Lola Kirke found country music through the back door of rock and roll. “I found Gram Parsons through the Rolling Stones and The Byrds—Parsons was my gateway drug,” the singer, songwriter, and actor told AD recently from a hotel room in Austin, one of the many stops on her tour for her third country album Trailblazer.
Known for pairing magenta with rhinestones and a lyrical wit, Kirke hasn’t always been country. A New Yorker at heart, she grew up in a West Village brownstone with a rock star dad (Simon Kirke, drummer for Free and Bad Company) and a stylish mom (Lorraine Kirke, an interior designer and the owner of vintage clothing store Geminola). It wasn’t until college that her penchant for cowboys, country, and the Wild West developed, where she notes in her debut memoir, Wild West Village: “Maybe it was just nice to imagine somewhere more lawless than the lawlessness I’d known in the West Village.”
During the pandemic, Kirke leaned into her country music passion and moved to Nashville on a whim. She lived in a two-room carriage house before buying the East Nashville ranch where she currently lives, where she wrote her book, which launched earlier this year. “I always loved the South, but I never thought I could live here,” Kirke says. “Actresses don’t live in Nashville. They live in New York City and LA. I found Nashville by accident.”
Since establishing herself down South, however, Kirke has fallen in love with Music City. Here, she dishes on her favorite spots around town.
The Parthenon
Presiding over Nashville’s Centennial Park lives the world’s only exact-size replica of the Parthenon, standing at 65 feet high with 46 Doric-style columns. Nashville was already known as the Athens of the South due to its numerous higher education institutions and because it was the first Southern city to establish a public school system when this icon of Classical architecture was built in 1897, as a celebration of Tennessee’s 100th year of statehood and an ode to ancient Greece. Kirke chose this ornate setting to shoot a home workout video, a companion piece to her ’80s-inspired country album, Lady for Sale, in 2022. “The idea was that the workout would make you look and feel like a goddess, so, obviously, the Parthenon,” she says.
Third Man Records
“This was the first place I went to when first visiting Nashville. They are unparalleled in style and kindness and taste,” Kirke says of Jack White’s record store and recording studio. (Kirke released her album Lady for Sale through Third Man records.) “It’s like a colorful factory from a retro future…. They have a record booth where you record your song and the vinyl pops out. It’s a very distinct place in Nashville.” Third Man also has a live venue, the Blue Room Bar, where artists such as André 3000 and Kirke have performed.
Santa’s Pub
This quirky karaoke bar in a double-wide trailer is unique in many ways, not least of which is that it’s festively decorated for Christmas year-round. “You could smoke inside until recently, but you weren’t allowed to curse on stage. I had the misfortune of getting drunk and messing up the words and swearing,” Kirke says. “The lights turned off and the music stopped.”
The Bluebird Cafe
“This place is legendary,” Kirke says of this unpretentious café and listening room resting in a strip mall on the outskirts of downtown Nashville. For the last 40 years, the music industry’s greatest songwriters and artists have sat in the center of this small café and performed their radio hits for an intimate audience. “This place feels like the heyday of Nashville songwriters in the 1990s,” says Kirke, who performed at The Bluebird, where majors like Garth Brooks, Carole King, and Taylor Swift cut their teeth.
National Museum of African American Music
Resting on Fifth and Broadway—Nashville’s main drag—is this museum dedicated to African Americans’ central role in American music. The 56,000 square-foot space celebrates 50 music genres and styles that were created, influenced, and inspired by African Americans, from blues to jazz to gospel to hip hop.
The Green Ray
This East Nashville indie bookstore features a mural of a UFO on the side. “I love this place,” Kirke says. “It has everything from books to curated home goods to Flamingo Estate candles, my heroin.”
Ryman Auditorium
Known as the Mother Church of Country Music, one can’t talk about Nashville without talking about The Ryman. “It’s synonymous with the birth of country music. So many amazing performers of all kinds played there,” Kirke says. Originally opened in 1892 as the Union Gospel Tabernacle, this Gothic Revival church became home to the Grand Ol’ Opry until 1974 when the Opry moved to its new location, where Kirke performed last month. The Ryman rests just off Broadway, its curved oak pews, tongue and groove pine floors, and multicolored stained-glass are still intact, and it still operates as a music venue today.
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
“This is the place we go whenever someone’s in town. I love getting to see old costumes the country music stars wore,” Kirke says. She loves the “Nudie Suits” by legendary fashion designer Nudie Cohn—the original midcentury costume for the rhinestone cowboy. “They used to have a store Downtown, but now it’s moved to a ranch-style house in Berry Hill,” Kirke says. “Manuel Cuevas was Nudie’s protégé. He’s made suits for everyone from Elvis to me.”
Urban Cowboy
This 1800s Victorian mansion turned hotel in East Nashville opened its doors to guests in 2016, each of its eight suites singular in style. “It’s a cool hotel; they have disco balls in every room,” Kirke says. Urban Cowboy offers live music in the main house nightly.
The Bookshop
Nestled in East Nashville, this book nook offers a café, plenty of books, and, of course, Kirke’s memoir, Wild West Village. The Bookshop offers events, such as knitting book clubs, the Unlikeable Females Book Club, and poetry readings.
Shelby Bottoms Greenway
An oasis in Music City, this five-mile walking trail hugs the Cumberland River. “Nashville is so verdant and lush, and the birds, the cardinals…. Something is in the air here,” Kirke says. “Every time I’m walking on this trail, I start writing a song.”
