HunterGirl is cheering for reigning American Idol winner Hannah Harper after her milestone win earlier this year.

HunterGirl, 28, finished runner-up when she competed on the show in 2022. She was an immediate standout, with judge Luke Bryan likening her voice to country hitmaker Miranda Lambert’s during her audition. HunterGirl caught up with iHeartCountry over the weekend at the Country Music Association’s CMA Fest in Nashville, Tennessee, days after judge Carrie Underwood reunited with Harper and runner-up Jordan McCullough. The trio reunited at the historic Grand Ole Opry shortly after Harper became the first female country artist to win Idol since Underwood’s victory in 2005.

“She just seems like the sweetest person in the world, and cheering both of them on in the finale and everything because from being there, just like I can remember just like how stressed out and scared and all these emotions and excited and kind of that whirlwind,” HunterGirl said. “And so, I would say any advice to anybody auditioning now, just go for it, give it your all and anything can happen. I think that's the cool part of taking a leap like that because I remember auditioning whenever I was younger and not making it through and not making it through. And it kind of came out of the blue for me during my season when I auditioned and everything happens in its own time and so just give it your all.”

Some of HunterGirl’s earliest CMA Fest memories include another former Idol contestant, Lauren Alaina, who finished runner-up to fellow country star Scotty McCreery in 2011. HunterGirl met Alaina in a meet-and-greet, and “wouldn't stop talking the rest of the day. …I remember watching her season whenever I was younger and being like, ‘Oh my gosh, she's just so awesome.’ Watch her and Scotty's season and cheering both of them on from the couch. And it was crazy years later that I ended up on American Idol, too, and it was just a wild experience.”

Now, HunterGirl admits she gets emotional when she meets her own fans at CMA Fest meet-and-greets. It’s not lost on her that “little Hunter would be losing her mind thinking about what she's doing now.” She said it’s a “special” experience to get to talk with fans about her music.

HunterGirl’s latest single, “Come And Get Your Boy,” arrived in March. The Tennessee-born artist wrote the anthem with Brock Berryhill, Jessie Jo Dillon, Jesse Frasure, Jaxson Free and Taylor Delmar Phillips. It was inspired by a night out on Nashville’s iconic Broadway, when HunterGirl encountered a cheating man. She was playing a show when a man showed her a picture of his wife, and asked HunterGirl if he could play the couple’s wedding song. HunterGirl happily played it, and later, she saw that same man — with another woman. “So, I started playing every cheating song I ever knew,” she decided. “I was playing Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, and I played it until he left the bar. …That night I lost faith a little bit.”

That story might not have turned out as sweet as HunterGirl had hoped; however, she still has plenty of heartfelt stories that come to life in her music. Another recent release, “Dirt,” written with Warren Garret Vereb, was inspired by her childhood memories. “I remember we'd go get a gas station biscuit and that was the best thing in the world,” HunterGirl remembered. And when her dad brought her hunting, he’d make her a thermos filled with hot chocolate, which she nods to in the opening lyrics of the song. “It was one of those things where it wasn't supposed to be a song and ended up being one, and those are some of my favorites to write. Just a bunch of memories. …It felt like it was supposed to be written.”

HunterGirl has found success writing her own stories in song, and she’s also set other people’s lives to music. The former Idol contestant worked with veterans, helping them process their experiences by guiding them through the writing process.

“Telling their story is so special because I'm just the backseat and I just want to help them tell their story and they tell me about their life, things that they've been through,” she said. “I always ask them, like, ‘How do you want people to feel when they hear your song?’ Because that's what I think about whenever I write songs for myself and getting to be able to be the storyteller for them and most of them are the storyteller and I'm just rhyming words. I say, I just make it rhyme.

“I actually had a cut with Ella Langley, ‘monsters,’ on the hungover album and it was me, her and Joybeth Taylor,” HunterGirl continued. “We were all at me and Joybeth's old apartment just writing that song and it was so special getting to tell her story and like I think anything that I do in music, I just love getting to be a part of it. …It's just seeing the wave of the girls crushing it is just so awesome,” she added of watching her peers succeed, “and just cheering everybody on and that's the one thing I really love about Nashville, is it feels like everybody has your back.”

She added later, “I've been in the studio and been writing a lot, and very excited for people to hear what's coming.”

CMA Fest, hailed the longest-running country festival in the world, ran from Thursday, June 4, through Sunday, June 7. Artists who took the main stage at Nissan Stadium included Bailey Zimmerman, Blake Shelton, The Band Perry, Brothers Osborne, Carly Pearce, Cody Johnson, Deana Carter, Ella Langley, Fetty Wap, Florida Georgia Line, Gretchen Wilson, HARDY, Jason Aldean, Jelly Roll, Jordan Davis, Keith Urban, Lainey Wilson, Luke Bryan, Michael McDonald, Molly Tuttle, The Red Clay Strays, Ricky Skaggs, Riley Green, Russell Dickerson, Shaboozey, Shay Morgan, Stephen Wilson Jr., Tim McGraw, Tucker Wetmore and Zach Top. Riley Green and Lara Spencer will host the televised special, which will air on ABC at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on Thursday, June 25. The show will be available to stream the following day on Hulu.

Kathi Yeager