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Naomi Cooke Johnson joined Caroline Hobby on a bonus episode of Get Real with Caroline Hobby after the two shared an in-depth conversation earlier this month.
Cooke Johnson, a singer-songwriter and the former lead singer of Runaway June, responded to a few additional questions in a Q&A with Hobby. Throughout the bonus episode, Cooke Johnson shared the unforgettable gift she received, what she would wish for others, and more. She also revealed why she “was terrified” when she got pregnant with her daughter. Cooke Johnson and her husband, Martin Johnson, frontman of The Night Game and Boys Like Girls, welcomed Baby No. 1 in 2023.
“I haven’t done anything that didn’t scare me to death that wasn’t, like, the best thing I ever did, including getting pregnant. I was terrified when I got pregnant,” Cooke Johnson said during her conversation with Hobby. “I had a lot of career fear. A ton. And I immediately started looking around for other women that had done it, and there’s hardly anyone.
“It’s the kiss of death [having a baby as a female artist], and I — you just have to make it look the way that you want it to look because there aren’t a lot of examples,” she continued. “But I had a ton of career fear and then that started to subside once I started making a new record. But without her being born, I don’t know if I’m put onto this path of really singing about my life like this, and it’s the best thing I ever did. So yeah, I think that the having a family was probably something I was really, really scared about, and that was a chapter that was, I also really wanted, you know? I didn’t know what it was going to look like. So, now I’m in this chapter and it’s so fruitful and juicy and full of creativity, and it’s tough, but it’s so good. Everything that I do in a day that’s so hard at the end, it’s just so worth it.”
Cooke Johnson shared in her previous interview on Get Real that she “almost died giving birth to my daughter.” She shared details about the “scary” experience, and remembered the “peaceful, warm feeling” when she held her daughter for the first time. The singer-songwriter emotionally said that it was “so profound,” and she felt in that moment that “my purpose is fulfilled.” Now, Cooke Johnson is working on more music after debuting “Bricks Make Houses” and “Mama Ain’t Jesus.” Find Cooke Johnson’s full conversation with Hobby on Get Real here.