Angaleena Presley Recalls Inspiration From ‘Horrible’ Job
Angaleena Presley, the Pistol Annies member who recently released the track “Grocery Store” from her upcoming solo album American Middle Class, took the story line from her own experiences as a grocery store clerk. The singer-songwriter has also had her share of waitressing jobs. Although that experience can prove helpful when it comes to dealing with unruly audiences during live performances, Presley confesses that during her college years, she was “the most horrible waitress you could imagine,” thanks to an unruly table of flirtatious drunks and another group of nearby diners who had just one simple — and repeated — request.
“This horrible group of guys, they were just being drunk and mean, hitting on me and flirting,” Presley tells Rolling Stone Country. “And there was this other table that kept harassing me about bread: ‘Can we get our bread? Where’s our bread?’ Finally, after about the sixth time they asked me for bread, I stopped at their table and just completely let go on them and had an all-out breakdown. I just started bawling. ‘Those guys over there are hitting on me, I forgot your bread. I should be home studying. I have a test tomorrow.'”
All was well that ended well, however, for the harried and harassed student.
“They left me a $20 tip,” she recalls. “That was unbelievable, that I had this real-life moment with these people who obviously would have had a much better dinner if I could’ve brought them some bread. I ruined their meal, I’m sure, and they just saw past it and saw that I was just this girl trying to get through school and working to try and become a better person. They recognized that and they left me $20, which I desperately needed at that time.”
American Middle Class, featuring “Grocery Store” and 11 other tunes Presley wrote or co-wrote, will be released October 14th on Slate Creek Records.