Photo: Getty Images
Tigirlily Gold visualized a heart-wrenching story of the aftermath of a broken engagement.
The award-winning sister duo premiered the “I Tried A Ring On” music video on Wednesday (September 18). Scenes capture Krista Slaughbaugh saying “yes” to a man on one knee, reading a hand-written apology note from her former fiancé and moving through the heartbreak with the support of her sister, Kendra Slaughbaugh.
“Seeing so many people connect their own personal experiences to this song has been heartbreaking yet so moving and even beautiful in a sense,” Tigirlily Gold said as they debuted the Robert Chavers-directed music video. “All we’ve ever wanted from this song was to help people heal from the frustration of having to start over after having what you thought would be a forever relationship end. This video is not about the person who hurt you… It’s about healing in the best way you can, finding your footing after feeling blindsided, and moving onto the life you deserve.”
The North Dakota-born breakout stars included “I Tried A Ring On” on their powerful debut album, Blonde, which arrived earlier this summer. Tigirlily Gold’s 10-track record, produced by Pete Good and Shane McAnally, was about three years in the making. It runs the gamut from vulnerable ballads to vibrant, “girl group energy,” “windows-down” anthems. The title track “unlocked” the “vibe” the sisters wanted to present to listeners on their first album, Krista said during a recent interview with iHeartCountry. “We finally unlocked and pinpointed it as this album is ‘girl group energy.’ And so, after we wrote ‘Blonde,’ everything we were chasing, that sound, those feelings, and just trying to be as real and vulnerable. And at the end of the day, Kendra and I picked the 10 songs that represented us the best. …We just knew what we wanted for this project.”
Tigirlily Gold’s determination is driving the duo forward in a powerful rise in music. They’re set to take the stage at Stagecoach in 2025, recently received their awards in the mail after winning New Duo of the Year at the 59th ACM Awards earlier this year (and brainstormed creative ideas to display them), and have already set their sights on what’s next.
Kendra and Krista said they sought to create a debut project that offered “a different sound (and) a different meaning,” with every track. Krista said she and her sister felt “like there's no rules or restrictions. We're not chasing what we think is going to do well. We were just writing the songs that we loved and obviously we want everybody to love them. That's a natural thing.” Tigirlily Gold also maintained a performance-focused mentality, and “tested” songs in front of audiences to gauge how they “translate live” and connect with listeners.
- Blonde
- Leroy
- Hometown Song
- Move On
- End Up Us
- I Tried A Ring On
- Stupid Prizes
- Shoot Tequila
- Only Once
- Bleeding Love
Tigirlily Gold had a hand in writing the majority of the tracks that appear on Blonde, which includes one cover that popped up in the duo’s sets when they played at bars on Lower Broadway in Downtown Nashville, Tennessee. “Bleeding Love,” released by Leona Lewis in 2007, closes out the project. Songs like “Shoot Tequila” are reminiscent of watching bachelorette parties in those downtown crowds, and others, like “Hometown Song,” offer an honest perspective of what it’s like to move away from a hometown.
“The last song we wrote for the project was a song called ‘Only Once.’ And basically the whole project had been written and we felt really good about it, but we were driving home in our Impala from the Dusty Armadillo in Ohio opening up for Cooper Alan,” Kendra recalled as an example. “And we loved growing up on just powerful — listening to powerful women just wail and they weren't afraid to say anything. And so, we said we needed a song with the drama, the dramatics for this album, and we were listening to ‘Cry’ by Faith Hill and we were listening to ‘Don't Want To Miss a Thing’ (by) Aerosmith. And we were like, we need something like this. And then ‘Only Once’ came to be, and there were no limits on that song. It didn't even have to be country. We were just, ‘let's write this power ballad.’ And that's how ‘Only Once’ came to be.
“We just have a span of all of it,” she continued later. “And Krista and I really throughout our entire career, and then and now and moving forward, we don't want to filter too much and we just want to be as honest and as vulnerable as possible, whatever that means. Whether it is talking about shooting tequila on a Friday night or talking about our hometown or talking about thinking you had forever with somebody and it not working out with ‘I Tried A Ring On.’ So, we're trying to cover all of life's spaces. And I will say because we're sisters, we have a lot more to write about because we're going through very different things in life, which is I think fun.”
Tigirlily Gold earned the New Duo of the Year award at the ACMs earlier this year, hosted at The Star in Frisco, Texas. The victory arrived after “11 years of long days, short nights, ups and downs, and never giving up,” they said at the time. The award also added Tigirlily Gold to the star-studded lineup at the 59th ACM Awards, where they took the stage to perform “I Tried A Ring On.” Kendra and Krista recalled their introduction to the stage by Little Big Town, and seeing their name appear on a list of performers that included Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, Kelsea Ballerini, Cody Johnson and others. Kendra and Krista — though they’re “not hugging sisters” — embraced one another at the end of the performance.
The victory was “still so surreal,” even when they received the New Duo of the Year awards in the mail recently. Kendra told iHeartCountry she’ll likely display hers on her piano, and Krista imagined “when I walk into my house, it'll descend like a disco ball and spin around and there's lights that go on it. …I think that's appropriate for that kind of an award.”
Fittingly, the sisters also “like to be flashy on stage.” Kendra and Krista spoke about live performances and what they’re planning to wear when they take the main stage at Stagecoach in April 2025.
“Stagecoach has been a dream of ours for so, so long, and the fact that it's happening this year and we get to play the main stage, I'm all like, ‘what are we going to wear?’ ‘What are we going to sing?’ …It's kind of like a huge, huge check mark on the list of things that you want to do as a country music artist,” Krista said, also hinting that a cover or two — like “Bleeding Love” — might appear in the energetic, “girl group energy” performance. “We like to be flashy on stage. We're not minimalists when it comes to that stuff [fashion]. I would say either, maybe, some sparkles, some fringe.”
Looking ahead to highly-anticipated performances — including the iconic festival, Ballerini’s sold-out album release show at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and more — and working on Album No. 2, the sister duo shared a word of advice they would give to their younger selves.
“Trust the process. Trust your work ethic, trust your gut because it's all going to be OK,” Kendra said. “And every time you feel like maybe you're failing, or you don't know how to get to the next step that you want to be. It's all just part of it. It's part of the process. It's part of becoming stronger, it's part of growing and I think it's a really beautiful part of the journey. So, don't get discouraged by the struggle and keep going and be good to people. That's a really big thing for us is just be good to people and everything's going to work out and it's going to be OK.”