Amanda Shires wears many hats on the road: She is a solo artist, one-fourth of the country supergroup the Highwomen (with Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile and Natalie Hemby) and part of the 400 Unit, the all-star backing band for her husband, Americana giant Jason Isbell.
But no matter what the lineup is, Shires has been touring long enough to know what she needs backstage before her shows, and one important component of her tour rider is a wine selection.
"I have a couple different wine riders that go out. The $25 tier, the $40 tier, the celebration tier, the 'what we can get by with when We're in the middle of Amarillo' tier," she jokes. "I'm just a person that really appreciates Jesus' first miracle."
In this episode of Herbal Tea & White Sofas, the singer/songwriter and fiddle player explains that her tour riders are Road-tested. Over the years, she's learned that if she's going to have wine backstage, she also needs an effective way to clean up spills.
"With that, and my clumsy self, I have to have Shout wipes," Shires goes on to say. "Copious amounts of Shout Wipes. It's the only thing that you can get red wine out of your clothes real fast with. And also, it gets rosin off your clothes, if you've been practicing your fiddle backstage. Not to mention whatever other corn dog stuff you get on your shirt."
That's always why you'll probably see her mostly dressed in black when she's on tour ("Black is your friend, right? Its only enemy is mustard," she quips). But Shires says that her Shout wipes revelation didn't truly come along until the birth of her daughter, Mercy, in 2015.
"And now I probably pretty much single handedly support their business," she adds with a smile.
Although Shires isn't currently on the road, her website's tour page cryptically reads "Coming Soon." With a new album on the way — Take It Like A Man, due July 29 — it might not be long before Shires is breaking out the "celebration tier" wine rider.
Press play above to watch the full video, and keep checking GRAMMY.com for more installments of Herbal Tea & White Sofas.
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