s gone, when it’s gone.” Bannen’s delivery and air of confidence is an immediate rapport with the listener; it’s as if the layers of hurt, happiness and hope trickle down with each note. Her vulnerability transforms the listening experience. 

“The sentiment behind favorite colors is, and I know we’re playing with that word color a lot, but a colorful description of grieving a relationship and of knowing someone on all these deep and different levels,” she said, telling why “Favorite Colors” garnered the album title. “So, the song was important….when you’re naming an album, you want it to be one of these emblematic songs of the larger project. We just felt like we could play with the way all these songs are different shades of love and loss and human experience, and all these different shades of life. It felt like a really fun way to group everything together.”

The University of Virginia graduate studied politics and even law before solely focusing on music. She’d grown up in Nashville and saw the impact of chasing dreams, only for some to return back home empty-handed. “There is no middle class in music,” she said. 

As the conversation continued, the hues and anecdotes that have peppered Bannen’s life fall into place, much like the album. In “Diamonds” her crooning vocals brush up against murky guitars and vibrant tones. In the track “Time Machine” Bannen sings about “longing for a little slow down, little hometown.” 

“I think that’s about trusting the people you’re with,” she said, about the writing process. “And the people in the room all willing to be in each other’s stuff. Like when we wrote ‘Happy Birthday,’ I think each of us was bringing a different flavor of that sentiment, of nostalgia and longing and wondering what could have happened. We’re all thinking about different relationships, but we’re intersecting.”

Bannen said that especially for her, the process of writing for Favorite Colors included pieces she had previously worked on before being dropped by a major label. It’s another reason that the voice on the end of the phone feels at peace – she’s not letting the pressure get to her and she sounds happy. 

“I think what happened for me when I was trying to write specifically for the radio as my main job every day,” she said. “I love the radio and I want to be on the radio, like everyone else, but when you’re in a record deal and you’ve had a couple failed singles, you just need that hit single and that’s what everyone is saying to you. You try and write what you think will work. What should work, not necessarily what’s in the room. That’s when I think the most special things happen. We make room for whatever is showing up that day.”

One key to songwriting and being in relationships even more so, Bannen said, is listening. She made a point to bring up her interview with Liz Rose (Bannen has a podcast called This Nashville Life). Rose, co-wrote many of Taylor Swift’s hits like “You Belong To Me,” “Teardrops on My Guitar,” “Picture To Burn,” and many more. 

“I think co-writing is one of those ultimate trust relationships,” she said. “Liz was talking about how she learned to write and the women that taught her how to write. And I think about all the stories we heard about her writing with Taylor early on. You know, she was asking questions and getting Taylor to spill details and to describe things in a colorful way…” 

Keeping things light and engaged comes natural for Bannen. The podcast is a perfect extension for such a gregarious artist and is celebrating its third season. 

“Honestly when it first started it was more about venting,” she said. “It just morphed into what could this be, the Nashville life, the music life, and we landed on This Nashville Life. I think what I like about that title is, there’s a lot that happens here that is so much more beyond what is the final product of a song on a radio that is blasting through the airwaves. It’s the artists voice and there’s all these smaller pieces that even as a Nashville native, growing up around the industry, but not in it, you don’t know, like there’s someone that pitches songs to the radio…everyone has a discovery process. That’s the part of what we tell on This Nashville Life, there’s all these ways to make a life in music.”

Her downtime right now (what little she has) is likely spent with her husband, Jeff, renovating a house in Nashville built in 1910 with her mother or as most of her Instagram followers (she has over forty-thousand) know, she has three pugs she likes to gush about. 

“They’re like little comics in some ways,” she said. “They’re so funny. In some ways they are really simple. They love food and they love people. That’s probably true of me too. They love a good meal, they love a good snuggle. They’re just so funny.”

If she closed her eyes and had to pick a color for her pugs, what color would they be?

“Actually they’d probably be a really bright orange because they’re kind of obnoxious and a little clown-like, they are just so silly,” she said.