Alabama Native Ella Langley Is Some ‘Country Boy’s Dream Girl’ — but Not Quite Yet

“I have felt every one of these emotions — the good, the bad, the rowdy, the drinking — everything,” Langley says of her music

Ella Langley, country music’s most honest person, can’t seem to go on a date without asking a few questions first.

“Am I too much of a tomboy?” Langley wondered aloud in an interview with PEOPLE. “Am I too independent? Should I let him carry my guitar? But then I realized the answer to all of those questions is ‘No.’ If he doesn’t want me for who I am, then he can go and kick the bucket.”

In fact, Langley has told a lot of guys to go and kick the bucket.

“My perfect date is to go to a dive bar, have a few beers, play pool and throw darts,” says the country/rock singer/songwriter whose music is gaining a lot of attention in the music industry. “For some reason, going on a super fancy first date makes me feel a lot less comfortable than just chilling out at a bar. And I think some guys don’t know how to approach someone like that.”

She laughs and adds, “I only learned that recently.”

“All of my songs are written from a real place,” says Langley, who admires artists like Randy Houser, Jamey Johnson, and Chris Stapleton. “I’ve felt all these emotions—good, bad, loud, drinking—everything. It’s all real things and real stories from my life. And the best thing about the past year of touring is that people can relate to my honesty.” It’s an honesty Langley first heard in songs by artists like Stevie Nicks on the mornings she got ready for school in her hometown of Hope Hull, Alabama. “My mom bought me every Stevie Nicks vinyl record you could imagine,” Langley recalls.

And it’s this sort of honesty that became even more transparent to others when Langley found herself treading water in Nashville back in 2020.

“COVID happened six months after I moved here,” remembers Langley, who was majoring in Forestry at Auburn University before deciding to drop out in favor of learning how to write songs in Music City. ‘I luckily got in with a great group of people during that time that I’m still writing with to this day. All they do is write and they love it, and they appreciate it, and it’s part of their life. Being surrounded by that made me grow so much as a writer and an artist.”

Adding to that growth is the plethora of opportunities to play amongst Nashville’s most talented at venues such as The Bluebird Café.

“There’s so much history in that building,” explains Langley, who initially cut her teeth in the country music industry by playing “four-hour cover gigs four days a week.: “There are so many people that I’ve grown up listening to that played their first writer’s rounds at that bar, and it was a similar feeling when we played the Ryman this past year. It was just one of those, ‘Is this really happening?’ moments.'”

And in case anyone is wondering, it’s also a time of life that Langley says she’d rather experience “single.”

And she’s got a lot to do in 2025.