Jo Dee Messina wants to know where the real cowboys are.
“Well, are they in some greener pastures?” she asks on “Where the Cowboys Ride,” a spicy sendup of Tecovas-rocking poseurs and a standout on Bridges, Messina’s first album in over a decade, out June 5.
Sometimes cheeky, often affecting, Bridges condenses a lifetime of lessons into 12 tight tracks. Whether she’s taking a narcissistic partner to task (“It’s All About You”), warning about the dangers of self-medication (“Message in a Bottle”) or setting the record straight on scripture (“The Jesus I Know”), Messina explores life’s complexities with her signature mix of grit and hard-fought joy.
Lead single “Some Bridges” is a power-pop-country belter that recalls the triumphant highs of 1998’s I’m Alright, which spawned three consecutive No. 1s and cemented Messina as one of the leading voices of country pop’s golden age. Like “Bye Bye,” Messina’s indelible ode to putting “a lead foot down on my accelerator” and leaving a bad relationship in the rearview, “Some Bridges” reminds listeners that self-preservation sometimes means burning things down.
“You have to learn to forgive, but do you go back to that abusive situation?” she says. “Do you go back to that addiction? You don’t have to subject yourself to these things.”
Jo Dee Messina is our Artist of the Month for June 2026. She sat down with Good Country to talk burning bridges, her “sweet” relationship with Ella Langley, and what she hopes fans will take away from this new era. Check out our interview and don’t miss our Essential Jo Dee Messina playlist below, too.
Why was now the right time to put out new music?
Jo Dee Messina: Because it was done. [Laughs] I’ve been writing a lot with people, and [my co-writers] are just so encouraging. We’d write a song and they’d be like, “Man, you should record this.” It happened so many times, and I was like, “Well, I think I’m at a stage right now where I have time I can dedicate to a project,” releasing the songs and a tour schedule to support it. It just seemed like the right time.
Do you feel like you’ve gained confidence as a writer as your career has gone on?
I’ve always been a songwriter. I do believe that in the last few years, my songwriting has had time to develop and I’ve written a lot more. I’ve had more time to write, so I’ve had a lot more content.
To hear songs like “Some Bridges” on the radio kind of brings tears to my eyes, because it’s like, I actually wrote this. I actually wrote the songs on this record.
“Some bridges are meant to burn” is a great lyric. Do you feel like you’ve had to burn bridges in your career?
I wouldn’t say career. But with life, sometimes there are situations that aren’t beneficial, or jobs or that really take the life out of you. I think everybody has experienced that. And it doesn’t have to be heavy. It could just be like, “I feel like my talents aren’t being used, and so I’m going to move elsewhere.”
With that song, we were in the writers’ room, and somebody brought up the idea that you can’t be burning bridges. But what if they’re meant to burn? What if that bridge leads you to pain and abuse, or to a job that sucked the life out of you? Forgiveness is for us, we’re not built to carry the weight of unforgiveness, but you can forgive from the other side of the bridge.
“Where the Cowboys Ride” is such a fun song. Did that song come out of any experience in particular?
It’s funny, because it’s not portrayed in the song, but the truth of that song is that a friend of mine went down to Lower Broadway [in Nashville] one weekend and came back and had his foot in a sling. I’m like, “What is the deal? What happened?” And he’s like, “I wore my cowboy boots down to Broadway this weekend.” I was like, “I’ve never seen you in cowboy boots. You wear sneakers every day.” But he dressed the part.
There’s a line in the song about how you don’t see them around here on a Friday night. I want to see the guys that are slinging dirt for a living. I want to meet the guys that will lay their life down for their family. All the things that a true cowboy does.
Everyone’s certainly throwing on the cowboy boots right now. Any theories as to why country music is having such a moment?
Country music tells the story of life. The messages don’t change as far as the relatability to different generations. Dolly Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” in the ’60s, and then it came back in the ’90s, and people are still cutting it. You ask seven-year-olds and they know that song because their parents are singing it. With some songs, the emotion and the life story behind them doesn’t go out of style.
Of course, some of your older songs have been getting renewed attention as well. You recently performed “Lesson in Leavin’” with Ella Langley at the Ryman Auditorium, and then the two of you interviewed each other at Country Radio Seminar (CRS). Can you tell me about your friendship with her?
That started off with us messaging each other online. She sang “Lesson in Leavin’” on TikTok, and I reached out to her. We talked about writing together, but then life got crazy. Then when she played the Ryman she reached out to me and was like, “Hey, do you want to do this deal with me?” And then she did CRS and asked if I wanted to do that.
I think it’s just a mutual admiration. I’m really proud of what she’s doing and how she’s handling it. We both know Jesus, and we both love Jesus, and so I’m able to have that connection with her, and just say, “Hey, if you need prayer, I’m here. If you need a safe space, I’m here.” It’s a sweet friendship.
“If He Knew Jesus” is one of a couple songs on that album that takes up the topic of faith. What’s the backstory behind that song?
I’ve been a single mom for a while, and it’s difficult because you can’t split yourself up. Especially if you have more than one child, you can’t go to one’s recital at school and one’s hockey game, so one of them is always missing something. Someone had asked me if I would ever consider dating somebody, and my first response was that he would have to love Jesus. And so in these conversations with other moms is where we came up with the line, “If you knew Jesus, there’d be no raising these babies alone.”
I started to cry in the writing room when we wrote that. I was like, “That’s the saddest thing,” and then I went on to other examples: “He wouldn’t crush you beneath all that he did,” all of the hurt and pain and abuse and whatever, where Jesus raises us up. He protects us, and He cares for us, and He puts us first, and He dies for us.
What’s the best thing someone can tell you about what your music means to them?
I think, “It gave me hope. It made me not feel alone.” That would be the greatest thing. “It made me not feel alone in my situation,” whether it’s a happy situation, a lonely situation, a feisty situation, because the songs cover everything. Keep in mind the enemy tries to separate us so we feel alone, and when we’re alone, all sorts of crazy things go through our brains.
Who’s the enemy?
Satan. It’s like, if you get alone, your mind starts going, “Why am I alone? Oh, because nobody likes me, or I’m not good enough.” All these crazy thoughts go through your head, and so you don’t start to think, “Wow, I’m beautiful, and I’m worth it, and I’m treasured.” That’s why it’s called the enemy of who you really are and who God created you to be. He’s working against it.
Are there experiences you’ve had in life where you felt like you were alone?
I think we all have. So I just want to be sure that people know you’re never alone. Even if you don’t see another person in the room, you’re still not alone. Period. God’s word tells us you can never go too high, too low. He’s there. We just have to open our hearts and see it.
I work with teenagers and I remember a teenager saying, “I don’t even think my parents hear what I say.” It was such a sad statement, and it inspired the song “Can Anybody.” In my inner circles, I’ll call that song “The Teenager’s Lament,” because they all feel invisible. It’s why they’re doing things on social media and hanging out with certain people. It’s why they sometimes don’t talk to their parents.
That’s where the first verse came from, and then the second verse came from myself: “I’ve got a history of trying to save myself/ But God, if you’re listening/ I’m screaming out for help.” That’s me. I’m a doer, and I have a history of thinking, “I’ll fix it, I’ll fix it, I’ll fix it.” But there are some things I can’t fix. You can’t fix someone else’s health or their mental state. After my mother had anesthesia, she was confused, and I couldn’t fix that. I tried and drove myself crazy. I’d made her photo albums, and I made her song playlists, and, and I couldn’t do it. She was still confused. It made me realize the humanity of myself and the limits of a human.
After years of building up a fan base through high-energy shows and viral social media posts, nobody is more ready for Braxton Keith’s debut album than… Braxton Keith. Raised in Midland, Texas and living in Nashville, Keith is only half-kidding when he says he’s probably listened to the new project five thousand times. Now he’s eager to hear what everybody else has to say.
His fans won’t be surprised that Real Damn Deal sounds like country through and through. Released on Warner Records on May 15, the album picks up the momentum of Keith’s gold-certified 2024 single “Cozy” and the unlikely embrace of his reverent cover of George Strait’s “The Chair.” Although he was skeptical about re-recording it, Keith found that his take on “The Chair” is serving as a gateway for his younger fans into the trenches of classic country.
Keith co-wrote a majority of the songs on the new album, but also included compelling material by Country Music Hall of Fame member Roger Miller, Americana all-star Jim Lauderdale, and some of Music Row’s most creative writers – such as Jessie Jo Dillon, Tony Lane, Liz Rose, and Morgane and Chris Stapleton, among many others. In this interview with Good Country, Keith talks about discovering country’s legends through his grandparents, learning to love the English language because of dyslexia, and hearing those inescapable ’90s country comparisons.
On this album, “Under Them Neons” sets the scene of a night in a country bar. It has a reference to Keith Whitley in it, too. He had a bluegrass pedigree, as you know, before he became a country star. Did you ever get interested in bluegrass?
Braxton Keith: I would say I have always been interested in bluegrass. Now I, by no means, am a bluegrass picker or anything of that sort, but I’ve always been interested in bluegrass, for sure. It’s such an interesting form of country music, I’d say. Very intricate, and it’s really cool to just watch. In fact, “I Ain’t Tryin’” on this record is written by Brice Long, Carson Peters, and Will Jones, and Carson is a bluegrass picker. He plays in a bluegrass band [Carson Peters & Iron Mountain] and opens up for us every once in a while.
How did you get introduced to Keith Whitley’s music?
Keith Whitley’s probably always been in the background for me. But definitely through listening to whatever was on the radio, listening to my grandparents’ old records and stuff. Keith Whitley has definitely been one that I’ve known about for a long time. I would say him, George Strait, Marty Robbins, and Ronnie Milsap … all the deep divers that you got to go in and figure out yourself.
Is that what you did? Figured it out for yourself?
I just tried to figure out what I liked the best. I really was attracted to these older artists because of the storytelling, but also they have a technical skill about their writing – and their melodies. Some of their melodies are pretty insane that I was trying to emulate, longing to hear again, or to make new.
You say you were listening to your grandparents’ records. Were they vinyl records?
Yes, sir. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember sitting down and listening to Marty Robbins for the first time and Porter Wagoner. I remember hearing “The Carroll County Accident” and just thinking, “What is this? This is a whole different type of music that I’ve never even experienced before.” I think I was like 13, maybe even younger than that.
Every time we went over there, the Grand Ole Opry was on TV, or CMT was on at least, so we were always exposed to it. I guess I just didn’t realize what was going on until I got a little bit older. I got an iPod, and I think it was the Shuffle. It didn’t even have a screen. You just had to know what your songs were. That was the first time I really got interested in checking out music for myself. I didn’t have to listen to exactly what my parents were listening to anymore.
My mom was a big ‘80s rock person. She really didn’t like country music very much at all, because it’s very sad, she thinks. [Laughs] And my dad was listening to country music, but just whatever was on the radio. He wasn’t very specific in what he liked to listen to.
I’d read that your brothers were athletic, but you were not. However, you had musical talent. Is that accurate to say?
I would say, yeah. I tried to be athletic. I wanted to be, but they definitely had a leg up on me, on the sports and stuff. When I was a little kid we did this thing called Greater Midland Football League. From when you’re in third grade to when you’re in sixth grade you can go after school and do a football program. I never got to do that, because in third grade I actually figured out I was dyslexic. So, every day after school, I would go to classes and learn about the English language, which is probably why I ended up liking writing. So it all works out in the end. I was just a couple years behind when it got to football.
When you were learning about the English language, did you like to read too?
No. That was my big deal, that I struggled – I still do struggle – with reading. It just takes me a little bit longer and I have to really slow down and be thinking about what I’m reading to understand it. I like audiobooks a lot. Anything that I can do where I’m listening to somebody else read helps. But I would say I just liked writing. Before it was songs, I liked writing essays or whatever the assignment was. I’ve always liked writing. Coming up with my own stuff.
Did you play instruments during this time?
Yeah, absolutely. I played piano since I was in kindergarten, and I ended up playing for a while. I played for six to seven years and then I ended up quitting piano. I started piano because I loved Elton John. He was my big inspiration behind music when I was really young. I really wanted to learn “Crocodile Rock” and my piano teacher just wouldn’t let me do it. So I was like, “Man, I gotta go do something else.”
That was about the time I started picking up guitar, because my little brother was playing guitar at the time. So I was like, “Well, I’ll just go to lessons with him.” I started picking it up, got my first guitar, and never looked back. He doesn’t play anymore, but we started out together picking “Hotel California.” I remember us just sitting there for hours trying to get that thing down.
On this album, “Wind Blows” reminds me of how country music sounded in the ’90s. It reminds me of a Tim McGraw deep cut. What do you like most about “Wind Blows”?
I like the story it tells. You know, I grew up in Midland, Texas. And if there’s anything we know about Midland, it’s that there’s a lot of wind blowing in Midland. It’s kind of telling the story of how, when I lived in Midland, Midland was the end of the earth to me. There was nothing else there. And once I left, I never looked back. I went to Angelo [State University in San Angelo]. I’ve moved to San Antonio and Nashville, and we’re traveling all over all the time, just running and gunning. And the road keeps on going, you know? It’s cool to reminisce on the past, but my time in Midland’s gone and it ain’t coming back. That’s kind of what “Wind Blows” means.
Do you like it when people use the ’90s country comparison? Do you think that’s flattering? Or do you have an opinion when people say you sound like ’90s country?
I don’t have an opinion. The thing is, I don’t know if I’ve ever labeled it, which is funny to me. … You’ve heard the record. I would say it’d be very hard to pin that as ‘90s country. I would say that there’s some ‘90s elements in there, but there are elements from a lot of different dates in country music within that. I would just say we’re country, and we’re just trying to be country.
Well, you do start with a Western swing tune on this record.
Absolutely. Have you heard Jake Worthington’s new record? He has a song called “My Home’s in Oklahoma” and that one is a Western swing song. I heard that one after I’d been on a big Bob Wills kick. I just came back from Houston. Most of the rides that I do, I try to listen to different music every time. I was listening to a bunch of Bob Wills. When I heard that Jake Worthington swing tune, it was like, “Oh, son, we’ve got to have a Western swing tune on this record!”
So we called in Brice and Carson. That’s when Carson’s bluegrass magic came out. They ended up writing that beautiful “I Ain’t Tryin’” Western swing song. You couldn’t ask for a better song to start this record off. It’s upbeat, gets you in there. We’ve been ending the set with “I Ain’t Tryin’” lately, and it’s really fun. The crowds dig it. It’s a good one to just swing around to.
Did you ever get pursued to be on The Voice or American Idol or shows like that?
Not until after I was already pursuing this pretty heavily, and at that time, I was trying to stay away from those avenues. I’ve heard some nightmare stories about their contracts and how you are allowed to put out music after the show. And I just kind of knew where we were going. That’s the cool thing about being a Texas artist. There’s so many other Texas artists that are running around on the road, booking their own shows, that you can just learn from some of those guys. That’s basically what I did.
Jake Worthington [who was on The Voice in 2014] had a long talk with me about what he thought about TV and the way that it impacted his career. At that time in my career, I just didn’t think that it was necessary for me to do anything like that. I definitely think it helps put your name out there a lot more. But it also can have some hindrances sometimes.
How did you find the Roger Miller tune, “Am I All Alone (Or Is It Only Me)”?
I do believe Jamey Johnson was talking to William Beckmann one day and telling him, “Man, that’s such a great tune. You should cut that on your next record.” And then me and William ended up going and having a couple drinks, which turned into a bunch of drinks. And he was like, “Man, I listened to this song, and I’m kind of thinking about cutting it.” So I started listening to it. I was like, “Yo, are you gonna cut that song? Because if not, I’m cutting it. Like, I’m going to the studio tomorrow. I’m cutting it.” He was like, “Yeah, go ahead.” So we ended up putting it on the record. It’s one of my favorite songs to play live. It’s one of my favorite songs on the record. It’s such a beautiful song. Every time that I hear it, I’m like, “That is such a well-written song.”
Are there other songs on your record that you would like people to know about?
I would say the only other thing that we didn’t talk about is, there’s a Mae Estes collab on there, “Hurt by Heart.” I met Mae on the road about two years ago, like, less than 100 miles south of Canada somewhere, at a festival. She was singing and just blew me away. Her voice is so beautiful. She has such a great classic timbre to her voice that I knew I needed her on this record.
We’d been looking for a duet piece for a long time. Ended up writing “Hurt by Heart” [with Trent Tomlinson and Scotty Emerick] and pitched it to her. She came over to the studio one day, dressed and ready for a show that she had in Nashville somewhere. She cut her part in 10 minutes and then I spent the next two hours trying to make my part sound as good as hers. [Laughs] I just can’t brag on Mae enough. The audience that hasn’t heard Mae should definitely check her out. Her music is really good.
You’re surrounding yourself with good people. You got Mae Estes, William Beckmann, Jake Worthingon… It’s refreshing to see this new generation cheering each other on.
That’s the way you gotta do it, man. We’re all in this together. Everybody needs to be cheering each other on and helping everybody out. That’s the way I see it.
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May is Mental Health Awareness Month, but for those with lived experience, every day is about mental health awareness. During the most difficult times, many creators and listeners turn to music. It’s where we connect through lyrics and melodies that express the things we so often cannot, will not, dare not say.
The intersection of music and mental health is nothing new. Long before memes and catchphrases about “break the stigma,” Hank Williams did just that with “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Years later, Porter Wagoner exposed the ugly unspoken truth about “The Rubber Room.”
Thankfully, through incremental steps, times have changed – although not enough – in terms of media portrayal and public discourse. With great courage, more and more artists are coming forward about their struggles. Dozens of artists and musicians have spoken openly with BGS and Good Country about how mental health challenges move them to create songs and albums that make us all feel a little bit less alone. (Scroll to find our playlist of roots songs all about mental health below.)
Artists and bands like Becky Buller, Courtney Marie Andrews, Sister Sadie, and Tenille Townes give us glimpses at how mental health and self-care inform their creative processes and how they craft their songs, albums, and sets. Groups like Southern Avenue and the Band Loula – who make music built on the sonic and storytelling traditions of the South – subvert regional expectations about what’s “allowed” to be spoken about in the light of day with their approaches to infusing mental health awareness into their songs. Still more conversations with artists like Fruit Bats, Cole Chaney, Emily Scott Robinson, and Chely Wright reinforce that mental health in roots music isn’t a fad or passing trend, it’s an intentional through line. Songwriting and roots music are perfect vehicles for this sort of vulnerability and these once forbidden topics.
The proliferation of YouTube and democratization of music videos in the 2000s and 2010s opened up new dimensions for artists, giving them more formats in which to express themselves, depict their work, and consider mental health. Additionally, of course, it offers live performances that go beyond anything a studio recording can capture.
“I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” – Randy Newman
Randy Newman’s masterpiece has been covered many times, and the internet is full of those recordings – as well as his. This performance, however, at his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, may very well surpass them all.
“God, Can You Hear Me?” – Dax
Dax is fearless in addressing the most difficult and “taboo” topics. “God, Can You Hear Me?” asks the unspoken question within the context of a subject that far too many people refuse to address: suicidal ideation. (Content warning: graphic.)
“Let the Circle Be Broken” – Sister Sadie
In genres predicated upon generational legacies and “handing down” tradition, Sister Sadie’s song of release, letting go, and stepping out from underneath the long shadow of generational traumas is more than powerful. By the same token, that it was written and is sung and performed by a band of all women makes it a truly transcendent message. Some circles are meant to remain unbroken, others must be demolished.
“Bench Seat” – Chase Rice
Chase Rice broke down walls and stereotypes and opened doors to discussions about suicide with this multiple-award-winning video. Country needed this. Country needs more of this. (Content warning: graphic.)
“Hurt” – Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash. Enough said.
“I’m Gonna Be the Wind” – Laurie Lewis
Bluegrass legend Laurie Lewis has penned many a fine song tackling issues of mental health, but this is the song for when you’re ready to stride out anew again. It’s a song of strength, resilience, of realizing that often one of the primary forces keeping us down is our own mindset. Tired of being a blade of grass, bent and bruised by the wind? Be the wind!
“Sunday Morning Coming Down” – The Highwaymen
Mickey Raphael described them as “like Mount Rushmore onstage” and called Kris Kristofferson “the Shakespeare of our time.” This is why.
“Will the Sun Ever Shine Again” – Bonnie Raitt
One of the best songs Bonnie Raitt has ever sung and released was recorded for the 2004 animated film Home on the Range. Devastating, endlessly relatable, but ultimately hopeful, the film cut of “Will the Sun Ever Shine Again” is hard to track down on streaming services and online, but it’s truly lovely. A gem of a soundtrack find from an often overlooked Disney children’s movie from the aughts.
“Alone Again (Naturally)” – Gilbert O’Sullivan
In 1971, Gilbert O’Sullivan bravely addressed loss, grief, heartbreak, loneliness, depression, suicidal thoughts, and questions of faith, wrapped them up in a lovely melody, set them to a catchy beat, and rode to the top of the charts with one of the most gutting, most accurate depictions of mental health challenges ever put to song. Decades and numerous cover versions later, stripped down to keyboard and guitar, his voice aged like fine wine, “Alone Again (Naturally)” remains poignantly accurate and relatable.
“Bad Mind” – Erin Rae
A song so perfect in its illustration of how we project and ascribe mental health, onto ourselves and others. We all may know, somewhere inside ourselves, that there is no such thing as a “Bad Mind,” but stigma and internalized expectations leave so many of us feeling broken and “incorrect.” Listening to Erin Rae sing this lovely, devastating song brings an immediate feeling of needing to reassure the singer that there really aren’t bad minds… and thereby the realization we should also apply that grace to ourselves.
Below, you’ll find our full playlist of nearly 8 hours of roots music created by the teams at BGS and Good Country that features some of the many excellent songs that address mental health. For Mental Health Awareness Month and beyond.
Photo Credit: (L to R) Cole Chaney by Anthony Simpkins; Sister Sadie courtesy of the artist; Dax by Annie Devine.
Additional curation and contributions by Shelby Williamson and Justin Hiltner.
There’s an effortless charm to singer-songwriter Abbie Callahan’s persona when you first encounter her via vertical video. Beautiful and whimsical makeup, adorable wardrobe, hyper-femininity, and a Gen Z polish to her social media presence are all complicated in the most fascinating ways by her music itself. Landing somewhere in between witty and incisive pop country like Kacey Musgraves and gritty, train-hopping Americana such as Sierra Ferrell, you’d be well served not to make assumptions – or to sell Callahan’s songs short based on appearances.
This is not a book you can accurately judge by its cover. Callahan’s songs will reel you in with her sharp, impactful vocals, her deft wordplay and solid hooks, and a wink and sly smile around every lyrical corner. Tracks like “Simon Says” will have your head bobbing before you even realize the devastation and trauma woven through the lyrics. A new, as-yet-unreleased number, “OptiMystic” – debuted, as Callahan tracks often are, on TikTok – lays out her worldview pretty tidily:
I’ve been known to be a little easy on a Saturday Known to smoke a cigarette and throw up in the alleyway Checked off greed and lust in a church pew Had confession in the Red Door bathroom
Who can really say where you can talk to Jesus anyway? Anyway…
If you were to engage with and enjoy Callahan’s music without any deeper inspection, you’d still come away with plenty. But the real appeal here is that the sweet, sugary veneer on these songs is only to bring you in. It’s the tinges of bitterness, the tannins, the “something much deeper going on below the surface” that will bring you back again and again. However you zoom out or zoom in on Callahan, her lyrics, her process, and the way she brings her songs directly to her listeners there’s subversion, a deliberate and inspired flouting of expectations.
Callahan is intentionally leveraging the way she’s perceived outwardly and visually to “Trojan horse” her way of making music into a country industry that’s often loath to platform artists like her, who build fandoms and idiosyncratic styles on hyper-femininity without apology. Like Dolly, Loretta, Kacey, and so many others who’ve come before her in that age-old country tradition, Abbie Callahan is onto something.
We caught up after a gentle spring rain in Napa Valley, as Good Country attended Live in the Vineyard Goes Country and caught Callahan performing as part of the event. Finding ourselves in such a stunning location, we began our interview chatting about country’s relationship to place and how well-suited this music is to the many settings it finds itself in.
I wanted to start by asking you about country’s relationship with place. Country music is always about place – rural places, urban places; farms and ranches; California, Tennessee, Iowa. We’re at Live in the Vineyard Goes Country here in Napa, so I’m thinking about country and place, and I wonder if you think about country’s relationship to place – and about how this music is so appropriate for so many different contexts, whether you’re in Napa or playing a honky-tonk or a festival. How do you think about country’s relationship to place and to land? It’s interesting to be here in a place like this with everybody sharing a few days in such a beautiful setting.
Abbie Callahan: That’s a great question. Usually I think about it in context of place in genre. It kind of is the same thing to me. My music with a band or just with guitar, I can make it fit into whatever genre I want – I feel like that in place, too.
But here [in Napa] it’s spring and the flowers are everywhere, it feels like they are one and the same. Especially my last project, Grossly Aware, with all the flowers – and we have the garden [right beside us] and all that. It feels like this is the perfect spot for me to be.
Two weeks ago we were back where I’m from in Iowa. It was gloomy and rainy and we were playing a bunch of the new stuff. It was, I don’t know, probably a little bit out of place, ’cause it was all fun disco [music]. But maybe it added to [the impact], because it was so gloomy and getting rained out. I don’t know how [my music] relates to place, but I feel like I can make it whatever I want, which is kind of nice. Kind of fits anywhere.
Well, being in California for this interview makes me wanna talk about “Strawberry, California.”
We went there yesterday! We drove through it. It was my first time actually there. We went over the Golden Gate Bridge and I was– I’m from Iowa, so I’m from like, not much. [Laughs] So it’s cool that music can bring you somewhere and you get to see all the things. I don’t think I would’ve been able to see the Golden Gate Bridge and come to California [without music]. Or be in Napa for country music. Napa’s outside of my tax bracket, so it’s nice to be here. [Laughs]
One of the things I noticed when I was listening to “Strawberry, California” to get in the mood for us talking in California is the banjo playing. I love that the banjo is playing the melody along with your voice. And I love that you evoke bluegrass in your music so often. Could you talk a little bit about that song and having banjo in it, and about the bluegrass touchpoints across your catalog?
I was in a rock band that played in downtown Nashville. That’s how I paid for college. I was playing ‘90s grunge, so I’d go home and I want to listen to the opposite. That’s how I found bluegrass – just how simple and deep everything is. It’s different than how I write and talk. It’s so concise and wrapped up so well that I just envy it, in a way. I love listening to it, ’cause I feel like I can learn a lot. But then my setup, my band when I play, is a bluegrass setup. It’s upright bass, me, guitar, fiddle, another guitar. We just added drums, which is a big step.
But that’s when I started listening to bluegrass, ’cause it was like a palate cleanser. I don’t listen to a lot of modern country, because that’s the space I’m in. When I listen to it too much, I feel fatigued from it all. So bluegrass is a nice outlet. It just feels refreshing to listen to. I wasn’t raised on it or anything, so I feel a little bit like an impostor, but I love it so much.
Charlie Worsham played banjo on “Strawberry, California.” He played throughout the whole record, Grossly Aware, on guitar and banjo. “Strawberry, California,” it was tricky to get it right with a band, because of the time changes and how intricate the guitar is. But I pulled it up for him in the studio, he listened to it once, and he was like, “Wow, this is tough.” Listened to it twice, and then had it perfectly. I was like, “What in the world?!” He’s a freak. So good.
I really enjoyed listening to it. And then I also have been listening to your new single, “Drag, Queen.” I love it in so many ways.
It’s a little controversial.
Of course, it’s a little controversial, but also it’s 2026. They can catch up or we don’t need them. [Laughs] I love that, again, you’re subverting expectations. And again, it’s traditional modern country with that big hook, the wordplay is great. The sort of wink and a smile about it. But also I love that it sounds so bluegrassy.
Yeah, it’s the grassiest song I’ll be putting out this year. It’s super grassy. It’s so fun to play live. I played it on tour with Carter Faith this spring. Her audience was so perfect for it, ’cause they love weed and they are awesome. [Laughs] I played it on tour with her and it was probably my favorite song in my set.
I wrote that song last year – last June – and I posted it right away and it’s just been my favorite. I think it’s silly, but it has a lot of layers to it. I had a song, “Marry Jane,” blow up on TikTok. It was my first thing that ever did anything on TikTok, so I got hate for the first time. Which is always an interesting experience. It was all like balding, middle-aged old men being like, “Is this a song about a lesbian or a song about weed??” And I was like, “It’s about both, duh.” [Laughs]
Have you ever heard of an entendre? Yeah, no, you haven’t.
Double it. [Laughs]
[Laughs]
Anyway, it was so funny. But that’s why I wrote it. I was like, “They’ll hate this.”
I also wanted to ask you – femininity and hyper-femininity in country are also traditions. The performance of femininity by folks like Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn all the way to k.d. lang. I love the way that you inhabit femininity and it’s so clear that you do not feel like it’s a burden, or that it weighs you down, or that it’s something that you could be penalized for. But I wonder how you feel like it’s received – especially on social media, like you mention, TikTok. Do you ever feel like you’re penalized for your femininity?
You know, I think as we’re starting to talk to labels and all that, yeah. I think if I was a man with this amount of monthly listeners and success so far, I would have a deal already. In that way, it’s definitely hindering, but it’s not gonna stop me from anything. I will have more leverage in two years, and that’s fine. [Laughs] But whatever. But because it’s so raw and real and feminine, I feel like my audience is all girls. It’s been really nice. I feel like I can be myself, say whatever I want, and I don’t have to worry about it. [I can] dress however I want – and dress strange – and be something to look at and not just, like, pretty, you know?
And the girls get it. I love it. I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. It’s what I prefer. …
Another song that really jumped out at me is “Simon Says.”
The production of it started with just me in my room on guitar on TikTok, and then people were like, “I need a full strings version of this. I need a banjo version of this. I need a pop version,” all these different things. When we recorded it for the first time the demo had a synth on it, which is the banjo part. That’s how it started. I knew that wasn’t how it was gonna end, but it was like in demo jail for a year and a half. And I was like, “It has to have that element,” and then it just worked out for the banjo.
I did have a question about TikTok, so it’s interesting to hear you talk about how you’re in the comment section, you’re seeing what people say. It’s interesting to me that you’re responding in your creative process as well. Like what you just said about “Simon Says.” You’re listening to the fans being like, “I need this, I need that.”
If they want an acoustic version I’m like, “If you’ll stream it, I’ll do it.” Without a label right now, that’s been amazing. Something will blow up and in a month and a half or two months later we can have it out. You can’t replace that. It’s been really nice.
How do you feel when you’ve done a bunch of reps of a song, or when you’ve taken it from TikTok, to demo, to recording, to bringing it to an audience – do you feel like the song changes meaning? Do you feel like “Simon Says,” for instance, will always have that tinge of sadness and trauma to you? Or do you feel like the audience takes it, it changes, and then you get up on stage and you don’t feel that anymore? Or does that feeling always stay with you? ‘Cause as a songwriter myself, I feel like I re-traumatize myself every single time I play one of my songs. Is that how it feels to you with a song like that?
I have to write about what I live. I can’t just write to write. I have to put myself through stuff. It’s whatever – “tortured artist,” you know. Every line in there is real, so it’s definitely re-traumatizing.
But I guess it was my first tour, my first time singing it on stage, I was thinking about the writing of it a lot. ‘Cause it’s something so magical, that three people are in a room – or two people or just me – and then now I’m in front of 1,000 people and some of them know the songs. I don’t know, something about that is so special. I wish my co-writers were there to see it. It’s such an intimate thing.
There’s a little bit of a healing moment there.
Totally. It kinda changed what I was thinking about, especially with “Simon” and a lot of the next project. All of it’s co-written, which is different for me. I was just thinking about the people that made it all come to life. When we were in the studio, little ideas that people had. It’s so cool.
So it’s like, less sad now. I guess it depends on the situation. If it’s me on TikTok, I’m getting into the sad headspace. But in person I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this is so fun. My favorite people helped get me here.” I’m like singing “Simon Says” with a pep in my step. Like, what is going on?! [Laughs]
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Here’s your weekly dose of new roots music! You Gotta Hear This…
A perfect kick-off to the weekend comes from Dominique and the Diamonds, who are previewing their next single, “Cocaine,” ahead of its release next week. Perhaps frontwoman, singer-songwriter (and Honky Tonk Queen) Dominique Gomez, isn’t the “crazy party girl” she once was, but she channels fun rockin’ and rollin’ party energy in full force on the country-folk number.
Next up, Matt Jones and the Bobs share a video for “The Weight of the World,” out today. No matter the burdens we all carry, the song offers a message of hope and resilience. As Jones puts it in talking about the song with BGS, “The song looks at struggle not as defeat, but as a universal weight we all carry and the beauty of having someone there to help lighten the load.” It’s certainly a timely message.
For a little rockabilly-steeped Americana, Arkansas-based country group Midnight South give us an exclusive preview of their upcoming single, “Curves in a Square Body,” set for release next week. Dripping with nostalgia and built around a solid country hook, it’s a twang-ful number perfect for putting the pedal to the metal – even if you don’t happen to be lucky enough to be driving around in a square body. Add this one to the list of actually good country songs about trucks.
Capping off our roundup today is bluegrass mandolinist Danny Roberts, whom you may recognize from The Grascals. Roberts’ brand-new album The Winding Road Leads Home is out today, so we’re celebrating by sharing a lovely and sweet instrumental number – with a funny title, “Tologna Bologna.” (That’s pronounced “Tony Baloney,” per Danny.) If you’re more familiar with the mandolin as a barn-burning instrument, Roberts often shows the depth and breadth of the instrument, as he does on this track.
We’ll let you go so you can get to listening! You Gotta Hear This.
Dominique and the Diamonds, “Cocaine”
Artist:Dominique and the Diamonds Hometown: Los Angeles, California Song: “Cocaine” Album:Honky Tonk Queen Release Date: May 29, 2026 (single); June 26, 2026 (album)
In Their Words: “‘Cocaine’ is loosely based on a true story. I was a broke and debaucherous 20-year-old in San Francisco with a dealer who incessantly kept asking me out. I started to imagine how my life would have turned out if I did end up going on those dates with him. The song basically wrote itself from there. I’m nowhere near the crazy party girl I once was! But I wanted this song to be the perfect blend of country and rock ‘n’ roll as an ode to that era of my life. ‘Party girl Dom’ was a mess, but I don’t regret a single thing about her.” – Dominique Gomez
Matt Jones and the Bobs, “The Weight of the World”
Artist:Matt Jones and the Bobs Hometown: Salem, Virginia Song: “The Weight Of The World” Release Date: May 22, 2026
In Their Words: “‘The Weight of the World’ reflects on life’s burdens and the quiet strength it takes to face them, while honoring the friends who help shoulder what we can’t. The song looks at struggle not as defeat, but as a universal weight we all carry and the beauty of having someone there to help lighten the load. It is a song about struggle, resilience, and the quiet beauty of friendship, sitting at the emotional center of everything the band has worked toward since their return. For the listeners who have been with them since college and those discovering them now, the message is the same: your story matters, even the hard parts. We have lived that truth, and we are finally ready to tell it in full.” – Matt Jones
Track Credits: Matt Jones – Vocals, acoustic guitar Pat Keefe – Electric guitar Jonthan Crandall – Piano Trevor Creany – Drums Andrew Carper – Bass guitar
Video Credits: Matt Jones, Jonathan Crandall, Kevin McNeill
Midnight South, “Curves in a Square Body”
Artist:Midnight South Hometown: Little Rock, Arkansas Song: “Curves in a Square Body” Release Date: May 29, 2026 Label: Rock Ridge Music
In Their Words: “We started with this simple idea of contrast – curves set against a square body – and it just sparked something that felt bigger than the visual. Like a lot of our songs, it naturally drifted into something nostalgic and before we knew it, we were writing about that first truck and all the memories tied up in it.
“From the beginning, the energy of the track pushed us to keep things lively and fun and that really carried through the entire process. Working with Ben Jackson took it to another level – he helped us shape the sound and brought a clarity and punch to the production and mix that really made the song come alive. It’s one of those tracks where everything just clicked in the studio and you can hear that excitement in the final version. We chose it as a single because it feels like a perfect snapshot of who we are right now – high energy, rooted in storytelling, and not afraid to lean into a little nostalgia. At its core, it’s about holding onto those early moments that define you and realizing how much they still ride with you today.” – Darin Davis
Track Credits: Ben Jackson – Percussion, producer, engineer Darin Davis – Drums JL Jones – Acoustic guitar, background vocals Billy Lowe III – Electric guitar, background vocals David Tidwell – Bass Steve Hinson – Pedal steel guitar Wil Houchens – Keyboards, Hammond B3 organ Matt Sammons – Lead vocals
Danny Roberts, “Tologna Bologna”
Artist:Danny Roberts Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Tologna Bologna” Album:The Winding Road Leads Home Release Date: May 22, 2026 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “When I wrote this tune, I had my great friend Tony Wray in mind. He’s played on all of my records and has helped me arrange much of my music, so I wanted to name it for him. If you listen closely to the melody, you might catch a little nod to the old Oscar Mayer bologna TV commercial – which is where the spelling ‘Tologna Bologna’ comes from. (I say it ‘Tony Baloney,’ though.) I hope you enjoy ‘Tologna Bologna,’ and make sure to check out my new album The Winding Road Leads Home that’s out today!” – Danny Roberts
Track Credits: Andrea Roberts – Bass Tony Wray – Acoustic guitar, banjo Danny Roberts – Mandolin Adam Haynes – Fiddle
Photo Credit: Danny Roberts courtesy of the artist; Midnight South by RK Barger Photography.
During the Klondike Gold Rush, the Red Onion Saloon in Skagway, Alaska, operated as a thriving brothel and a rare (sometimes) source of autonomy for the women who worked there. More than a century later, Juneau-based singer-songwriter Taylor Dallas Vidic found empowerment at the old bordello too, by offering feminist tours in character as Madam Anya Johnson. Innuendos loosened up tour groups, forging a connection that made them receptive to some serious history lessons – alongside dick jokes.
“What working at the Red Onion did for me was make me feel really comfortable about being a human in front of other humans, and to talk about things that often feel taboo or uncomfortable, and to normalize them,” Vidic says. “It’s translating from making sex jokes to feeling comfortable standing in front of a lot of people and saying, ‘Hey, here’s what it felt like when I broke my heart or when someone else broke my heart.’”
Vidic’s songwriting is warm and vulnerable. She’s equally capable of belting above sultry and coy jazzy tracks, carrying intricate, stripped-down folksongs on her magnanimous voice alone, and building grand theatrical numbers, as well. She does all of it on her debut album, Cat & Mouse, a collection of 13 (mostly) love songs that deliver an expansive, playful representation of what is perhaps humanity’s most perplexing and intoxicating experience. And it’s all rooted in the same multifaceted understanding of shared humanity that Vidic used to bond with strangers on those summer stints in Skagway.
Beyond an exceptional, arresting voice and range, Vidic’s songwriting conveys an acuity of emotion which pushes what is superficially an album of love songs well beyond predictable tropes. “They tell you it takes time, you’ll see/ To remember who you use to be/ Remember how to sit in the quiet/ On your own,” she sings on the album’s opening track, “Falling Out of Love,” which lays out in minute, closely felt detail the experience of returning to self after a breakup:
I’ve learned to fill the space that I’d kept for only you, dear I smile at all the faces Walk past all the places We used to go Each breath a little deeper Each song a little sweeter Now that the scent of you doesn’t linger on my pillow Anymore
Heartbreak might be age-old song fodder, but Vidic extends it far beyond breakups to many kinds of aches (loss, longing, unbearable certainty) with an alluring immediacy. In her hands, the simple mechanics of falling in and out of love – or wishing to fall in love, even if just for the evening – become a comforting exercise in self-discovery and relatable human experience.
There’s “In a Song,” about a crush that’s missed its moment. “High,” which yearns for the good parts of a past entanglement. And “In Your Arms,” a cinematic, self-aware disquisition on a relationship’s irreconcilable differences: “I said it’s a big ole world/ The place we could go, the people we’ll see/ Just imagine the strangers we could meet,” Vidic sings, adding: “He said/ My corner’s just fine with me.” By song’s end, Vidic is off on the grand adventures she dreamed for them both, solo.
Part of Vidic’s remarkably evolved approach to love songs derives from practical necessity. Juneau, Alaska – population 32,000 – is small and isolated both from the rest of the country and even the state, by geography; with no roads out of town and flanked by impenetrable mountains, ice fields, and the Gastineau channel, it’s accessible only by boat or plane. Living within those few square miles, it’s impossible to avoid running into an ex regularly. In the same way that Vidic’s ethos accepts humanity’s many facets, so too she’s maintained love and respect for her exes. Indeed, most of them were invited to – and attended – her album release show.
“Finding ways to actively reframe relationships when they have run their course is a matter of survival of the heart. And it would be such a loss to not get to continue to care for the people that I have loved, that have loved me,” Vidic says. “I don’t know if I’m just lucky in that I’ve found people that are willing to do that – even though it is messy and hard at times and a little confusing at times, too, and uncomfortable; we spend so much time with people that we choose to love and we share so much…I really like holding onto those moments.”
Juneau’s geographical limitations and eccentricities crop up on the album in other ways, as well. “I let those mystery boys get me every time/ When the stakes are low I’m better at not losing my mind/ An hour is too far when an airplane is in play,” Vidic sings on “Muse.” Nothing quite as bittersweet as unrequited love, specifically one that’s unwanted.
“Twice a Day,” the album’s opening foray into its folk/Americana B-side, is the only song that doesn’t overtly take place in Alaska, written during a few months in New York City. On it, Vidic, a consummate observer of the world around her, contemplates the near-infinite possibility for human interaction in a big city surrounded by so many more souls than in her hometown: “Maybe I would make you laugh each day/ Maybe when it ended I’d be begging you to stay/ Maybe we’d grow old and see, we’re as happy as we’d ought to be/ But we’re always a platform away.”
First albums are always special. Often, they represent the culmination of years’ worth of a musician’s best and hardest fought work – John Prine’s eponymous debut, Emmylou Harris’ Pieces of the Sky, Guy Clark’s Old No. 1 – and Cat & Mouse is no exception. Written over more than a decade (Vidic penned its oldest song, “Muse,” at 21), the album is, for Vidic, a scrapbook of her life and formative early adulthood.
“I think most people can agree that songs take us back to moments in our lives, be it a playlist that was on the radio a lot when we were in middle school, or that particular song that helped you get over a breakup or a song that makes you think about your parent,” she says. “And these songs do that for me, but they are snapshots of my existence and of the people that I’ve come across.”
From her delivery on stage to the studio production of Cat & Mouse, Vidic also brings the banter and cheek of her madam tour guide gig, as well as the showmanship she’s cultivated as part of burlesque troupe, The Nude & Rude Revue, and through many community arts events she’s helped organize. Leaning into her life’s dualities, Vidic made the album with two distinct sides; Cat, the album’s A-side, is jazzy with a big band sound; Mouse is a stripped-down, folksy, and sparsely-instrumented B-side. It’s a concept that easily could have been sonically incongruous, but both sides flow together through the power of Vidic’s voice, aided by the album’s title track, which she rendered in both styles and delivered at the end of each side, respectively.
Juneau’s geographic isolation can be a mighty impediment for musicians, but it’s also a blessing that breeds collaboration and allows musicians a certain freedom to grow and flourish without the pressures of bigger music cities in the U.S., says Juneau-based musician Andrew Heist. Heist has played in a myriad of bluegrass bands in Alaska over the last 20 years, and lends his scintillating mandolin to “Falling Out of Love.” He also shares stages with Vidic as part of their songwriting group, the Muskeg Collective.
“Without the pressure to get a product out there to build her name in a competitive scene, there’s this community familiarity that is so rare and amazing in Juneau,” Heist says. “It’s sort of like the old soul version of hearing somebody sing, there’s a depth to the way that she brings her music forward.”
Most of Vidic’s songs are exceedingly personal, yet she manages to spin the exquisite pain of heartbreak into something universally relatable, and she’s equally vivid when singing about someone else. Vidic wrote “Wet Tennis Shoes” in part thinking about a friend whose father left when she was too young to remember him. The song effuses not just ache, but a crushing loss of innocence, as well: “Boats made of paper float on the pond/ A little girl playing wonders where you have gone/ You took all the sunshine and made her skies grey.” And though the paper boats do not actually dissolve, the song’s omnipresent drizzle – “Rain on her window/ Rain on her head/ Rain on the rooftop as she lies in bed” – evokes the dissolution even more effectively.
After spending most of the album exploring feelings’ small intricacies, Vidic’s final track before the “Cat & Mouse” reprise is “Stockades,” a showy, declarative pop number about the enormity of falling head over heels. “The Stockades fell/ When he touched my hips/ And he kissed my lips in ways they’ve never been kissed,” she cries before continuing: “Lord knows it took one night to tear this empire down/ The walls we built, they’re falling faster than Jericho to the ground.” Still, kingdoms fall and so do powerful loves; and again by the end of the song, Vidic is reminding herself how to get back up and stand on her own two feet. Now, and always, too.
The strength of Alaskan songwriters’ connections extends beyond helping each other and into the community at large as well. As part of her album crowdfunding (Cat & Mouse was also partially funded by a prestigious local grant), Vidic asked for funds to bring music into the state’s network of nursing homes, a goal inspired by visiting her mother in a long-term care facility and a few concerts she’s already given.
Memorably, Vidic recalls how at a Christmastime performance she stepped offstage to sing among the audience to bring herself into focus for them. Next to a man she’d noticed never uttered a word on previous visits, Vidic sang “Silver Bells.” Part way in, the man joined her, singing along with words he’d learned long ago.
Nursing homes are often undesirable performance locations; they’re sterile, poorly lit, and underfunded, their residents not the most attentive or engaging audience members – yet, Vidic observes, those people deserve live music, joy, and respect, as much as anyone. She plans to rework her stage performance into a version with which to bring music to those spaces where it’s rarely heard, and sorely needed.
“That again brings me back to my time at the Red Onion and finding that shared humanity with strangers, and just feeling like we’re all just human beings doing our best, sharing spaces and trying to find joy and make moments worth living,” Vidic says. “What’s the point without it?”
Editor’s Note: Each issue of Good Country, our co-founder Ed Helms shares a handful of good country artists, albums, and songs direct from his own earphones in Ed’s Picks.
Great news from a roots-country legend, Rodney Crowell returns with a “new/old” album on June 26, Then Again. Largely recorded over two decades ago in the early 2000s with Steuart Smith co-producing and completed with Dan Knobler stepping in, its lead single, “Are You One of Us?,” is the final recording by Crowell and his friend and compatriot Guy Clark. It’s a track perfectly suited for these divided times we’re living in, bringing wisdom and wit like only Crowell and Clark could. We can’t wait to hear more from Then Again!
We’ve known, covered, and collaborated with our friend Alejandro for years and years, so we’re especially excited to have him as our current BGS Artist of the Month, celebrating his brand new album Fondness, Etc. For an artist who’s adept at sonic and aesthetic reinvention, his music still always sounds exactly like himself – even as he bends and breaks the barriers of alt-country, neo-folk, Americana, and western to his liking. This is one of our favorite Shakey eras yet.
Another legend of American roots music, Taj Mahal is woefully underappreciated and undersung, even while being rightfully worshipped by so many as a keystone of blues, Americana, string band, and country musics. His new album, Time, released with his Phantom Blues Band on Resonatin’ Records/Thirty Tigers, shows that he remains as dynamic and innovative as ever. The title track is a deep-pocketed and smooth never-before-heard Bill Withers number that Taj makes his own. If you’re used to his gritty, playful, and down home blues, the sound here may surprise you – but damn, that’s Good Country, isn’t it?
Our queen of country, Oklahoma, and corn dogs is celebrating her 50-year groundbreaking, iconic career with new music – lucky for all of us! A brand new track, “One Night In Tulsa,” leads off an EP that encapsulates a few of her musical tributes to her home state from over the years: “Tulsa Time,” “Oklahoma Swing” featuring Vince Gill, “Does the Wind Still Blow in Oklahoma” with Ronnie Dunn, and the excellent Buddy Cannon-produced “No U in Oklahoma.” “One Night In Tulsa” is a soaring, dramatic, and longing love song to Tulsa and beyond, uttered like only Reba could. This version is the just-released live performance video of the song shot live at Reba’s Place, her restaurant, gift shop, and music venue in Atoka, OK.
Jobi Riccio charmed the country universe with her 2023 debut, Whiplash, but hold onto your necks, ‘cause her brand new album, Face the Feeling, finds the Coloradoan singer-songwriter evolving her production styles and genre descriptors in a big way. She’s infused grunge, alt-folk, and country-rock into these new songs; the results vary from straight-down-the-middle Southern rock to expansive, electronic indie-twang. We especially find Good Country touches in songs like “Pilar, NM” and “Wildfire Season,” but they can be found throughout the rockin’ project.
Listen to this issue of Ed’s Picks in one YouTube playlist here.
Listen to the full Ed’s Picks archive playlist here.
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Photo Credits: Rodney Crowell by Claudia Church; Shakey Graves by Jonathan Terrell; Taj Mahal by Mike Coeyman; Reba McEntire, One Night in Tulsa album cover; Jobi Riccio by Rett Rogers.
There’s little to no stage banter when the Droptines play a show, with the Austin, Texas-based band sometimes cramming 30 songs into a 90-minute set. However, as their new album, Drought Flower proves, they still have plenty to say. Their original songs touch on broken relationships (“Old Tricks”), family grief (“Mamaw,” featuring Sarah Jarosz), and losing loved ones to addiction (“What Ate My Friend”). As a nod to classic country, there’s often a little bit of clever wordplay to offset the drama, too.
Named for the downturned deer antlers that are prized by hunters, the Droptines (rhymes with “stop signs”) first took shape with an EP release in 2019. Lead singer-songwriter Conner Arthur has since guided the group through indie albums, relentless touring, and now their debut set on Big Loud Texas, the label founded by Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall. The five-piece band hasn’t yet moved into a tour bus, though. Instead, they travel in a retrofitted school bus with upgrades that would impress any road musician. (It sleeps 10 people and has a bathroom, two air conditioners, and a built-in trailer space.)
Growing up in the Texas Hill Country town of Concan, Arthur watched countless musicians play at his family’s venue, House Pasture Cattle Company, during the summer season of city folks floating the Frio River. But the rest of the year, when nothing was really going in town, influenced him just as much.
“I learned how to be alone in Concan,” Arthur says. “I learned how to clear my mind and ignore my hunger pangs. But I would always watch and study people. Especially because if you’re driving through Concan in, say, January, and you see a car that you don’t recognize or someone you don’t recognize, you’re shocked and you want to go talk to them. You’re just caught in your own little village for so long. Having an outside perspective from my little narrow worldview was very, very important to me.”
A few days ahead of a full slate of tour dates (and just before stocking the school bus), Arthur called into Good Country to talk about what inspired the new music.
For people who haven’t been to the Texas Hill Country, how would you describe it?
Conner Arthur: The drama of the limestone bluffs, the crystal clear waters of the Frio River – man, it’s hard not to have a religious experience every other day. Especially when it rains and the floodwaters start moving. Everything there is so dramatic and explosive and chaotic. From the summer to the off-season, you have three months of complete and utter chaos, then the rest of the year is just silent. There are some days where I’d walk out and just sit there looking at River Road waiting for a car to drive by. And I was starting to freak out, thinking that I was the last person on Earth.
More than likely I think that made its way into my personal life. It’s just a large juxtaposition, and a dichotomy of high highs and low lows. But I learned how to handle it, growing up there. We didn’t get internet or cell phone service until 2012, and that’s a great way to grow up. My backyard was 200,000 acres. I could ride horses without hitting a fence line for miles. I wish that more people had that upbringing. I wish that I could provide that for my kids.
If you didn’t get the internet until 2012, then you got to experience live music at your family’s venue before the cell phones in the air and people documenting every show.
Oh yeah. The funny thing about House Pasture is [that] it’s changed hands but it stayed in the family. My biological father and my uncle started it. They failed, so my grandpa bought it from them. And then it was kind of a “break even” type of venue. It was just an addendum for someone who’s gonna go down to Concan and float the Frio anyway. Like, “Oh, we can go see so-and-so.” I mean, I’ve got scars all from being this tall and women ashing cigarettes out on my collarbone. Not on purpose!
I learned more about what I didn’t want to be, seeing the evolution of the Texas country scene come through there. I saw that evolution get commercialized in the mid-2000s, like 2005 and 2006. But when I was a little guy, I got to see the Great Divide. I got to see Gary P. Nunn. I got to see John Conlee. I got to see Earl Thomas Conley. I got to see all these really high-class acts. Reckless Kelly is still one of my favorites from that era. Robert Earl Keen, the list goes on. Even if I didn’t like it, the song’s going to be in my head. It is still red dirt Texas country. I still know every word to all these other musicians’ stuff that I’m not a fan of, because it’s just ingrained in you. You can’t avoid it in that environment.
What were you doing before you jumped into music?
I was in construction throughout high school and I’ve gone back and forth over the years when I needed money. But when I was 18 years old, my mom pretty much gave me an ultimatum. She said, “If you don’t go to college, you’re cut off.” And I was like, “Well, I don’t really care. I don’t like ultimatums.” So I grabbed my banjo and I hitchhiked the country for about a year and a half.
I got back home, and that was like going 90 miles an hour into a brick wall. The fantasies in my head were dashed out by my mom’s disappointment. She said, “You’re gonna have to get a job.” So I went back to construction for a little bit, then I joined up in the oil field. I was an oil field mechanic for about two years, and I said, “I’m not going to die out here in the Eagle Ford Shale.” So I made a decision. Just to give me some more confidence, I went to the bluegrass program in Levelland, Texas, at the [South Plains] College. I did that for two years and went home and knocked out our first EP with David Beck.
I knew you played the banjo, but I didn’t know that you had studied bluegrass.
Dillon [Sampson], our bass player, and I both went to South Plains and he’s way more of a bluegrass cat than I, but my story about how I got into playing banjo is just kind of happenstance. My older brother came into some money when we were young, and I won’t go into the details on how he got it, but it was burning a hole in his pocket. He bought this Deering Goodtime open-back banjo and it was sitting in the back of his truck. I was about 14 and I had plenty of guitars floating around the house. And I had a piano, but I never really broke through on it because it was just an instrument for me to get a song out.
I don’t know if it was the open tuning or just the fact that it’s hard to not have a good time playing banjo, but I broke through on it. I could start developing an understanding of music theory and scales. I don’t know why it made sense in my mind that it was less intimidating than 72 keys or six strings. You go down that road, and then are you a gimmick banjo player or are you good? That’s what led me to South Plains. I’m not going to disrespect the institution of bluegrass or the instrument of banjo. I’m going to do my best to play it. But I need to play more. I need to stay on it, because that is not a bike. Your agility and endurance of playing the banjo collapses if you’re not tickling it once or twice a day.
Is that the same for writing with you? Do you need to consistently write, or can you put that away for a while and come back to writing?
I’m always kind of writing in my head and building concepts, then I’ll scribble it down. I’ll more than likely lose the piece of paper I scribbled it down on, but I’ve always said if it’s worth remembering, then I’ll remember it. But I probably lost a thousand songs that way. It’s like a floodgate. I sit around and I’ll have an idea, and I’ll get a quarter way through it, blah, blah… But it’s not until the band all sits down in a room and we all have the intention to write, and these things just… “Boom!” There goes the dam.
In several of your songs, there are references to pills or addiction. On this record, you have “What Ate My Friend.” That’s a reality for a lot of people. When you’re tackling a heavy topic like that, how do you get into that headspace, knowing you’re going to jump into something serious?
A lot of that, it’s lived in for sure. I’ve had men that came before me that did it so I didn’t have to. Back to, I know what not to do now. And my brother Landry being one of them. I lost him to all that shit a couple years ago. He and I were Irish twins. The same thing happened to my biological dad’s brother. At the same age, the same exact circumstance, and they both died on their birthday.
“What Ate My Friend,” I can’t even remember writing that one, but I know that I showed up with all of it, and that’s rare. I have this band to lean on, but I showed up with every bit of that. This was all here. It’s not just about my brother, but a couple friends I have. Just like, “I know you’re on meth, dude, but why is it making you a liar?” Like, you can be honest with me, just tell me. It’s getting in the way of our friendship if you’re going to turn into a liar.
I thought there was a nuance, kind of, what I refer to as the days of country gold, the wordplay of like, “She’s Acting Single (I’m Drinking Doubles).” That’s so important in country and bluegrass music – that play on words – and that one is like, “Hey man, what’s eating at you?” All right, what’s the extreme of that? “What ate my friend?” I thought it was pretty decent, but yeah, that’s a rough one, you know, but it’s real, unfortunately. It’s real for a lot of people. And I hate that. I hate that anybody has to suffer.
You’ve been around music from the time you’re a kid, and now you’re doing this full time. What has surprised you the most about this career path that you’re on?
The main one is that there’s viability. I said this in an interview before, but I just thought playing music was a good excuse to be a loser. And then to see it all pan out! It starts to feel like work, but work is good, especially if it bears fruit, which it is, and it’s starting to even more so. But to be able to build a foundation for my future family off of the back of these songs, that right there is top tier, number one, the most important thing. I can’t be more grateful for that and the blessings that God’s given us. Just having people come religiously to your shows, and singing words, it gives you faith in live music, for sure. It is a little shocking to me, at the end of the day that I didn’t make all this up.
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After spending time On The Ranch in 2022 and hopping in the car for 2024’s Drive & Cry, Emily Nenni now finds herself out on the dance floor with her latest record, Movin’ Shoes. Released May 1, the album is the California-born, Nashville-based singer’s third project in collaboration with New West Records.
It’s also her most ambitious and vulnerable to date, with Nenni singing about everything from feeling comfortable in her own skin (“Livin’ In Shame”) to getting caught up in a heated argument (“You Only Said It To Hurt Me”) and doing what makes you happy (“Not A Winner”). All amid a backdrop of Stax horns, pedal steel, and other accompaniments captured in Memphis with producer John James Tourville (of the Deslondes) and engineer Matt Ross-Spang. The two also worked with Nenni on Drive & Cry, but this time around the setting was at Ross-Spang’s new Southern Grooves studio, which offered up new opportunities to stretch out and experiment musically.
The result is a mix of honky-tonk and Southern soul that invokes Booker T & the M.G.’s and B.B. King (“Movin’ Shoes”); William Bell and Aretha Franklin (“What Have I Done Wrong”); Diana Ross (“Not A Winner”) and the Supremes (“Livin’ In Shame”). Even more crossover moments occur with a bluesy rendition of Paul Simon’s “Tenderness” and a reimagining of Cass Elliot’s (of The Mamas & The Papas) “Talkin’ To Your Toothbrush” that illustrate Nenni’s confidence in full bloom.
“This isn’t strictly honky-tonk like my former records, even though it’s still all the same influences,” Nenni explains. “I’m just drawing from more artists and genres than I have in the past.”
Ahead of Movin’ Shoes’ release, Nenni spoke with Good Country about the evolution of her sound, the relationship she has with her dog Edna (whom she sings about on the song “Home With My Dog”), her reverse lip sync video for “Livin’ In Shame,” and more.
One of my favorite songs from Movin’ Shoes that captures your new sound is “Yes It Hurt.” Did you always plan to incorporate horns in it?
Emily Nenni: “Yes It Hurt” was probably the most outside of what I’ve done on any of my past three records. It was a bit nerve-racking, because I initially just planned to record the phrase “yes it hurt” repeated with some harmonies to use as an interlude. I never envisioned it being a full song, but JJ [John James Tourville] came up with a whole thing around it that I added verses to the day before we went in to record. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I trusted him, and getting to see three horn players shred on my song made it all worth it. I’ve always wanted horns on my record, but didn’t want it to be such a big departure from what I’ve been doing.
What was the timeline for these songs coming together?
Aside from the covers, the entire record was written over the course of a month and a half. I sent JJ voice memos of most songs about a week before heading into the studio, which left him no time for pre-production. We had been talking, though, and had both the musicians and space to record, so I just trusted it would all come together.
The only song I had to build my lyrics around JJ’s production was on “Take My Money.” I had all the lyrics but no melody, because everything I tried didn’t fit right. Then he went and made it into this really cool and funky honky-tonk type song that has become one of my favorites on the entire record.
Was this your first time recording in Memphis?
Yes. We recorded Drive & Cry at the Creative Shop in Nashville, but it was actually mixed in Memphis with Matt Ross-Spang. When JJ and I drove down there for that I could just tell the two of them would work really well together on a full record, so around six months later I emailed them both asking about it. It was bittersweet because this is the first record where I haven’t worked with Jake Davis as an engineer. That being said, we did capture some vocals for “What Have I Done Wrong” at his house, so he still was able to be part of the mix, which was very important for me.
What led to you making “Movin’ Shoes” the album’s title track?
After I wrote the song I began thinking it would be a good name for the record, because I primarily write for the dancers at our shows – it’s my favorite thing! Some of these songs aren’t in that vein as much, but you can dance to anything.
In the end, the idea of moving and the content of that song touching on how you treat others when you’re out in the world is an overarching theme of not just it, but the record as a whole, which made it a natural fit to place as the title track.
You’ve always been an empathetic songwriter. What made you want to lean into that side of yourself even more on this collection of songs?
I spend a lot of time with myself, especially when we’re off the road. I’ve taken time to sort out my thoughts about the world we’re living in and that can get really heavy. It’s starting to affect the way people are interacting with each other, so with every encounter I have I’m thinking nonstop about the best way to handle it. It’s so important to think about and discuss not just how we’re treating each other, but ourselves too. When you’re in a funky headspace it’s nice being able to put on a song as a reminder for how to exist. Sometimes we need encouragement to be ourselves. My hope is that this album can help to remind folks of that.
You just mentioned spending time alone, which I know is at the center of the song “Home With My Dog.” I also love how it directly follows a cover of Delbert McClinton’s “Honky Tonkin’ (Guess I’ve Done Me Some),” a song about wild nights inside Texas dance halls. Did you notice their contrasting messages when you placed them back to back?
They are very much like two sides of the same coin. I’m only 32 now, but in my early 20s I could go out six or seven nights a week and could get up early the next day with no problems, but nowadays I need five nights’ rest for every night I do make it out of the house. [Laughs]. But aside from that, our dog Edna had some health issues while we were on the road in Europe a couple years ago. So now when I’m off the road I just want to be home with her and that’s all that matters. Even though “Honky Tonkin’” is a cover, it got me thinking about my early days in Nashville, hopping around the bars and in and out of conversation, and what those conversations consisted of. It all made me realize what’s most important, which is being here with our sweet little girl, taking care of myself, and not being out past my bedtime.
I can totally relate. I don’t get out anywhere near as often as I do now. However, I also don’t live in Nashville. I imagine the pressure to make appearances is amplified there with everything going on and the industry so close?
Exactly! We also live really close to Skinny Dennis – which I love – but it’s also really easy to go there and have too much fun and [then I] can’t hang around with anyone for a while. [Laughs] It is wonderful though, so I do remind myself to remain involved in our lovely community here. It’s nice being around so many honky-tonk women and checking in to see how they’re doing or sharing stories. The world is a heavy place right now – from what we see in the news to the realities of life on the road – so being home is a good chance to reset. Even if I do it too much. [Laughs]
You also cover Paul Simon’s “Tenderness” and Cass Elliot’s “Talkin’ To My Toothbrush” on Movin’ Shoes. How do you go about deciding which songs from others to tackle?
I often will come up with a list of potential cover songs before going into the studio, because I always like having one to cover. But with this record we wound up doing three. It’s fun to pick a random song that somebody maybe hasn’t heard, to introduce them to a new artist’s catalog. I decided to cover “Honky Tonkin’” because I couldn’t get enough of it and thought it would be a fun one for the dancers, and the riff is really great. Then with “Tenderness,” lyrically it reflects a lot of the message of this record, which is how we’re treating each other. Sonically, I thought Paul Simon’s recording was a nice combination of country and soul and something I could replicate while also making it my own as well. And with “Talkin’ To Your Toothbrush” I just thought it was a great song that would be fun to cover. Cass has such a dreamy voice, and the Dobro on that song was so good too.
How did you get the concept for your reverse lip sync music video of “Livin’ In Shame,” which reminds me of a similar trick you used a few years ago on a video for “On The Ranch”?
Joshua Shoemaker developed and directed both of those videos! “On The Ranch” is a one-take and “Livin’ In Shame” is multi-take and backwards. This was my third music video with him – he also did “Get To Know Ya” [from Drive & Cry]. For “Livin’ In Shame,” Joshua heard the message clear as day, so it was filmed backwards to convey it. Wiping away makeup and left with just me!
The message of “Livin’ In Shame,” feeling comfortable in your own skin, goes hand-in-hand with another of my favorites on the record, “Not a Winner,” and its declaration of realizing your worth. What are your thoughts on those two songs and how they tie together?
The two songs are big on self-reflection. I have put in a lot of work to be more patient and present with myself and my journey. It’s certainly easier some days than others, and that’s okay. I hope these songs help listeners be kinder to themselves too.
Movin’ Shoes is dropping the same day that you celebrate 12 years in Nashville. What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned from your dozen trips around the sun in Music City?
I’ve just learned to be more confident in my own songwriting and the band I have around me. When recording and collaborating, I’ve also gotten more comfortable contributing my own thoughts. When I first moved to town my lack of confidence had me shying away from putting myself out there and sharing what was on my mind. I’ve got everyone I’ve played with these past 12 years to thank for welcoming and embracing me. They’ve all been very non-judgmental, and that’s made all the difference in the world.
What has bringing this record to life taught you about yourself?
That it is okay to step outside of your comfort zone. Trying new things like using different instrumentation, recording outside of Nashville and being more outspoken about asking for what I want have all helped to build my confidence too. I’m more comfortable than ever with the “new” and with myself, which I think will be very helpful to me in all aspects of life, not just music.
Other than releasing Movin’ Shoes, what’s next for you?
I have already started writing a new record and I’m looking forward to getting back to the studio!
While many young talents, willingly or hesitantly, bow down to music industry boardroom suits who promise stardom if they’ll follow a professionally curated path, Cole Chaney takes a hard pass. He knows exactly who he is, what he does, and how he wants to get there. He creates songs, not content. He’s a career musician, not a brand. And the only thing he hopes to influence, maybe, is someone, somewhere, who wants to make music for all the right reasons.
Chaney grew up in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, surrounded by the legacies and storytelling of his elders. After graduating high school he worked as a welder, uncertain of his career path, but already fueled by his passion for music. Today, he keeps one musical foot in the bluegrass traditions of his Appalachian roots and the other in guitar-centric, amplified bands like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots.
His debut album Mercy and subsequent OurVinyl Sessions reflect his love of acoustic music and showcase his leanings toward introspection and melancholy. In the Shadow of the Mountain, released last fall, takes that darkness to a new place, balances it with moments of light and leans into the aforementioned rock influences, while never losing the origins of his sound. All of this shines at peak level onstage, captured by Western AF on a Live AF Session.
Sitting outside at home on an April morning, drinking coffee and surrounded by the sounds of birds and a breeze, Chaney spent a couple of hours on the phone with Good Country. He spoke candidly about his music, faith, values, mental health, and the intertwining of inner peace and inner turbulence that make all these things uniquely him.
When you were ready to do this professionally, you went to Lexington. Most songwriters would have chosen Nashville. Was yours a deliberate decision or a natural one?
Cole Chaney: To understand that decision, you have to look at who I was looking up to at the time – and still do – and what drove that decision. When I was in high school, probably around my freshman or sophomore year, 2014 or 2015, I started getting into this band called Sundy Best. They’re from Prestonsburg, Kentucky, which is just down the road from me. This was pre-Tyler Childers. At the time, in Eastern Kentucky, these guys were the biggest thing coming and going. They leaned heavily on being from Kentucky, the same way I do, and they moved to Lexington to get a foothold.
That was my early example, watching those guys. I knew they weren’t going about it the traditional way, which was to go to Nashville and pray somebody picks you up. They did it in Lexington. A couple years later, Tyler Childers comes along – another super-influential figure in my musical upbringing. Of course, he’s anti-Nashville – not the city, but the machine, if you will. I’m pretty sure he lived in Lexington, or at least around the area in the scene, for a while. So did Sturgill Simpson. The list goes on.
I was like, “What business model makes more sense to me? Do I go to the place where there’s more songwriters than the rest of the entire planet or somewhere where people will actually understand what I’m saying and I can maybe build myself a little bit of a foundation?”
The way I saw it is if I started building a sort of fan base or if I had enough ticket buyers, places like Nashville or Denver, these big music scene cities, what choice would they have other than to book us? That’s the way I looked at it.
And it worked.
It did work. It’s a simple business model, but the difference between that model and the other is you’re not sitting around waiting for something to happen. It’s on you to go out and make your own connections. It’s a very grassroots and organic way of doing it and that’s the way I like to do things. I’m anti-machine. Even though I work with some bigger companies, I keep it as limited as possible. That’s so I can play pretty much wherever I want, whenever I want, and they understand that.
On the Whiskey Riff Raff Podcast you said, “Music found me.” Would you mind expanding on that just a bit?
It did. I never would have dreamed at 16 years old that I would be doing this as my full-time job at 25. That was never on the horizon for me. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I knew I was going to weld for a little bit, see what happened, and maybe try to start my own business. And I did. But I really didn’t think it was going to end up like this.
I started realizing that people liked to hear me play and sing around the same time that COVID hit really hard. That gave me an opportunity to sit down, write some songs, and think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
I’m very much a subscriber to the Bible, and I think the Lord has a mysterious way of working. He put me on a path without me even realizing it way back then and I do my best to stay on it now. I think my job while I’m here is to create as much good stuff as I can, stuff that means something, get it out to the people, and get out in front of them and play it for them. As somebody who enjoys going to shows in their free time and watching my favorite bands perform live, I know how that feels, and it’s truly a privilege to be able to offer that same service to other people.
There is music in your bloodlines, not professionally, but family members who played in church and at home. You obviously assimilated the sound of the area, and also this wider scope with bands like Alice In Chains and Stone Temple Pilots. When did all of that begin seeping into your songwriting?
We listened to the radio when I was growing up. I didn’t get educated on music or how to play until I started really getting into it. To this day, I’m still being educated and learning how to play on a daily basis. Part of what keeps it so fun to me is how much I don’t know and constantly learning about things.
Mercy was my first album, and I had access to what was around me. I had just moved to Lexington and I was really into bluegrass. There’s a band called the Wooks that, to this day, Glory Bound is one of my top three favorite records of all time. I was infatuated with that sound and that was what I wanted Mercy to sound like, or at least as close to it as I could get. A lot of the Wooks ended up playing on that album, plus Michael Cleveland. It was crazy.
Alice In Chains has been a mainstay in my musical taste since I was probably 15 or 16 years old. Since I first found them, I was very drawn in by the tone of Layne Staley’s voice and the weight of Jerry Cantrell’s guitar. It feels like you could bite it and chew on it. I don’t know how to describe it.
I’ve also always loved bluegrass, so it was [figuring out] how to bridge the gap of what I listen to and where I want to go with my writing without completely abandoning that sound. And bringing the alternative rock sound into the folk realm, where you have mandolin, upright bass, fiddle, acoustic guitars, and drums. The biggest change in the sound has been the addition of drums over the past two years, navigating that and seeing how it fits into the whole equation. It opened up a lot of avenues for me as a songwriter.
You began playing guitar at 13 or 14. Did you always play acoustic?
The thing about electric guitar, for me, is that it’s such a deep realm of gear and a deep dive. I’ve always been attracted to good-sounding acoustic guitars and players like Tony Rice, so I felt my effort was best spent getting really good at playing the acoustic guitar.
That will carry over whenever I decide to pick up an electric guitar, more so than if I only played electric guitar and tried to write some bluegrass-style acoustic lines. It would be a tougher transition to come over from light gauge strings on an electric guitar to .013s on a dreadnought and trying to play “Blue Railroad Train” or something like that.
Do you have an electric guitar?
I have several electric guitars. I’ve got a ’57 reboot Stratocaster, an American Professional Telecaster, my old Paul Reed Smith that I learned how to play electric on, and a nice Vox amp. I don’t know all that much about electric guitars. I still have a lot to learn.
Prior to this interview, you sent over your touring rig: a Gibson J-45 Banner in standard tuning with a K&K Pure Mini pickup, and a Breedlove sitka/rosewood Custom Dreadnought in drop D/double drop D, with an LR Baggs Element VTC pickup. Also two Grace BiX DI’s and a Lampifier Model 711 cardioid mic for lead vocals.
Those are my road guitars. They aren’t the ones I recorded everything with, but those are what you see at the shows.
In addition to the Gibson and Breedlove, do you have other acoustics?
I have two Gary Cotten guitars. [On] OurVinyl [Sessions, that] was my first Cotten I recorded with. On In the Shadow of the Mountain, many of those songs are my newer Cotten, which is sinker mahogany and an Adirondack top. “Alone?,” “In the Shadow of the Mountain,” “Into,” “Feels Like Rain,” and “Spirit” [were all recorded] on the Cotten.
That guitar sounds huge. It’s an outstanding guitar. I don’t tour with it because I’m scared something would happen to it and it’s too special to me. And Gary’s a great dude. He’s always taken really good care of me, and I want that guitar to stick around for a long time.
I don’t have any electronics in it, either. It’s a very traditional style, it’s a dovetail, and I want to keep it as traditional as I can and keep as much weight out of it as I can, because the more weight you add, sometimes it makes them sound worse.
What makes the Gibson and Breedlove right for touring?
They’re super-versatile and they both sound fantastic plugged in. That Breedlove is the longest-standing guitar I have that I’ve consistently played shows with. I got it in 2019 from 4 o’clock Rock Guitar Shop in Ashland [Kentucky]. It’s a custom dreadnought that they shop-ordered and it’s got the LR Baggs VTC Element in it. It has always sounded so good plugged in. I mean, all guitars sound bad plugged in, but it’s a matter of how much of the original sound can you actually preserve when you plug it in.
I’ve gotten to the point where I am almost starting to desire a little bit of that direct input texture. Maybe it’s because I’m listening to too much MTV Unplugged, but I’m starting to desire that kind of cardboard bad sound.
The Gibson, I put a K&K Pure Mini in and it sounds really close to what it sounds like not plugged in. Man, that Gibson is a beast. I love that guitar. It’s been to every show with me since I bought it last year.
I still have a Paul Reed Smith acoustic guitar and it’s a damned good little guitar. I’ll probably end up using it again on some stuff. It’s one of those that you plug in and it sounds great, too. But when I got into the whole bluegrass thing, I knew I needed something with a little more body.
Sometimes you use a pick, sometimes fingers. Either way, your attack is strong. How did your technique develop?
It’s one hundred percent out of necessity. I had a really bad injury in 2015 and I damn near cut my index finger completely off at the knuckle. I can’t wholly bend my index finger and I can’t feel the picking side of that finger. If you watch some of my older videos, my index finger is flailing around all the time. It’s because I’m picking with my thumb and middle finger, and that’s where I’m holding the pick. That took me long enough to learn how to do.
In recent years I’ve learned how to use my middle finger to lock my index in place and be able to hold a pick. It looks normal, but if you could see how the sausage is made, it’s not that pretty. I wish I had that dexterity in my finger. The takeaway message from that is, “Take care of your hands, y’all.”
Let’s talk about the through line from bluegrass to bands like Stone Temple Pilots and Alice In Chains. You blend the genres seamlessly and it all makes sense. Did you always feel that connection?
If you listen to any playlist I’ve had, I’ll go from Ralph Stanley to Chris Cornell in a heartbeat. Obviously the music is different, but there are common themes between the two. Mountain folk music, hard rock, and that era are very dark and brooding, and they can be heavy in their own ways too.
What is heavy? What makes a song heavy? You’ve got people drop-tuning their guitars, but it’s still not as heavy as Pantera or Black Sabbath or something like that. So it’s not necessarily the sound that makes it heavy. It’s the vibe of the song.
I feel like a salesman a little bit, trying to sell this idea that this stuff can be brought together and related in an authentic capacity. Let’s take [Stone Temple Pilots’] “Big Empty,” for example. To do a cover of that and be looked at as a folk artist or an Appalachian artist, or some people will even say country – which I disagree with, but whatever – it always seems like somebody will start into a cover of this great song, but then they’ll get hokey with it and it loses all its purity.
That’s not at all the intended purpose for me. It’s to say, “This is a fantastic song and it fits the vibe that we’re all going for in this realm.” A lot of people probably didn’t know that a mandolin or fiddle sounds great on “Big Empty,” but now they do, because it fits. That’s the way I listen to that kind of stuff. It’s just how to pull that off without being cheesy or coming off in a capitalistic way. More so in a way of, “I love this song and you guys should listen to it.”
Was it challenging to find musicians who understand going from bluegrass to Stone Temple Pilots and back again?
The band, I think through a lot of prayer/manifestation, has come together and, as you hear, they’re fantastic. They can play anything in any style. Ella [Webster] and Kyle [Kleinman] come from a more traditional folk music side of things. Kyle is a bluegrasser and Ella is an old-time fiddle player. Lars [Swanson] and James [Gooding] are jazz cats, so they have infinite vocabulary when it comes to music. If you can play jazz, then you’re going to be all right. If you can pull off that stuff, you don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to my type of music. Stone Temple Pilots is a walk in the park for you.
In our van, the most listened-to bands between us are Soundgarden, Pantera, whatever James’s choice of jazz is, and Alice In Chains MTV Unplugged. That’s a really good piece of music. But yeah, they’re a great band and they can play anything.
Did Lars and James know each other before they joined your band? To lock in a rhythm section…
No, they didn’t. Once you start playing with a jazz drummer, you need somebody who can comprehend the stuff he’s laying out and answer that on the bass. To have those two sit in a room and jam is really something to witness and listen to, because they speak a language to each other that I don’t understand. But I love when they do it, and it’s great to hear.
I’ll be playing onstage, singing and doing my thing, those guys are behind me and I’ll hear them back there, talking to each other while we’re doing this thing, and it’s awesome. They’re special. Those two dudes – they’re incredible. They’re the unsung heroes of music in general. That’s your metaphorical offensive line right there. If you don’t have a Lars and a James, then your quarterback’s getting sacked all the time.
This is you in 2025 on The Western Side, talking about Shadow: “a lot of darkness and an equal amount of joy in other songs. It’s a good depiction of where I’ve been for the past two years. A tumultuous and chaotic time period, but also great. And I’m still here.”
Then, In 2021, on With A View: “I load the pressure on. It’s how I operate. My brain lives in constant turmoil.” In 2020, talking about “Fever Dream,” “a song about trying to keep it all together. … the way I deal with this is isolation. And when you isolate yourself, you don’t have much of a choice but to hash some things out in your head.”
You are no stranger to the dark place.
Hearing those things, I look at that younger version of myself almost as I would look at a younger brother. Part of me wishes I could put an arm around that kid’s shoulders and be like, “You’re going to be all right, buddy.” Times got a little tough, as they probably should for anybody at points in their life. You can’t really enjoy the great parts of your life without having a little bit of adversity to overcome or deal with. The darkest part, for me, was maybe just growing up and gaining a new understanding of the way the world actually operates and how hopeless that can be at times, but also how beautiful it can be in the same stroke.
What I’ve realized is you get out of this world what you pay attention to, because whatever you want to find, you can find it. It’s there and it’s aplenty, whether you want to find the negativity and suffering, or whether you want to find the positive and the good. I don’t have the answer to where folks are supposed to operate and live, but I think it’s good to help people who are in that suffering side of things. But you can’t let that dominate your existence, and for a little while, I was maybe dominated by the darker side of life.
I try to be as empathetic as I can, but with that comes feeling a lot and also accidentally hurting people sometimes. That’s really tough, because then you have this cycle of guilt that you deal with trying to make it right in your head. As I’ve gotten a little older and maybe figured a couple things out, I try to have a lot more grace for myself. What I’ve learned about the pressure is that it’s really just perceived pressure and none of that exists, and you should just care less what people think.
Obviously, music is where you go during those times.
Absolutely. If something is eating at me that I’m having a hard time getting out in a linear fashion, a lot of times I find myself writing about it without even realizing it. My mom is an abstract painter, so I grew up with an understanding of what “abstract” means and abstract concepts. That’s how I materialize a lot of that stuff, because some of it is things I would never come right out and literally write down, for multitudes of reasons, but things you want to indirectly address. That’s when [abstraction] becomes a great tool for addressing those kinds of things. Metaphors.
It seems, when it comes to expressing those things, you’re in the balance between the emotionally open world of Cornell, Cobain, and others and the world of bluegrass, country, hunting, fishing, and those stereotypes of “manly men” – and not so much emotional transparency.
Not necessarily. I don’t know about the whole “alpha male” personality type. It’s always seemed to me that a lot of times the guys who are trying to be perceived as macho are probably the ones who need a hug the most. Now it’s everybody else’s problem because their dad didn’t do it, and that sucks.
As I’ve emotionally developed a little bit, I’ve really started to respect individuals like Chris Cornell. If you look into him as a person and watch some of his interviews, he’s intelligent and seemingly self-aware. I respect the way he conducted himself, especially in interviews, and the way he made sure to pay attention to people and make them feel seen. The only way you can empathize with people like that and make sure of those types of things is if you’ve been on the other end of that stuff and you’ve felt looked over and brushed off.
I may not be the best at answering Instagram DMs, and I definitely don’t stay on the internet because I think it sucks, but if I talk to somebody in person, I always try my best to give them that and be present in the moment. Somebody else that does a fantastic job of that is Nicholas Jamerson, the frontman of Sundy Best, who’s a mentor, friend, and hero of mine.
Have you ever felt any hesitation about publicly ripping off the mental health Band-Aids? Or, conversely, is there a feeling of opening the door to people having these conversations?
Sure, there’s hesitation about a lot of things. There’s a lot of decisions about, “How do you want to portray yourself in a public light?” But my main goal is and has been to just be as authentic as I can, as representative of how I feel about things as I can, and to be accepting of people and understand that they come from different places and have different perspectives.
With that hesitancy, there’s also much more in the way that when we were talking about 20-year-old Cole, the way I want to put my arm around that kid and comfort him, that’s what I want my music to do for people that feel the way I was feeling at that time.
Listening to you, I’m reminded of something Charlie Daniels said to me during an interview years ago: “Music is too precious for me to prostitute it.”
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And, too, Charlie Daniels is one of the greatest country musicians ever. I want to go on record saying that.
The way I look at it is, could I see my heroes, people I look up to, going online and being like, “Comment what song you think I should release next”? No, I don’t think I could. When I see someone who has musical and artistic integrity, that’s how I’m going to operate. I’m going to try my hardest to uphold my integrity and not do the TikToks and the really cheap stuff.
You absolutely will suffer financially for not playing the game and if you don’t kiss the right ass, but, to me, that suffering is not negative suffering. I’m honored to be able to suffer like this, because if my options are suffer or have to watch Country Central’s “Hot Take Tuesday,” then give me suffering all day long, because I’m not paying attention to that bullshit. It’s ridiculous. I don’t care who’s beefing and I don’t care what dude is playing cowboy this week.
That’s why I’m trying to get out of the country scene. It’s becoming so fake and there’s so many people trying to be carbon copies of other people. There’s no authenticity. Everybody’s full of shit. We went through this period where people like Tyler [Childers] drove the spear through the heart of this mainstream country thing and it was akin to when Nirvana came on the scene and effectively killed hair bands for a while. But then the Nirvana copycats came along and garnered a lot of the same attention.
I’m not saying that just Tyler Childers is responsible for this. People like Sturgill, and a lot of smaller artists in their own scenes, are responsible for the turning over of the dirt, if you will. But it’s getting stale. It’s past getting stale. It is stale and it’s bad. There’s a lot of really shitty music being put out right now and I don’t want any part of that.
If I’ve got to step away and back off and be out of the internet eye, then fantastic. That doesn’t bother me one bit. If it means a few less people know who I am, then so be it. But I hold out hope that people will eventually realize how cheap and bad a lot of the music is that is being promoted right now, and there’ll be another turning of the dirt soon.
Yes, art is subjective, but art is subjective. Not this corporate bullshit that they’re trying to push. That’s not art. That’s six dudes in a room trying to come up with a song that’s going to sell on the radio or sell on the internet, or “We’re going to put thirty tracks on this album” so they can set streaming records. It’s like, “Man, y’all have lost the complete plot of the whole thing.” There’s nothing interesting about that to me. I’m all about authenticity. I want to believe the person on the other side of the microphone from me, and if I don’t believe you, then I’m out.
Photo Credit: David McClister
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