When you need a pep talk in how to get the most out of life, you always want to turn to a woman who grows food out of her own poop.
Okay, hear us out. Yes, it’s true that Goldy Locks, lead singer and mastermind of Nashville’s house-shaking Goldy lockS Band (yes, that’s how she spells it), recently appeared on a 2023 of TLC’s Extreme Cheapskates to explain how she uses her own feces as garden compost. She also mentioned that she collects stray socks from the laundromat to use as sanitary napkins and cuts down on her bar tab by finishing strangers’ discards. But before you dismiss her as some sort of crackpot, you owe it to yourself to take a listen to her band’s new single, “Just Say Yes,” a simply undeniable instant anthem that could convert just about anyone to her philosophy that the glass is always half full (especially when it isn’t yours).
No mere novelty record from a freegan lifestyle guru, the song soars on a can-do spirit and a musical oomph that make it as invigorating a statement of intent as “I Will Survive.” Strings saw away melodramatically, guitar power chords crash and churn, and Locks spews optimism in a voice that sure doesn’t sound like it’s been weakened by second-hand bourbon. Far from it:
I’ll stop at nothing ’til I reach the top
I’ll keep on moving and I’ll never stop
I’ll start a motion where the money’s free
I’ll make it happen where we all agree
Just say yes
Don’t put me to the test, oh baby
Don’t say no
Just how far can we go
If you would just say yes
Don’t make me have to guess
Just stop making a mess of my life
And just tell me yes
Now, who could resist an entreaty that direct? Locks says she wrote the song specifically “to empower people to say ‘yes’ to quitting their deadbeat jobs,” and also as “a female empowerment song showing that women can ALSO be the boss.” But its appeal is as universal as the unexpected joy of finding a perfectly good sofa somebody left out on the curb.
Even the hoot-and-a-half of a music video Locks and her band have whipped up finds liberty in liberation: The vacuum cleaners and other household totems they wield as props were all rescued from the trash, and the kitsch-Americana costumes they’re wearing come from either thrift/secondhand stores or the nearest dumpster.
That’s pretty appropriate for a woman who was discovered while rifling through the refuse at Prince’s Paisley Park complex. (Clarification: She was discovered by the police.) What followed was a circuitous path to show-biz prominence: first as a seamstress to boy bands, then a pop chanteuse in her own right (she opened for Pink and others), and then, perhaps most famously, as a commentator/manager/wrestler for TNA Impact Wrestling. For years, she’s preached better living through frugality from a variety of media platforms, including her own TLC show, Call in the Cheapskates, and a podcast, Goldy’s Closet (a sub-cast of ex-WWE writer Vince Russo’s The Brand).
But there’s nothing cheap about the bang-for-your-buck reputation she’s simultaneously carved out as leader and frontwoman of The Goldy lockS Band, whose 100+-song repertoire of originals and covers has made the lineup of Locks, Johnny Oro and Rod Saylor a top draw throughout their region—and an in-demand opener for everyone from Saliva, Sevendust and Nickelback to Stevie Nicks, The Bret Michaels Band and Maroon 5. On record, their mastery of rock, pop and beyond has shifted over 65,000 CDs and EPs since 2008, plus more than 2,500 DVDs. Their 2019 collaboration with Smith & Hay x King Tech on a cover of Pearl Jam’s “Black” was the first single from an album that hit Number Two in Billboard—on the Jazz chart, yet!
And when it comes to charitable causes, this bunch are anything but stingy. Their 2021 single/video “All to You” aided suicide-prevention efforts, “Black” did the same for child abuse, and previous hit “Today I Won’t Be Afraid” has helped raise thousands of dollars for organizations like the YWCA and Soles4Souls, which helps get new shoes and clothing to people in crisis situations. Now that’s the kind of recycling anybody can get behind.
Asked to offer a thumbnail sketch of the Type-A personality that’s taken her so far down so many avenues, Locks describes herself as “driven, professional, a neat freak and an occasional hot mess.” Maybe so, but what a fabulous disaster it is. Now we can all “Just Say Yes” to the mess.
