Is life as an independent artist a grind? It can be. For Makenzie Phipps, though, the work is worth it—even when her schedule gets chaotic.
Each musician’s path to country music is different, and Phipps’s has been hands-on. The Virginia-raised The Voice alum balances her music career with a part-time job at a dog hotel, while managing the demands of travel, shows, and home life. She also tries to keep her music income in the business to cover expenses such as new releases and merchandise. It’s a demanding routine, but one she finds rewarding.
“Yes, it’s fun. It can be exhausting. It can be unpredictable. You just never know. But I’m just fortunate to be doing what I’m doing, and I just am excited to see what the future holds.”
A schedule that changes from city to city can make it hard to plan ahead and maintain routines outside of work—including fitness. Phipps tries to make exercise more manageable on the road by packing workout clothes and using hotel gyms when she can.
“I always do try to pack workout clothes because a lot of hotels, everything like that, they have a gym that you can access,” she says. “I feel like a lot of people just forget about that, or they just disregard it, and I don’t blame them. Some days I don’t want to get up and go do stuff, but I do try to definitely keep myself as healthy as I can.”
For Phipps, fitness and songwriting call for different kinds of effort. Staying active takes conscious attention, while her creative process often comes more naturally. She says “Pick Your Poison” came together in a day—a reminder of how instinctive songwriting can feel for her. The two pursuits may be different, but fitness helps her stay ready for the demanding life that supports her music. Her latest single, “Blue Collared Man,” has already surpassed 300,000 streams.
“The creativity process with my music comes a lot more natural and a lot more like carefree,” she says. “Whereas keeping up with my health and staying active, that’s something that I do have to really think about doing.”
You can check out this Makenzie Phipps interview—as well as every other episode of the Country Muscle Podcast—on the Country Muscle YouTube Channel.
5 Takeaways from the Makenzie Phipps ‘CMP’ Appearance
1. Muscle Building Helps Manage Music’s Mental Strain
The nonstop demands of a music career—from travel and logistics to performing—can bring a tidal wave of emotional highs and lows. For the “You Bring the Beer” singer, working out is one way to manage the mental strain of the job.
“There are some days you wake up, especially in the career that I’m in, and there’s some days you’re like, I feel like I can accomplish everything, and then those other days I wake up and I’m like, Is this even worth it?” she admits. “So I feel like going to the gym really does help relieve a lot of stress and negativity that may be going on—and it does make me feel a lot more refreshed.”
2. Breathing Drills Help Enhance Her Vocal Skills
It takes more than a powerful voice to deliver a strong performance. In the gym, whether she’s working her biceps or spending time on the elliptical, treadmill, or StairMaster, The Voice alum adds an extra challenge: focusing on her breathing while working her core and lower body. She says that breath control carries over to her singing onstage.
“I feel like every time I get on any sort of cardio machine, I really do focus on my breathing and making sure that I’m having controlled breaths. That plays a part in when I’m singing and performing,” she says.
3. ‘Voice’ Lessons From Snoop: There’s a Family Within this Group
Given her country roots, Phipps initially hoped to join Team Reba during her time on The Voice. But after Snoop selected her following her rendition of Lainey Wilson’s “4x4xU,” she quickly felt at home on his team. One of her biggest takeaways from the hip-hop icon was that teammates should support one another like family—even while competing.
“He was very big on all of us just supporting one another,” she says. “He was very big on everybody on his team knowing that this was a family. Some people are going to make it through, and some people aren’t, and that’s OK. So he was really big on all of us just uplifting and encouraging one another, and I really, really enjoyed that.”
4. A Workout in the Daytime Helps Her Stamina Come Showtime
There’s more to performing than belting out your favorite songs. For the “Love Me Sober” songstress, building and maintaining the stamina to make it through each show is an important part of her workout routine. Phipps focuses on cardio to prepare for the physical demands of singing and moving onstage, especially during the extreme heat of summer festival season.
“I mainly just focus right now, especially on cardio,” she says. “We are performing on stage for hours on end, exerting so much energy playing your instrument and singing and of course I do all these really powerful belts and long notes. Then if I have a band show, I like to walk around the stage, move that kind of stuff. So I feel like a lot of people don’t really see that. That does take a lot of work.”
5. Some Outdoors and Rest to Unwind Help Balance the Grind
Although she enjoys off-roading and outdoor activities, Phipps said a perfect weekend can simply mean staying home with her husband because music and travel keep them busy. She and her husband try to make time for the gym and the outdoors when they can, but she also values the chance to temporarily shut it down and rest and reset.
“We honestly just stay so busy with music and just traveling and everything like that that I would honestly say like a perfect weekend would be just sitting on the couch because we don’t get to do that very much,” she says. But we do try to stay up on our health and we try to go to the gym as much as we can, enjoy outside, especially when it’s nice out.”