Sunny Sweeney Talks ‘Provoked’, Meeting Merle Haggard + Sings Live – Exclusive Interview

Sunny Sweeney has been among the most appreciated female singers in the Texas music scene for the better part of a decade. Her self-professed "sassitude" (sass with attitude) has endeared the East Texas native to fans outside the Lone Star State, too. With the release of her latest CD, 'Provoked', Sunny paid a visit to the KEAN 105 Afternoon Show.

During her visit, Sweeney explained the meaning behind her Twitter and Instagram handle, "GettinSweenered". She tells us, "You know how when people say...'gettin' hammered'. Like if you're drinking. I thought, 'well, that'd be a funny Twitter name if I could figure out how to do it, and my nickname is already 'Sweener', everybody calls me that. And so I thought, 'Past tense, after you leave the show, you got Sweenered', and I thought 'gettin' sweenered'...so now, it's like, people call me that. My friends have always called me 'Sweener'...now they call me 'Gettin' Sweenered'. They're like, 'Oh, have you met Gettin' Sweenered before? Have you been Sweenered?' And I'm like, 'that actually sounds kinda gross'...[so now] it's my Instagram and my Twitter.".

Sunny played 'Backhanded Compliment' from her new CD, 'Provoked'. She explained the song, "This new song basically started because clearly people listening, you cannot see, but I have blonde hair, and it's not natural. My hair was falling out because I put so much bleach in it. So my hair girl called me and said 'tomorrow when you come in I'm not gonna be dying your hair.' She's like, 'Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and put brown in it to preserve the length.' And I freaked out. I was like 'No. That's not okay with me.'. Long story short, I go in, ans she does my hair brown, which worked. It was like that for a year. So, I go to a gig the next day, and this woman come up to me, and she was trying to be nice, I think. But she said 'I mean, it's cute and everything, but I liked you as a blonde.' And I thought, 'well, that's rude!' So the next week, I was going to write with Natalie Hemby, and she was telling me about this song idea she had called 'Backhanded Compliment'. And I said, 'Ah! This happened to me last week!' So we wrote a whole song about backhanded compliments".

With such a fun, funny song like 'Backhanded Compliment', I wondered if it was an easy song to play live without cracking up. Sunny replied, "I will do anything to make people laugh...I do have some depth, but I mean, I do also make people laugh on purpose. I did comedy for a little bit, and I did improv. Making people laugh is the most fun thing in the world. So, I usually do that one right after a tear-jerker. Like 'Oh look, he's crying. Now, let's play this one.'".

Sweeney let us know what to expect from the new CD, saying, "What I would like to say about [Provoked] is, there is way more of my writing on it than anything else I've done. There are some really, really country songs on there...it's the record that I wanted to 100% make. It goes back to more of my roots...but there's also some completely rocking stuff on there. Because music does evolve. My live show has changed, my instrumentation and my band has changed. All of it's different."

Take a listen to Sunny Sweeney's visit to KEAN 105 here:

Sunny Sweeney on KEAN 105

It was great having Sunny stop by Abilene and visit with the KEAN Afternoon Show. She's an unbelievably genuine person, and a breath of fresh air in the music scene, and you can't help but wish her the absolute best. Get all the latest Sunny Sweeney info, links to her social network pages and more at her official website.