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Post Malone‘s newly released collaboration with Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help,” is riding atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and Posty is already teasing a collab with another country vocalist: Blake Shelton.
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Post Malone shared a video on Instagram on Thursday (May 23), in which he’s seen cracking open a beer and jamming in a studio, while the audio features the star singing in collaboration with Shelton.
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The uptempo song’s lyrics celebrate a freewheeling, let loose night of partying, as Shelton and Post trade lines like, “Somebody pour me a drink, somebody bum me a smoke/ I’m ’bout to get on a buzz/ I’m ’bout to get on a roll…I’ve been breaking my back, just keepin’ up with the Joneses.”
Post Malone has certainly been on a collaborations roll of late, having previously teamed up with Beyonce for the song “Leviis Jeans” from her album Cowboy Carter (the song reached No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100), followed by a collaboration with Taylor Swift on “Fortnight” from her album The Tortured Poets Department (the song spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100), and the Post Malone-Wallen collab.
This isn’t the first time Post Malone and Shelton have traded vocals together. In 2019, as part of an Elvis Presley All-Star tribute performance, they collaborated on Presley’s classic “Blue Suede Shoes.” The 28-year-old Post Malone has also previously covered country songs from Hank Williams, Alan Jackson and George Strait.
On the recent ACM Awards, Post Malone also previewed some new music for fans, performing a heartbreak ballad titled “Never Love You Again.” At last year’s CMA Awards, Post Malone teamed with Morgan Wallen and HARDY to perform a tribute to the late Joe Diffie, offering up cover versions of Diffie’s “John Deere Green” and “Pickup Man.” Shortly after, Post Malone made his Billboard Country Airplay chart debut with “Pickup Man” from HARDY’s Hixtape Vol. 3: Difftape project (the song rose to No. 44 on the Country Airplay chart).
Nine years ago, Post Malone even made the prediction of his country crossover, posting on Twitter at the time, “When I turn 30 I’m becoming a country/folk singer.”
It seems Post Malone is already making good on that promise.
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Tucker Wetmore has earned massive breakthrough success over the past few months with a pair of hits — “Wine Into Whiskey” and “Wind Up Missin’ You”— that have accelerated the 24-year-old’s status at the forefront of country music’s crop of newcomers.
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In December, Wetmore teased the moody heartbreaker “Wine Into Whiskey” on TikTok and the video snippet surged, earning over 6.5 million views to date. He officially released the song in February, and by early March, the song had made its debut on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 — later reaching a peak of No. 16 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart in April, and earning 63.4 million total official on-demand U.S. streams to date, according to Luminate. In late March, he followed that breakout hit with the romantic “Wind Up Missin’ You” — which eclipsed its predecessor on the Hot Country Songs chart, reaching No. 11, and has earned 47.9 million official on-demand U.S. streams to date.
“Wine Into Whiskey” had a darker feel, a more sad-ish vibe. I wanted to follow that with something that showed the other side of me,” Wetmore tells Billboard. “I go straight out of the gate with two different sides of the spectrum. From there, I’m not really in a box from here on out. It was a good roadmap.”
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Seated in an office at artist development/publishing company Back Blocks Music, Wetmore is excited about another newly achieved target — his new GMC Denali truck. “That’s been a goal of mine for years now — I wanted to treat myself to getting a truck,” he says.
That vision-setting has aided Wetmore in reaching career milestones at warp speed. He recently signed with WME for booking and has attained his enviable run of success as an independent artist — though he’s fast closing in on a label deal, which he hopes to announce in the coming weeks. In the process, he’s charging through the tally of goals he set for himself just a few years ago.
“I gave myself three years to get a publishing deal; I knocked that out in one year,” Wetmore recounts. “I gave myself five years to get a record deal. I gave myself four years to get on my first tour and knocked that out in three. I was just very goal-oriented.”
Growing up in Kalama, Washington, Wetmore says music has been a constant in his life (he began playing piano at 11 and took up guitar soon after). However, through college, he devoted himself to a variety of sports — including football, track, pole vaulting and basketball. During his senior year in high school, he earned four state championships, in football, pole vaulting, Mens 4×1 and men’s track team. He went on to play football at Montana Technological University, where he majored in business and information technology.
When a sports injury sidelined him, he shifted his laser focus to music. He moved to Nashville in the fall of 2020, as the world was still deep in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. He released cover songs on TikTok, but it was one of his original songs, “I Think It’s You,” which prompted Back Blocks founder Rakiyah Marshall to reach out.
“I only had like seven original songs by that point, and she DM’d me and asked to set up a meeting,” he recalls. “In that first meeting, she was like, ‘What are your goals?’ I said, ‘I want to sell out stadiums and I don’t want to be put in a box.’ I’m too ADHD to be like, ‘This is one sound for one person.’”
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With the success of “Wine Into Whiskey” and “Wind Up Missin’ You,” he’s already taking his first steps toward both goals. Wetmore has opened shows for Kameron Marlowe’s The Strangers Tour, and will open shows for Chris Young and Jason Aldean this summer, before joining Luke Bryan’s Farm Tour later this year. Between shows, he’s writing songs and working on his debut album, which is expected later this year — while his new single, the 808s-driven “What Would You Do?,” comes out May 24.
Billboard’s Country Rookie of the Month for May, Wetmore spoke with us about songwriting, the influence of Jerry Lee Lewis, and why he’s not afraid to share his music in a raw state on social media.
You wrote “Wine into Whiskey” and “Wind Up Missin’ You” in the same week, but “Wine” became your first breakout song. What is the story behind writing “Wine into Whiskey”?
It was the day after my birthday, and I was hanging out with [‘Wine into Whiskey co-writer] Jacob Hackworth that weekend. We showed up at a writing session with [songwriter] Justin Ebach that day and were tossing ideas around, but nothing stuck. Then, Justin pipes up and says, ‘Sorry guys, I’m hungover right now.’ Me and Jacob started laughing and were like, ‘Oh, thank God, because we are, too. We do not feel good at all.’
Then a few minutes later, Ebach told us about the idea of ‘Wine into Whiskey.’ We loved it, and it just kind of poured out onto the paper. There was something special in the room that day, for sure.
You’re not shy about sharing bits of songs in their unfinished state on social media. Why has that been important to you?
It’s an art. You can show polished-off versions of everything all day long, but then people don’t connect as well because they think everything you do is perfect. Not everything we do is perfect. We have steps and we have processes for everything. Showing them the first stages is important. The vocals on the master of “Wine into Whiskey” are the day-of writing vocals. When we wrote it, I was like, “Hey, there’s magic in it. It’s special.”
I do get some comments — like, on “Wine into Whiskey,” we originally had some snaps on it. Some people liked it, but it sounded tacky to me. If someone likes that version, they can go listen to it.
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Your family is musical — what are some of your memories of growing up around music?
I come from a Samoan family on my dad’s side, and they’re all very musical. If you’ve ever hung out with a bunch of Samoans, it’s lots of love and everyone singing. My grandpa was a pastor — and growing up around church, if one person starts singing ‘Amazing Grace’ in the kitchen, the next thing you know, you’ve got a 12-voice choir harmonizing. My love for music just stemmed from watching my family.
When did you discover your own musical inclinations?
My mom tells me stories all the time that she remembers me being three or four years old and harmonizing to 3 Doors Down songs with my uncle. When I took up piano, I played by ear. I would watch YouTube videos and learn Elton John and Billy Joel — or even classical, like Beethoven.
Then I found Jerry Lee Lewis. I fell in love with his boogie-woogie type of bluesy piano playing. I remember going to the music teacher in high school and showing him a video of a guy playing a Jerry Lee Lewis song. He taught me a C-blues scale. I took that and ran with it and just learned a lot by listening.
You have been out on the road opening shows for Kameron Marlowe’s Strangers Tour. What has having his support meant to you?
Kameron is one of the best people I’ve ever met my life, hands down. He’s such a solid dude, and I couldn’t think of a better intro tour than Kameron Marlowe. Back when I was learning cover songs, I learned Kameron’s “Giving You Up.” He truly believed in me before any of this — we had teased ‘Wine Into Whiskey’ when I got the call from his team asking me to come out on the road with them. Rakiyah was like, “Well, we can’t tour without any music.” So we were like, “Let’s go!”
What are your must haves on tour?
Jack Daniel’s. We take a shot of Jack before every show. We do a prayer, then we do the shot and talk about what our goals for the show are — what do we want to be better tonight than last night?
What is a song you’ve been listening to a lot lately?
“Easy on the Eyes” by Texas Hill.
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Who would you love to collaborate with?
It depends on the song, truly. I think collaborating with Alan Jackson, one of my favorites, would be super cool.
What is your “Desert Island” album?
Exodus by Bob Marley and the Wailers.
How would you describe your upcoming album?
I’ve been working on songs for three or four years. The project is going to be all over the place when it comes to ideas—some cool country-type stuff, some that are more of an 808s-type of vibe. And there’s one song I’m definitely playing a little piano on, too. “Wine Into Whiskey” did what it did, and it was really cool, but I don’t want it to just be a moment; I want to use the momentum to build something great.
Jelly Roll is speaking his fitness goals into reality. In a sweet video posted by Bunnie XO Wednesday (May 23), the country star demonstrated his morning workout in the pool while publicly declaring his current aspiration: to run a 5K before this Thanksgiving. In the clip, the Dumb Blonde podcaster lounges by the side of […]
The results are in: for the first quarter of 2024, Warner Chappell earned the top spot on the Country Airplay publisher rankings for the second quarter in a row.
With a 33.08% market share, WCM, helmed in Nashville by president/CEO Ben Vaughn, is the top publisher. This is thanks to the shares the publisher had in eight of the top 10 songs of the quarter. Overall, it also had stakes in 68 of the quarter’s top 100 Country Airplay songs, including Country Airplay No. 1 Nate Smith’s “World On Fire,” HARDY’s No. 2 “Truck Bed,” and Warren Zeider’s No. 3 track “Pretty Little Poison.”
Apart from Sony Music Publishing’s five-consecutive-quarter reign at No. 1 from Q3 of 2022 to Q3 of 2023, Warner Chappell has consistently held the quarterly top country music publisher title in Nashville, dating back to about 2017.
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This quarter Sony Music Publishing held in second place with a 20.04% market share on the Country Airplay chart. SMP has shares in 51 of the chart’s songs including the top two tunes this quarter, which are both thanks to its tie to one of Nashville’s biggest hitmakers Ashley Gorley, who sold his catalog and signed a go-forward deal with SMP (in partnership with Domain Capital Group) in May 2022. For the first quarter, Gorley ranked as the top country songwriter, with a co-writer stake in 16 of the period’s Top 100 Country Airplay songs.
The rest of the market share for other companies on the Country Airplay chart lags far behind Nashville’s top two publishers. BMG comes in third, for example, with 8.18% market share, which is slightly more than two percentage points up from where they were last year in Q1 with 6.09% Country Airplay marketshare. It is the first time BMG has ranked above major publisher, Universal Music Publishing Group, since Q1 of 2018. Top songs for the publisher this quarter include Cody Johnson’s “The Painter,” the No. 4 song on the Country Airplay chart, and Chayce Beckham’s “23,” the No. 8 tune.
Universal Music Publishing Group holds the fourth spot this quarter with 6.85% market share on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. Just three quarters ago, UMPG had an especially good quarter with a 12.71% ranking — about double what it reached this time. Top songs for UMPG include Thomas Rhett’s “Mawmaw’s House,” the No. 5 song and Scotty McCreery’s “Cab in a Solo,” the No. 15 tune.
Looking at the rankings from No. 5 to No. 8, Kobalt ranks fifth in market share for the Country Airplay chart at 5.78%; Big Machine Music slightly surpasses Concord at 4.11% to 4.10% market shares, respectively; Spirit Music ranks eighth with 2.02%.
The ninth largest publisher on the Country Airplay chart belongs to Purple Rabbit Music, the publishing company that represents songwriter Tracy Chapman. The spot represents the continued impact her song “Fast Car,” which was covered by Luke Combs last year and performed by the two artists together at the Grammy awards earlier this year. Its placement in the rankings represents its debut for the Top 10 Country Airplay publishers.
Lastly, Anthem brings up the end of the Top 10 Country Airplay publishers with a 1.87% marketshare, a tick below Purple Rabbit’s 1.88% share for the quarter.
Last CPQ: Tracy Chapman and Oliver Anthony Make History
Dolly Parton is virtually coming to a concert hall near you.
The Rock Hall-inducted country legend isn’t backing down on her decision to quit full-scale touring, though she has green-lit a new, traveling experience that will take her music around the world.
Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony is said to be an “innovative multimedia experience” featuring Dolly on screen, and giving audiences a “visual-musical journey of her songs, her life, and her stories.”
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That project will get underway Thursday, March 20, 2025 at Schermerhorn Symphony Center, with the Nashville Symphony. Guest vocalists and musicians selected by Parton will perform at that show, and others. Schirmer Theatrical and Sony Music Publishing are co-producers, and more cities with local orchestras will be announced in due course.
Expect to hear the classics “Jolene,” “Coat Of Many Colors,” and “I Will Always Love You,” plus Dolly’s “personal favorites” and an as-yet unreleased selection from her upcoming Broadway musical.
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Parton, now 78, isn’t slowing down with her lineup of recordings, book release and projects for the small and big screen, though in 2022, she revealed that full-fledged touring was a thing of the past. “I do not think I will ever tour again, but I do know I’ll do special shows here and there, now and then. Maybe do a long weekend of shows, or just a few shows at a festival. But I have no intention of going on a full-blown tour anymore,” Parton told the Pollstar. (Billboard independently verified the news.)
Parton’s most recent tour was her 2016 Pure & Simple Tour, which included 60 shows in the United States and Canada.
Before Dolly Parton’s Threads hits the road, the country icon will release Good Lookin’ Cookin’ on Sept. 17, a cookbook on which she’s partnered with her sister, Rachel Parton George.
Dolly’s 49th solo studio album Rockstar blasted in at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart last year, for her first leader on the 32-year-old tally. The star-studded collection was promoted as Parton’s first rock album, and its recording was inspired by Parton’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. The 30-track collection also debuted at a career-high No. 3 on the all-genre Billboard 200, surpassing Parton’s previous high of No. 6 for 2014’s Blue Smoke.
The Nashville Metro Council may have far exceeded its reach when it voted to not allow Morgan Wallen’s This Bar and Tennessee Kitchen to have external signage with his name on it, according to a prominent Nashville attorney.
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On Tuesday (May 21), the council voted to reject plans for Wallen’s 20-foot external sign to appear on the six-story venue, which is slated to open Memorial Day weekend. Only three members voted in favor of the sign, with 30 members voting against. Four council members abstained. Some members of the council cited Wallen’s past controversial incidents as reasons for rejecting the sign.
Signage requests for the outside of buildings that hang over public property — including sidewalks — are required to obtain council approval. “I don’t want to see a billboard up with the name of a person who’s throwing chairs off of balconies and who is saying racial slurs,” at-large council member Delishia Porterfield said, according to The Tennessean.
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“Mr. Wallen is a fellow East Tennessean. He gives all of us a bad name,” District 14 ouncil member Jordan Huffman added. “His comments are hateful; his actions are harmful.”
However, such a decision is a case of government overreach, says the attorney: “You can’t as the government take negative action against something someone said. The Council was way out on a limb. It violates the First Amendment to say, ‘You used the N-word therefore you can’t put your name on a building.’”
Porterfield is referencing Wallen’s January 2021 use of a racial slur that was caught on video, as well as his most recent arrest on April 7, when he was taken into custody on April 7 for allegedly throwing a chair off of the rooftop of Eric Church’s six-story Chief’s bar in downtown Nashville. Wallen was booked on three felony counts of reckless endangerment and one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct. Wallen is slated to appear before a Nashville court in August.
Wallen’s bar and restaurant, located at 107 4th Ave. N., adjacent to the Ryman Auditorium just off Nashville’s Lower Broadway, is a partnership between Wallen and TC Restaurant Group, which licensed his name for the project. TC Restaurant Group is also behind other celebrity bars in downtown Nashville including Luke Bryan’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink and Jason Aldean’s Kitchen + Rooftop Bar.
The next step, says the attorney, is for TC Restaurant Group to take action in federal or chancery court against the Council. “[TC Restaurant Group] has bought the right to use [Wallen’s] name,” the attorney says. “Basically the city has taken that piece of property away from them. They can’t do that without due process of law.”
A representative for Wallen declined to comment on the council’s decision, as did Wallen’s manager. Representatives for TC Restaurant Group declined to comment, adding only that the company is “focused on This Bar’s opening.”
Additional reporting by Melinda Newman.
Grammy-winning country singer-songwriter Brad Paisley is set to perform Thursday night (May 23) at the White House State Dinner, as President Joe Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden welcome Kenya President William Ruto and first lady Rachel Ruto. Additional entertainers for the evening will include the Howard Gospel Choir, as well as “The President’s […]
Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help,” featuring Morgan Wallen, and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” both strike the top 10 on each of Billboard’s global charts (dated May 25) – the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. – joining forces as the first pair of country songs to simultaneously appear in the top 10 of both surveys.
“I Had Some Help” debuts atop the Global 200 with 119 million streams worldwide in the week ending May 16, according to Luminate. In doing so, it becomes Post Malone’s second No. 1 debut on the ranking in just four weeks. Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight,” on which he’s featured, ruled for two weeks earlier this month. For Wallen, it’s his first leader, surpassing the No. 5 peak of last year’s “Last Night.”
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“A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is Shaboozey’s third global chart entry, following his two features on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. Both “Spaghettii” and “Sweet * Honey * Buckin’” logged one week on the April 13-dated list, just two frames before the arrival of “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
Post Malone and Wallen’s team-up is just the third country song to crown the Global 200 in its four-year history (as defined by titles that have hit Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart), following Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” in March and Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” in 2021, with each having led for one week.
Shaboozey follows at No. 5 on the latest Global 200, bookending the first pair of country songs to simultaneously appear in the top five.
The breakthrough of both tracks is even more significant on the Global Excl. U.S. chart, where country music has historically struggled, dating to the list’s September 2020 inception. While the Global 200 ranks songs based on sales and streams from over 200 international territories, Global Excl. U.S. removes domestic consumption, revealing the biggest songs in the world outside of the United States.
On Global Excl. U.S., “I Had Some Help” starts at No. 3 and “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” rises 13-10, marking just the third and fourth country songs to hit the tally’s top 10, following entries by Beyoncé and Swift.
While Post Malone and Shaboozey’s top five success on the Global 200 are in line with the highs of 2023 hits from Jason Aldean, Zach Bryan, Oliver Anthony Music and Morgan Wallen, their concurrent top 10 placements on Global Excl. U.S. far exceed that group, which, of their tracks, reached a No. 82 high on the tally via Wallen’s “Last Night.” None of the others even hit the top 100.
Plus, Post Malone and Shaboozey’s new hits appear on 13 of Billboard’s Hits of the World charts. “I Had Some Help” replaces “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” atop Norway Songs and leads Ireland Songs, while the latter holds at No. 1 on Sweden Songs. Throughout its run last year, which included 16 weeks atop the U.S.-based Billboard Hot 100 and a No. 1 finish on the chart’s year-end edition, Wallen’s “Last Night” appeared on just three such international rankings.
Surely “I Had Some Help” and “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” are both helped by major elements outside of country music. The former is by Post Malone, one of Billboard’s top 10 artists of the 2010s with strong history in pop and hip-hop circles, much like the crossover success of global country hits from Beyoncé and Swift. And while Shaboozey is a new act without ties to other genres, the song interpolates J-Kwon’s 2004 hit “Tipsy,” a No. 2 Hot 100 hit that also topped Hot Rap Songs for five weeks. His recent collaborations with Beyoncé can’t hurt, either.
Post Malone and Shaboozey’s chart hits are examples of the broadening borders of the genre, as a wave of new artists gain traction on streaming services and social media internationally. Extending the hot streak, Dasha’s country-pop hit “Austin” went viral on TikTok earlier this year and has since climbed to No. 23 on Global Excl. U.S., almost 60 positions above Wallen’s previous high.
Bunnie XO is due for some good karma after fighting tooth and nail to make it on time to a talent show to watch her young niece perform a JoJo Siwa song. In a hilarious TikTok posted Tuesday (May 21), the podcaster — who is married to country superstar Jelly Roll — frantically jogs from […]
In November, less than a week after the Texas rock band Treaty Oak Revival released their second album, Have a Nice Day, the group took the stage in front of around 2,000 fans at JJ’s Live in Fayetteville, Arkansas. At one point that night, they started playing “See You in Court,” an indignant track that makes divorce sound like trench warfare. The song’s opening line drops the listener into the middle of the melee: “Boy, you done f–ked up now/ That’s what she said to me.”
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The JJs crowd “screamed the words back to us,” lead singer Sam Canty remembers. Have a Nice Day was just six days old, but it “hadn’t taken long for people to memorize the words.”
Six months later, Treaty Oak Revival routinely sells more than 5,000 tickets in its top Texas markets, and the band’s catalog is earning more than 15 million streams a week in the U.S., according to Luminate. Their trajectory is decidedly old-school: At a time when many artists garner attention via viral moments on social media, Treaty Oak Revival win fans over by “play[ing] the craziest, rowdiest, most entertaining shows that we possibly can,” as Canty puts it.
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Labels from each of the three major record companies are now interested in the group. “They’re all after us,” acknowledges Eli Kidd, who co-manages Treaty Oak Revival. “We come from Odessa, Texas — this type of stuff isn’t supposed to happen.”
The band’s ability to build “slowly but surely, largely by word of mouth, couldn’t be more impressive,” says one major label executive who is interested in signing them. But Treaty Oak Revival aren’t so sure they need any help.
While the band is from Texas, known for its vibrant “red dirt country” scene, Treaty Oak Revival kick out brawny bar rock — sometimes their fuming riffs evoke early ’90s Neil Young; sometimes they pack the wallop of an early-’00s pop-punk group. This combination fits the band members’ backgrounds: bassist Andrew Carey previously played in a psych rock outfit in Abilene, lead guitarist Jeremiah Vanley enjoyed a stint in a classic rock cover band, and drummer Cody Holloway has a metal pedigree. (Jeremiah’s nephew Lance rounds out the lineup on rhythm guitar.)
“People want to see the Texas country band in Texas, but not many people are like, ‘Oh, I want to go check out this rock show,’” Canty explains. “So we kind of used the Texas country moniker to get people in the door” — the band’s name pays homage to a notable tree in Austin — “and then we started playing our originals.”
This strategy’s success makes sense at a time when the flimsy wall that once separated country and rock has been effectively demolished by artists like Jelly Roll and Hardy, who have enjoyed country success while also topping the Mainstream Rock Airplay and Hot Hard Rock Songs charts, respectively. (Plenty of acts trafficked in muscular hybrids before these two — think Brantley Gilbert — though they didn’t find, or maybe seek out, the same recognition in rock as they did in country.)
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Naturally, the Texas scene has its own home-grown fusions. When Koe Wetzel, who grew up in Pittsburg, Texas, released Noise Complaint in 2016, the goal was to make something like “country grunge,” according to Taylor Kimball, a producer with a metal background who oversaw the album. “We cut that and it kind of started to explode, and that opened up the doors for other artists,” Kimball continues. “The whole genre has shifted a little bit since then.” (Wetzel announced that he signed with Columbia Records in 2020 and is currently enjoying traction on TikTok with his new single “Sweet Dreams.”)
It took Treaty Oak Revival a while to master the style that has become their calling card. Canty describes the group’s first album, No Vacancy (2021), as scattered; that’s partly because he had started writing several of the songs years before while “on a country kick.”
New bandmates opened up new musical possibilities, leading Canty to pen “Ode to Bourbon,” a guitar-lathered dirge, and “No Vacancy,” a lonesome, spindly romp. He considers this pair of tracks “the two where we started getting into our style.”
Between No Vacancy and Have a Nice Day, Treaty Oak Revival crisscrossed West Texas, playing for steadily growing crowds. When Andrew McWilliams, founder of Evergreen Artist Group, became their booking agent, “that’s when it really started to take off,” according to Canty. “I work with a lot of bands in this scene, and I just kept hearing their name,” Kimball adds.
Treaty Oak Revival also inspired fervent acts of devotion even when they were relatively fresh; one fan drove 14 hours from South Dakota to see them early on. When the band found out the extent of her commitment, “we were floored,” Kidd recalls. (Kidd has been a contractor in the oil and gas industry for more than a decade and still works two weeks a month in the oil fields; he manages the band jointly with Bob Doyle & Associates, whose roster includes Garth Brooks and Zach Top.)
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By the time Treaty Oak Revival were ready to record a second album, they had played enough gigs that they knew what they were aiming for. They mostly produced the album themselves, while also tracking drums and vocals with help from Kimball, who mixed the record.
In addition to the rancorous “See You in Court,” the other eruptive high note on Have a Nice Day is “In Between,” an unruly track about a one-sided relationship that crashes and burns. Throughout the album, Canty’s narrators are often struggling. “I wish you’d take some time so you can feel bad for me,” he sings on “Wrong Place, Wrong Time,” where the protagonist seems ready to volunteer for a jail sentence — “the only damn way to keep myself straight is doing hard time.” (“A lot of his storytelling is just different,” Kimball notes.)
When backed against a wall, though, Canty’s characters are more likely to throw jabs than roll over. Sometimes the target is an ex. “Have a Nice Day” has a polite title, but that line follows a kiss-off: “I hope that swinging door hits you on the way.” The narrators’ disgust is frequently directed inwards as well; one song is simply titled “I’m the Worst.”
The band uploaded Have a Nice Day and its predecessor to streaming services through Distrokid — which only charges artists a modest yearly fee to put up unlimited music — meaning the band gets to keep all its royalties as it racks up plays. On top of that, Texas has enough avid listeners that artists can build significant live careers there without a national profile. Treaty Oak Revival has already been growing outside of the region as well. In the coming months, they’ll play to sold-out crowds in St. Louis, Missouri (around 2,000) and Des Moines, Iowa (more than 2,600).
But in the right circumstances, Kidd believes Treaty Oak Revival can benefit from the majors’ reach: “If we’re going to do this at a worldwide level, then it’s time to find a partner with boots on the ground in these other parts of the world.”
The group has some leverage in negotiations because it has already proven it can build an audience, which is the biggest challenge in the music industry today. Acts in this position typically want to retain ownership of their recordings and enter into a profit split deal with their label.
While the negotiations progress, Treaty Oak Revival plans to re-enter the studio in July to re-record some songs in a “rootsy” style. Before that, of course, come more shows.
As the band performs, Kidd likes to keep an eye on the crowd. “Whenever they’re performing a song off the new album, you’ll see people screaming every word,” he says. “And then they play a song off the first album, and you’ll see some people looking around like, ‘I don’t know these words.’”
Kidd finds this confusion heartening. “That’s a new fan,” he explains. “That’s great: We’re reaching more people.”
