Under The Big Sky 2025: Hannah King Keeps Learning Through Life and Song

When Hannah King stepped onto the stage at the Under The Big Sky festival for the first time in 2021 it was the biggest opportunity she had ever had as a performer.

Looking back at the experience of playing an event that drew thousands of attendees on a daily basis, the now 30-year-old fiddle player, guitarist and singer-songwriter says that it was a sizeable learning curve.

“That was a big thing for me at the time to step into,” she said. “But now you fast forward four or five years, I feel so much more equipped for it, and just really excited. I feel a lot more confident putting together my set list and the order of songs, and kind of matching the energy and all of that.”

Since that 2021 debut, the Whitefish musician and former Big Hole Valley resident has become something of a regular performer at the festival. She played the festival again in 2022, and then in 2023 she played in with the local band Radio Ranch (who’s also in the lineup this year), before taking the stage in 2024 with Michelle Rivers as part of their Denim Gold duo project.

Over the years, King has opened on national tours for bigger acts like Ashley McBryde and the Wood Brothers, and she’s also proud to have opened for acts with Montana ties like The Last Revel and The Lil Smokies. She’s also an accomplished fiddle player, who has won state and national competitions.

Of late, King has had the chance to focus more on her solo work. That opportunity for introspection has come at a seemingly opportune time, as King says after getting married last fall, she feels like she’s stepped into a new world where there’s still much to be discovered. Some of that is simply on a lifestyle level.

In a tongue-in-cheek Instagram post about a week after her wedding, King published a short video of her clipping her manicured, acrylic wedding nails off so that she could get back to playing the fiddle and guitar. But she indicated that much of what she’s learning through this new experience comes in the form of emotional understanding.

“I think just being in a relationship with someone in such a committed, intimate way for the first time just opens up so many different facets of understanding my own heart and soul, and then seeing someone else’s,” she said. “And then understanding what this love thing is, and just the rawness of it, and the full, unconditional aspect of it.”

The experience in her marriage of understanding each other’s struggles and vulnerabilities but still choosing to love each other fully, “absolutely affects how I write my music,” King said.

“I think I’ve always wanted to write things that are honest and genuine to my journey. And not everything I write is, you know, exactly what I went through. But I think staying really real and honest with it is important to me. So I think I’m learning about love in a more real and honest way right now. So I think that’s probably why I’m more willing to write love songs these days.”

One of those new songs about love, which she plans to play at the festival, is called “Stop Loving You.” King said that she was playing around on her guitar with drop D tuning when she wrote it. Something about that lower pitch unlocked a song for her that felt especially personal, but still general enough that she thinks it will land with a wide range of people in a wide range of situations.

Teasing the chorus, King said that it includes the lines “When the sky doesn’t need the stars anymore and the Tin Man doesn’t want a heart anymore and these lungs don’t need air and these eyes don’t see, then I’ll stop loving you.”

As she put it, it’s a way of saying “we’re in this forever,” and that the love captured in the song will end “when pigs fly.”

Another new song King plans on rolling out at the festival is called “Run Baby, Run.” As she described it, it’s almost a song about a lack of love in a relationship. She characterized it as a moody, minor tune in the bluegrass style which unfolds into a story about a girl whose life decisions have piled up to where she feels like she’s running out of options and might wind up committing to spending her life with the wrong man. King said that from the singer’s perspective she’s offering advice to this character, telling her essentially that no matter how bad things get and how many bad decisions you’ve made, “it’s still okay to say ‘no’ and to walk away.”

King said she’s feeling the inspiration to put together another solo album, but it’s too soon to put a date on things.

“It’s probably best not to make promises, but I’m racking up songs that are really important to me,” she said.

As for other acts at the festival she’s excited about, King mentioned Mumford and Suns, Red Clay Strays, Wynnona Judd and Hailey Whitters.

King has had a song of Whitters’ called “I Don’t Want You,” which features Charles Wesley Godwin, on repeat. “I gotta see this girl live,” she said.

Hannah King will play at Under The Big Sky July 20 on the Big Mountain Stage from 12:15 p.m. to 12:45 p.m.

This is the first in a series of stories about performers at this year’s Under The Big Sky Festival, which takes place from July 18-20 at Big Mountain Ranch in Whitefish. In addition to Hannah King, other Montana performers include Buffalo Traffic Jam, Connor Peyton, Drew Landry & The North County Ramblers, Give It To ‘Em Florabelle!, Halladay Quist, The Helnore Highwater Band, North Fork Crossing, Radio Ranch, Sterling Drake, Tobacco River Ramblers and Tomara. Headliners this year include Tyler Childers, Mumford and Sons and the Red Clay Strays. The full festival lineup can be found at underthebigskyfest.com.