Mickey Guyton Brings the Joy in New Album: ‘This Is Who I’ve Always Been’ (Exclusive)

Mickey Guyton may have earned her stardom as a country artist with a social conscience, but these days, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter says, she’s all about bringing the joy.

“That’s what I want people to feel,” Guyton, 41, tells PEOPLE, and if you listen to her recently released sophomore album, House on Fire, you know she means it.

Its 12 tracks overflow with happy vibes and songs about love, love and more love. Even the songs about crazy love (the album’s title song) and scary love (the actual name of the song) can’t help but bring a smile when swathed in Guyton’s soaring vocals and dance-worthy beats. One of the tracks is simply 15 seconds of pure, unadulterated bliss: the infant gurgles of Guyton’s adorable son, Grayson, now 3½.

Is there anything else that could possibly bring her even more joy?

Guyton doesn’t have to think hard: “I can’t hide who I am. I’m a Black woman and there’s a possibility of a Black and Indian woman being president. How am I not excited about that?”

Indeed, who wouldn’t want this joy for the artist who, just four years ago, released “What Are You Gonna Tell Her?,” a searing anthem about gender inequality that questioned whether young girls could even allow themselves to aspire to the White House?

“When I wrote that song,” says Guyton, “I never thought it would happen, to be honest. I just didn’t think that that was a possibility, that we would ever see a female president.”

No doubt Mickey Guyton is many things — artist, wife, mother, and purveyor of joy. But she also has worked long and hard to be all she was meant to be, so don’t think she’s ever going to forsake her advocacy role, especially in the often-hidebound world of country music.

First signed to her label in 2011, Guyton struggled for nine long years to find her voice as a Black female country artist in a white male-dominated genre before breaking through with her debut album, Remember Her Name. The music, nominated for a Grammy for best country album in 2021, showcased Guyton’s overall gifts as a singer-songwriter. But in addressing diversity themes in songs like “What Are You Gonna Tell Her?,” “All American” and “Black Like Me,” it also established her as an artist of significance.

Ever since, there’s been no going back for Guyton — not that she has regrets. Yet she did pay a price, enduring a backlash for speaking out that put a strain on her mental health. She has since weathered that storm, and if anything, the new album is a testimony to her defiance: Nothing is going to steal her joy.

“This is actually who I’ve always been as an artist,” she says.

The joy she claims has radiated especially from her home life. “My son gives me so much joy and a reason for living,” she says. “Not that I didn’t have a reason to live before, but a reason to live so well and to love the things around me, because we’re only here for a short amount of time.”

Her husband of seven years, attorney Grant Savoy, also is a prime reason for her well-being. “He has given me that safety,” she says. “‘He’s my security blanket’ is what I tell people. He understands. He knows everything about me — the good, the bad, the horrible. He knows everything, and he still chooses to love me.”

Her husband and son are clearly Guyton’s main sources of inspiration for the new music. Title song “House on Fire,” she explains, was conceived as she reflected on her husband’s response to her mental health crisis.

“It takes a very special person to love me,” says Guyton. “And that’s what that song is saying: Can you still love that person? Because it’s easy to love someone when things are good, but the true testament is, can you love someone when things are bad? That’s what true love is about. That’s what life is about.”

Guyton co-wrote “Scary Love” after Grayson suffered a life-threatening bout with sepsis that brought him to an emergency room when he was only 9 months old.

“Seeing my son like that was really horrific,” she recalls. “I’ve never felt that type of agony in my life. I knew I loved him beyond anything that I’ve ever loved in life, but I didn’t really understand the slippery slope. You’re so out of control.”

Faced with the fragility of life, she says, has made her understand that parenthood “is the most amazing, terrible thing you could ever do. It gives you such purpose, and you get to see your heart beating outside of your body. But the worry and the stress and the anxiety that anything could happen at any time is awful.” She offers a wry laugh. “It’s so bad. And he’s not driving yet!”

Most of the other songs on the album have evolved out of far more lighthearted topics. The album’s openers “My Side of the Country” and “Make It Me,” for instance, are simply effervescent jams that celebrate life and love. Guyton enlisted one of country’s finest merrymakers, Tyler Hubbard, to join her in the writing room, along with Corey Crowder, for both.

The two artists share a label, Guyton explains, and Hubbard “loved that I was fighting for diversity and inclusion, and he just wanted to write with me. I enjoy writing with him so much. We just connected instantly.”

Hubbard also contributed “Nothing Compares to You,” the only song on the album that Guyton didn’t co-write; released as a single, it’s hit multi-million streaming numbers. Along with Bebe Rexha and Jordan Schmidt, Hubbard wrote the torcher as a duet, then he decided it wasn’t for him, Guyton explains. Their label head suggested Guyton, and she invited Kane Brown to be her duet partner.

“I sent it to him, and he loved it,” she says.

The one thing you won’t find on the album is any overt social commentary — not that Guyton shies away from it in life. But musically, “I’ve said everything that I’ve needed to say,” she says, taking into account the potent content of her debut album. “What else is there for me to say? It’s time for me to continue on being an artist. That’s who I am. I’m an artist.”

She still considers herself an “outlaw” in country, and she is at peace with that label. “I definitely don’t fit the mold,” she says. “I’m still an outsider, but I’ve found my own place. I’ve made my own table.”

And finally, Nashville is literally home now. After years of living in Los Angeles, where Savoy’s career was based, the couple has recently relocated to Music City, and Savoy is able to work remotely. Guyton’s presence allows her to be even more hands-on as a source of support for other Nashville artists who are bringing diversity to the genre.

“Anybody that needs to call me, I’m always there,” she says. “We still have a long way to go, and my fear is, if people start feeling discouraged, if people don’t feel seen, they’ll leave and we’ll be right back to square one. How can I not be an encourager and a supporter after I spent four years beating it into people’s heads that let’s be inclusive in this genre? That would be completely contradictory and absolutely horrible if I did that.”

Guyton is now out on her first headlining tour, which means she’s finally experiencing the full fruits of her labor: the joy of performing before audiences who are, first and foremost, her fans.

“Usually, I’m in rooms where I’m trying to gain fans or get people to listen to me,” she says. “It just hits differently when you’re singing for your people. The crowds have been very beautiful and diverse. It’s been awesome.”

Guyton says she still has more dreams — putting out more music, winning a Grammy, maybe having a TV talk show. She also longs to have another baby. In the meantime, high-profile opportunities keep coming her way that showcase her role in country, most recently an invitation to perform at the Democratic National Convention.

She opened the event in August with “All American,” setting the tone the first night with the song’s unifying theme. The emotion of the experience still lingers.

“It made me really proud to be an American,” Guyton says, “and I hadn’t felt that in a long time. Everybody was so patriotic. They were waving their flags, and I feel like this is the America that we all knew. It felt like everybody was united. It was a beautiful moment.”

Long ago, in her finding-her-voice years, she might have chewed over whether to perform at such a high-profile partisan event. But those second-guessing days are long gone.

“I’ve just gotta be who I am,” says Guyton — and she says it as someone who’s discovered the joy in that.