Screenshot from Instagram (@honeymoon)
Audio By Carbonatix
Last weekend, Coachella Valley was once again filled with fans for this year’s edition of Stagecoach, AEG’s annual country music festival. Headliners Eric Church, Miranda Lambert and Morgen Wallen wowed fans and critics alike – but one of the biggest surprises to come out of Stagecoach this year was thanks to Dallas’ own country crooner Paul Cauthen, who welcomed Lana Del Rey onstage to close his Friday evening set with a duet cover of “Unchained Melody” that brought the house down.
It started with some damn good Texas barbecue (as some of the best ideas do) on the eve of Stagecoach Festival, when singer Nikki Lane threw a celebratory BBQ in Indio, California. Paul Cauthen was in town preparing for his opening night set and made his way to the party because, “I found out my buddy Evan Tate from Tate Farms in Rockwall, Texas, was doing the cooking, something I wasn’t going to miss.” But fate had plans far beyond the delicious taste of home.
“I ended up drinking a lot of tequila and talking with Lana [Del Rey] that evening,” says Cauthen, recalling how the surprise duet came about. “We started talking music and then started singing ‘Unchained Melody’ together. So I just asked her to sing with me the following day to close out my Stagecoach set.”
Meeting and connecting with the singer hot off her triumphant headlining weekend on the same festival grounds, when she dominated critics-highlights of Coachella this month, was a more profound experience than Cauthen expected to have that night, noting, “I figure God and the spirit brought us together that [evening]. I’ve never felt so at-home singing with someone.”
The scene described at the cookout sounds like one of those rare and special moments of music history that strikes like lightning when artists get together in the same room – even when it’s just for a jovial affair. If it was as special as the Stagecoach performance was, surely every guest at Nikki Lane’s BBQ left with goosebumps that night.
Lana Del Rey and Paul Cauthen became fast friends over Texas-style barbecue.
Screenshot from Instagram (@honeymoon)
At the festival, Lana Del Rey sang beautifully through an ear-to-ear smile with a glimmer in her eye onstage with Cauthen. The beloved California songstress later described on Instagram, “Just lovin life with [Paul Cauthen].”
Hopefully this first time will not be the last we see of a collaboration between these two standout vocalists.
“I think we’ve just begun,” says Cauthen on the possibility of working more with Lana Del Rey in the future. “We’re both super busy, but there’s no way in hell we won’t sing again.”
