Country Rookie of the Month Karley Scott Collins Talks Debut Album ‘Flight Risk’ & Infusing Her Heartfelt Songwriting With Her Love of Heavy Metal

This year, singer-songwriter Karley Scott Collins has checked quite a few personal and professional milestones off her bucket list, not only releasing her full-length debut album Flight Risk, but also, while on tour in Australia, she fulfilled her dream of diving with Great White sharks.

“Growing up, I would watch Shark Week all the time and I’d been wanting to do this forever,” Collins tells Billboard. “We finally got to tour Australia, and that’s the best place to do it. It was a five-hour travel and then six out on the boat ride to the middle of the ocean. It was the coolest thing. It blew my mind.”

That brand of fearlessness seems par for the course for Collins, whose Flight Risk, released earlier this year on Sony Music Nashville, doesn’t play it safe. Instead, Collins infuses her style of country with a heavy dose of rock and heavy metal.

“When I was growing up everyone was listening to Jesse McCartney or pop bands, but I was obsessed with Slash,” Collins says. “I loved Guns N’ Roses, Tom Petty, Alice in Chains. When I was older, my Nana gave me a stack of records when I asked for a record player, and that was Willie Nelson and George Jones [records]. And I discovered Howlin’ Wolf. I just read a biography of his and learned about sticking a real rattlesnake rattle underneath the strings, giving it like percussion while you’re playing it.”

Those rock influences shine throughout Flight Risk, right from the guitar riff that launches the album’s first track, seething breakup track “Denim,” which sounds like it could have bene pulled from a classic rock album.

Collins co-produced Flight Risk with Nathan Chapman (Taylor Swift, Keith Urban) at Nashville’s Blackbird Studios. Collins co-wrote every song, while also playing nearly every instrument on the album. Across the album, Collins plays electric guitar, acoustic guitar, violin, and banjo. She also picked up bass for the song “Girlfriend.”

“I learned how to play bass about an hour before I put that on the final track,” Collins recalls. “I was telling Nathan I wanted to learn how to play bass sometime. He was working on that bass part and was like, I’ll teach you right now and you can play it on the record.’ I thought that was insane and I learned how to play it. I feel like I’ve had my fingerprint on everything. Making the record will always be one of my favorite experiences because I learned so much.”

Elsewhere, she plays into her rock influence with the title to the impactful ballad, “Heavy Metal,” though the song is about a dissolving marriage rather than an ode to rock music. The song was inspired by one of her friends’ experiences.

“That line in the song that she’s ‘Three wine glasses on a Wednesday’ was because she FaceTimed me on a Wednesday afternoon after she had gotten some bottles of wine and was crying about her crappy husband,” Collins says. “Where I come from, basically on the Florida-Georgia line, it’s a pretty religious part of the country, and a lot of people I grew up with were married with kids by 21 and if you get a divorce, everyone’s judging you, so she was in that position where she was unhappy and crying a lot. I’d had the title ‘Heavy Metal’ because I love heavy metal music. It’s funny because I’ll get DMs and people at meet-and-greets, and they’ll say, ‘Karly, your song is the reason I got a divorce,’ and I’m like, ‘Yay! I don’t know if that’s good or not, but cool.’”

Fearlessness seems to be at the core of Collins’ career. At age five, she told her parents she wanted to try acting. Her parents gave it the green light, flying Collins to Los Angeles to take part in pilot season. That decision led Collins to roles in films including Amish Grace, The Hottie & The Nottie, and the television series Family Guy. “They have supported every dream I’ve ever had and I’m so grateful for that,” Collins says.

That early acting ambition served as a doorway to her musical gifts. While auditioning for a film role, Collins was required to learn guitar, and in the process, she uncovered her natural talent on the instrument. “I had never played guitar. We rented a little Martin from Guitar Center and I took guitar lessons in a hippie commune in the top of Topanga Canyon,” Collins says. “I learned a Queens of the Stone Age song, and it was shortly after that I realized I wanted to do music. I think learning how to tap into emotion at a young age was helpful for music, too.”

The Triple 8-managed Collins says Flight Risk marks the culmination of a five-year journey. Her professional association with Chapman dates back to one of Collins’ first writing sessions in Nashville in 2020, when the pair co-wrote the song “Quit You,” which appears on the new album. The album follows her 2023 EP Hands on the Wheel and her 2024 EP Write One (which featured collaborations with Keith Urban and Lady A’s Charles Kelley).

“I’m really grateful for the time that passed between the beginning and when I put out the record, because there was so much growing that I needed to do,” Collins says. “It does take so much time, even as a human being, let alone an artist, to figure out who you really are.”

Collins, Billboard’s December Country Rookie of the Month, spoke about making Flight Risk, her songwriting talents, and discussed the lessons she learned opening on Urban’s High and Alive 25 Tour.

One of the standouts on the album, “Cowboy Sh!t,” was not supposed to part of the album initially. How did you decide to add it to the project?

It very much almost didn’t make the album, because I wrote that song as a joke. Sam Backoff, KK Johnson and I had already written a song that day and then I was supposed to go ride horses. I was like, “You guys, I’m on some cowboy s–t right now,” and they were like, “We have to write that.”

We wrote it and I didn’t send it to my team, because I had an inkling that it was really catchy. So I tucked it away in a box. My manager found it over a year later through other publishers and was like, “You have to record this.” They asked me to just go in and record it and see how it feels. Then Nathan and I had so much fun recording it, so we released it. I’m glad I did, because it’s my favorite song to play live and the crowd loves it.”

“Only Child,” which looks at what it is like to be an only child caring for aging parents, feels really personal. What inspired that?

I don’t listen to that song because it makes me sad. When I wrote that song, my mother had just been diagnosed with cancer. My friend Alex Kline, who I wrote the song with, was going through the same thing at the same time with her mom. She’s also an only child and we were talking about how scary it is. You watch your parents getting older and you’re like, “I’m the only one that’s going to be left at some point.”

It’s interesting because I loved being an only child as a kid; like I say in the song, “I had all their time, all their attention.” As you get older, you’re like, “I wish there was someone else to call to say, ‘Hey, this is happening with Mom. I’m scared, are you scared?’” It’s just you. And so that was a feeling we were both going through.

Outside of your own music, you wrote Alexandra Kay’s song “Straight for the Heart.” How does that feel, to have a song you wrote resonate so much with another artist?

I just met her for the first time at the CMA [Awards], and she’s great. The song had already been recorded and she was so kind to me. I wrote that song for my record, but it didn’t end up fitting the style of the record, so I gave [my publishers] the okay to pitch it. When they said she wanted to cut it, I was so happy — because when I came to town, of course the goal was to be an artist, but when I think about my artistry and the pieces of it that I like the most, writing is probably my favorite part of the whole process. That was my first big cut, and then having it go to radio is incredible.

You opened for Keith Urban this year on his High and Alive 25 Tour. What did you learn musically and professionally from being on the road with him?

He’s been great about giving us all advice and he’s been very supportive of young artists. I learned so much just from watching him perform. He’s one of the artists that, as an entertainer, there’s an entire level that he’s on with very few people. And we were taking notes every night for sure.

What was the first concert you ever attended?

Well, my second concert was Guns N’ Roses on their reunion tour.

Would you ever act again?

If it was something like, I don’t know, anything Taylor Sheridan’s ever done, or they can call me if there’s a Stevie Nicks biopic, that kind of thing. But I would not just do acting to act — [only] if it was something I was really excited about.

What is one artist fans may not know you are into?

Probably the crazier heavy metal stuff. I love Pantera, it’s one of my favorite bands of all time.

Since it is the holiday season, what is your favorite Christmas movie?

Probably The Nightmare Before Christmas. I like the little spooky stuff. I’m always wearing skull jewelry, and I love Halloween, so that one’s a good mix for me.

What’s your favorite Christmas song?

Willie Nelson, “Pretty Paper.” I learned that one from my Nana.