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Since bluegrass artist and mandolin virtuoso Sierra Hull signed her first label deal at just 13 and released her Rounder Records debut in 2008, she’s long since grown used to shattering glass ceilings.

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In 2016, Hull became the first woman named the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)’s mandolin player of the year — and went on to win in the category five more times. She is also part of the acclaimed assembly The First Ladies of Bluegrass, who were the first women to win IBMA musician accolades in their respective instrument categories — in addition to Hull winning mandolin player of the year, her cohorts include Missy Raines (bass player of the year), Alison Brown (banjo player of the year), Becky Buller (fiddle player of the year) and Molly Tuttle (guitar player of the year).

So, the title of Hull’s new album, A Tip Toe High Wire, out Friday (March 7), nods to the ambition and uncertainty that comes with high-flying acrobatics—a feeling familiar to Hull, who is stepping out onto her own highwire, as the album marks not only her first release in five years, but Hull’s first as an independent artist after parting with Rounder.

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“It is so wild to think how different the landscape was for an artist releasing music than what it is now,” Hull tells Billboard, adding, “I’m so grateful to Rounder and the experience I got to have there. I feel like a lot of people start out their careers more independent, hoping to get signed or go the label route and then go back independent. But for me, [making records independently] is brand new.”

When Hull’s contract with Rounder had been fulfilled, she says, “I just felt like I wasn’t in a rush to make any decisions. I felt like it was a good opportunity to have a clean slate. I didn’t have an album that was about to come out, so I thought, ‘Let me take a moment of pause and see what happens.’ I don’t know if I’ll forever be independent. Who knows? But I felt like I owed it to myself to have this moment to experience it and learn from it.”

The album takes its title from one of the project’s songs, “Spitfire,” which Hull wrote for her late grandmother over two years ago. The song touches on the hardships Hull’s grandmother faced, including becoming a widow by 18 after her husband died in a drowning accident roughly a month after their wedding.

“There’s a lyric, ‘Tougher than thorns on a brier.’ That was her, this country woman who grew up in the boonies of Tennessee,” Hull says. “She grew up poor and never had a lot of education and things like that in her life, but she was just an instinctually smart woman. So much of what she had to endure, she fought her way through. When I think about something that I feel down about, sometimes I think of Granny and knew she would’ve been tough. She would do anything for her family and fight for all of us in the most beautiful way, but she ain’t going to take no crap from nobody.”

It’s a song that has fueled Hull as a creator and as a businesswoman in her new space as an independent artist.

“It can be a little scary stepping into this space,” says two-time Grammy nominee Hull, who pulled together a supportive team around her that includes TMWRK Management’s Paddy Scace and Dylan Sklare, and Wasserman for booking. “It felt like I didn’t have to ask too many questions to anybody else… It was me calling the shots. It’s different investing your own time and vision and financially, and all those things. I’m kind of putting everything on myself, but there’s freedom in that, too.”

Her first session for the new album stretches back to December 2021, when Hull did basic tracking for a couple of songs. But the project was sidelined as Hull took on roles providing instrumental work on a range of albums including Sturgill Simpson’s Passage du Desir, a John Anderson tribute album, Béla Fleck’s Rhapsody in Blue and My Bluegrass Heart, Tuttle’s Crooked Tree, and some of Brad Paisley’s recent music releases. She also toured with Simpson’s and Devon Allman’s bands, in addition to helming her own shows.

Those live performances informed A Tip Toe High Wire, which features Hull’s touring band, including Shaun Richardson on guitar, Avery Merritt on fiddle, Erik Coveney on bass and Mark Raudabaugh on drums. Hull had intended to tour with a full band to promote 2020’s 25 Trips, but the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered those plans. So, when the opportunity to hit the road reopened, Hull took advantage and those performances prompted Hull to draw in the tightknit feel of the live band into the new project.

“Just the inspiration of working with those guys [made me think] about what the music would feel like if they were part of it in the recorded setting as well,” she says. “It was the first time where I had written specific songs, thinking about how this group of musicians would sound playing on it.”

Hull and her bandmates worked to create a balance on A Tip Toe High Wire, upholding her reverence for bluegrass traditions, while simultaneously looking forward with unique collaborations.

“I wanted something fresh, new and maybe innovative feeling,” Hull says. “That’s always the desire for me as an artist to grow and learn, especially as an instrumentalist. I’ve been able to do fun collaborations, but I also just love good, simple songs. The other part of me is not trying to rewrite the script. I just want to do music that feels meaningful to me, and kind of lean into my roots all at the same time.”

The fleet-fingered instrumental track “E Tune,” an older tune on the album that features Fleck, was previously considered for Hull’s 2016 album Weighted Mind, and the 25 Trips album, but didn’t make the cut until now.

“It became a staple of our live show. Once we recorded it, I thought it would be cool with banjo. I’ve done so much with Béla Fleck over the past few years that I asked him to be on this track with us. When he played on it, it just kind of clicked in a way that I was like, ‘Okay, this is making the record. This is the moment.’ We needed that Béla Fleck magic on there.”

Hull produced the album with longtime friend and engineer Shani Gandhi. Other collaborators include Tim O’Brien on the balmy “Come Out of My Blues,” and Aoife O’Donovan on the harmony-drenched “Let’s Go.” The project’s lead single, “Boom” has been a frequent inclusion in Hull’s live shows for the past couple of years.

“It has a few versions of it,” she says. “There’s a real relaxed thing when we get to play this song, something joyful that you can lean into that relaxed nature.”

In May, Hull and her band will take the new music on the road, joining Willie Nelson’s 10th anniversary Outlaw Music Festival Tour, with a lineup that also includes Bob Dylan, Billy Strings, Lake Street Dive and Lily Meola.

There are a few things we know about Post Malone. The “I Had Some Help” singer is unfailingly polite, can 100% rip a Nirvana cover anytime you need him to and is a self-proclaimed master beer pong player.

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Except, that is, when he isn’t.

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According to Taste of Country, in a recent chat on CMT, Kane Brown revealed the story behind the picture that circulated a few months ago of himself, Posty, Jason Aldean and Jelly Roll playing beer pong at last year’s ACM Awards. Brown said he was teamed up with Jelly and, not for nothing, they beat Post and Aldean.

Because the internet is filled with haters, Brown took the opportunity to clear a few things up about the victory. “A lot of people are like, ‘Oh, who do you think won?’ A lot of people are like, ‘Oh, it’s Post and Jelly, ’cause they play all the time,’” Brown said. “Wrong! Man, I was killin’ ’em!” he added unequivocally before sharing the price Malone paid for the loss.

“It was water in the cups, it wasn’t beer,” Brown said. “But, he [Post Malone] was dumping his cigarettes in the last cup, and the table was super long. I was like, ‘I’m gonna hit this cup.’ He said, ‘If you hit this cup, I’ll drink it.’” Brown said he then made eye contact with Aldean and knew exactly what needed to happen.

“I looked at Post, and I said, ‘Drink up,’” Brown said he told Malone after landing the ball in the cup. “Jason just went, ‘Oh my God.’”

Watch Brown tell the story below.

Julien Baker and Torres made a stylish stop at The Daily Show this week, suiting up—literally—for a performance of their latest single, “Bottom of a Bottle.”

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The duo, both dressed in custom-designed Nudie-style suits by Union Western, delivered the introspective country ballad alongside a full band, set against a glowing stage backdrop.

The song is a highlight from their upcoming collaborative album, Send a Prayer My Way, due April 18 via Matador Records. Alongside “Bottom of a Bottle,” the album features 11 other tracks, including the previously released “Sugar in the Tank” and “Sylvia.”

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The project has been years in the making, with its roots tracing back to 2016 when Baker and TORRES first played a show together. That night, the idea of making a country album was casually thrown out. Nearly a decade later, that passing comment has turned into a full-fledged record.

In conversation with host Michael Kosta, Baker and Torres—whose real name is Mackenzie Scott—shared how their friendship and Southern roots naturally led to the project.

“Julien and I have been friends for a while and when the pandemic lockdown occurred I texted her, kind of out of the blue, because I’d been thinking about making a country record for while,” Scott explained. “But I didn’t want to do it alone. And Julien was the first person I thought of because she’s from Tennessee. I’m from Georgia. It just made sense.”

The duo also addressed the album being labeled “queer country.” “I’m certainly proud of that,” Scott said. “We’re queer. But if it were up to me it would just be country.”

To support Send a Prayer My Way, Baker and Torres will embark on a North American tour starting April 23 at The National in Richmond, Virginia, and continuing through May 12 at The Admiral in Omaha, Nebraska. They also have a string of festival appearances lined up, including a set at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, in late March and Zootown Music Festival in Missoula, Montana, in July.

Julien Baker is best known as a member of the indie supergroup Boygenius alongside Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Her 2021 solo album, Little Oblivions, debuted at No. 39 on the Billboard 200 and No. 4 on the Top Alternative Albums chart. Torres, an acclaimed singer-songwriter, has received critical praise for her 2021 album Thirstier.

As Carrie Underwood‘s career is about to come full-circle, the onetime American Idol hopeful is looking back to where she started.
In a new episode of the reality show’s Icon to Idol series posted to YouTube on Tuesday — just days ahead of the season 23 premiere, on which Underwood will make her debut as a judge — the country star rewatches her 2005 audition and gets emotional. In the old footage, a much younger version of herself sings Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” for the O.G. panel comprised of Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul, who unanimously push her through to Hollywood.

“I have no idea how that 21-year-old Carrie was able to muster up enough guts to walk into a room and audition in front of Simon, Paula and Randy, and the world,” Underwood says after the footage ends.

“At my audition, I think I was just trying to hold in all my emotions — literally, hold them into my body,” she continues, revealing that she still has her audition number memorized: “It’s tattooed in my brain. I should actually get a tattoo of that somewhere on my body. Because I will always be 14887.”

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A few months after her tryout, Underwood would go on to win the fourth season of Idol and kickstart a long, successful career in country music, complete with four top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 as well as four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200. She’ll soon experience what it’s like to be on the other side of the Idol auditions process once the next season of the show officially premieres Sunday (March 9), taking over Katy Perry’s vacant spot on the panel next to co-judges Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan.

She’ll also be the only judge to know exactly what it’s like to go through the show’s wringer. After rewatching her audition on Idol to Icon, Underwood also looked through the two-decade-old journal she kept while she was a contestant on the show and got choked up.

“I don’t even know if I could tell her what she’s about to experience,” she says in the video, fighting back tears. “Seeing myself, 21 years old, the world ahead of you. Obviously, it’s overwhelming, but you’re gonna do fine, kid. You’re gonna be OK. Just hold on.”

Watch Underwood get emotional after rewatching her Idol audition above.

Antioch, Tenn., native and Billboard 200 chart-topping artist Jelly Roll has some specific artists in mind when it comes to dreaming up his ideal potential Super Bowl Halftime Show.
During an appearance on the podcast Bussin’ With the Boys alongside his friend and fellow singer-songwriter Ernest, Jelly Roll discussed how, if the Super Bowl were to be held in his hometown of Nashville, he would love to see a country music-focused, multi-generational Super Bowl Halftime Show.

“You know what my dream would be?” Jelly Roll said. “When it comes to Nashville, they do a country music Super Bowl. And it’s not even about an artist — like it cuts to Garth [Brooks] on one stage, and he’s doing ‘[Friends in Low Places],’ then it cuts to Reba [McEntire] and then Lainey [Wilson], and then me and then Morgan [Wallen]. It’s like, 18 minutes.”

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“The whole landscape,” adds Ernest.

Notably, country artists have been well-represented in singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl, thanks to performances over the years from Brooks, McEntire, Charley Pride, Chris Stapleton, Mickey Guyton and more. But Super Bowl Halftime Show performances from country artists have been rare. In 1994, the Rockin’ Country Sunday Super Bowl Halftime Show was led by Clint Black, Tanya Tucker, Travis Tritt and The Judds. In 2003, Shania Twain was on the halftime show bill alongside Sting and No Doubt.

During the Jelly Roll/Ernest episode of Bussin’ With the Boys, they also discussed the artists they feel are going to be huge in country music over the next few years, naming artists including Ernest’s Big Loud labelmate Jake Worthington (on Big Loud Texas), Leo33 artist and “I Never Lie” hitmaker Zach Top and newcomer Chandler Walters. (Worthington and Top spearheaded a country music revival at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium recently.)

Asked how important it might be for modern-day country artists to appreciate the history of the genre, Jelly Roll and Ernest noted how they are drawn to artists who respect the genre’s rich canon of enduring songs and artists.

“In the grand scheme of things, I guess it doesn’t matter, but it’s something that matters to me,” Ernest said.

“It matters to me,” Jelly Roll agreed.

“I appreciate and gravitate towards the people it does matter to, and I feel like it is our responsibility to –I like doing covers of old records to keep those songs alive,” Ernest continued. “Jamey Johnson said it, too, he said, ‘As country singers, it is our responsibility to keep the spirit of those before us alive through songs’ — whether it be writing in that spirit, or covering those songs. Those songs are meant to be sung. Merle Haggard died, that doesn’t mean you can’t go cut his songs. The lifespan of a song has no cap on it. It’s gonna outlive all of us, either way.”

“My second Grand Ole Opry performance, I sung [a song by] Waylon [Jennings],” Jelly Roll added. “It was important to me. One, when I did it the first time … I thought this is a once-around-the-sun for me. When they brought me back [for a second Opry performance], I was doubling down, because I believe, like he said, that probably in the grand scheme it don’t matter, but to the community, it matters to some. I just love country music. Always have, so I just naturally … we flock towards the people [who love country music] … Dude, you’ve been out with me. I turn every bar into a honky tonk. As soon as I get into a bar, hook up my phone or show me where the TouchTunes is. I’m fixin’ to put $100 in this thing and run the gauntlet on y’all for the next two hours.”

Ernest added, “We’ll sit on the front porch at [Nashville venue] Losers [Bar & Grill] ’til four in the morning, hooked up to Bluetooth, playing old Hank Williams songs.”

Watch the full episode of Bussin’ With the Boys below:

When programmers gathered for the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville Feb. 19-21, they heard a scintillating version of the national anthem.
Tigirlily Gold, the Academy of Country Music’s reigning new duo/group of the year, delivered it with a fierce confidence, the kind of assurance that — based on the enthusiastic response — impressed a room full of hard-to-impress professionals. Considering that the duo had just released a new single, the timing was probably advantageous.

“We got such great feedback from that, and there were a couple of people who said they had tears in their eyes afterward,” Tigirlily’s Krista Slaubaugh says. “I’m just glad we were able to do a good job and kick off that week really strong, but I definitely don’t think it hurts.”

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That current Tigirlily single is an anthem in its own right, a celebration of small-town America built on casual acoustics and spacious imagery. And, as it did with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Tigirlily sings “Forever From Here” like it means it.

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“This song, for me personally, is the most connected I’ve ever felt to a song,” lead vocalist Kendra Slaubaugh Olson says. “I met my husband in our hometown of Hazen, N.D. We’ve been together for 15 years, married for over five, and when we wrote that song, I think I listened to it 100 times that night. I’m not kidding you — probably 100 times. I just felt so connected and so emotional about it. And just really felt like, for the first time, Jared and I had our song. It was a really beautiful moment.”

The title might have been “Forever From Here,” but the phrase that drove it was “harvest season.” It’s a major reason the song resonated so strongly with her.

“Krista had the title ‘Harvest Season’ in her notes for forever,” Kendra says. “Obviously, being from the Midwest, it’s a huge part of where we grew up. Our grandparents both farmed, and harvest season is just one of the most beautiful times of the year. It’s fall. The air is chilly, everybody’s combining. It’s very fruitful, so we really wanted to paint that picture.”

Krista floated “Harvest Season” a few times during 2024, but it didn’t feel like a natural phrase to end a chorus, and it never quite landed. However, when the duo held a short writing retreat with songwriter-producer Pete Good (“We Don’t Fight Anymore”) at the Santa Barbara, Calif., home of songwriter Shane McAnally (“Body Like a Back Road,” “Coming Home”), “harvest season” found its place. They locked into a breezy guitar foundation as they started the third song of the trip on Dec. 3, and Krista reintroduced the title. McAnally thought it was interesting, but he suggested it belonged in the middle of the chorus instead. He even whipped out a melody to go with it. They talked further about what North Dakota was like and started to shape a direction that paired a rural setting with a relationship.

“You’re painting this big open space in this beautiful scenery and geography,” says Good, who hails from South Dakota. “Somebody said that you can ‘just see forever,’ like, ‘Oh, I can see forever both with my eyes and also with my heart.’ ”

It set the tone for the verses, populated almost entirely by references to a stable, warm relationship and images from nature. “We used geese in a song, which I never thought we would use,” Krista notes.

The pre-chorus looked above the birds — “God turns on the stars” — pulling together multiple elements in the “forever” theme. “The most stars you’ll ever see in your life is looking up at a Midwest sky and just feeling so small compared with everything out there,” Kendra says. “To me, it’s like God painted that picture of the stars in the sky, because there’s no other explanation for that kind of beauty.”

As that pre-chorus eased into the chorus, they encountered the day’s biggest challenge: settling on an opening line for the sing-along section. They sifted through several options, ultimately embracing a phrase that places the adjective in the wrong spot: “I can see a house with the shutters blue.”

“A part of me knew it’s got to be ‘shutters blue,’ ” Krista says. “ ‘Shutters blue’ is weird. It’s just going to catch people.”

A passing mention of a prairie rose in the second verse further enhanced the sense of location, and of personal history. “I did a report on a prairie rose in fourth or fifth grade, and it really stuck with me that that’s the state flower of North Dakota,” Krista says. “So there’s a little bit of nerdiness to the song, which I really love as a songwriter.”

Santa Barbara is quite different from North Dakota, but writing in a room that opened to a large lot helped with the outdoorsy nature of the “Forever” lyric, especially since December falls in the harvest season for some of McAnally’s fruit trees.

“I think I ate about 15 oranges writing that song,” Good says. “I can’t pull oranges off a tree in Nashville, so when I was out there, I just couldn’t stop eating oranges.”

They built a simple work tape with vocal, two guitars and a drum loop, and the Tigirlily team got excited about “Forever” when it heard the results. The act recorded the instrumental tracks on Dec. 16 at Sound Emporium’s Studio A in Nashville. The first couple of run-throughs didn’t fully cut it, so an outdoor feel was captured by setting up a single microphone, campfire-style, with five musicians gathered around it: Drummer Evan Hutchings joined Krista and Sol Philcox-Littlefield on acoustic guitars, Todd Lombardo grabbed a banjo, and keyboardist Alex Wright took over on mandolin.

“That was the DNA of that particular session,” Good notes. “It’s just that breezy, acoustic sound.” Krista joined Good to produce the vocals, and she encouraged Kendra to keep her lead part light.

“I was standing on my tippy toes and smiling as much as I can — this is how I know to make it sound easy,” Kendra says. “That actually sometimes is harder for me to do than to sing a powerful song.” Krista added harmonies later, applying a high note first, then adding a low note beneath Kendra’s lead in key spots, particularly on the chorus and on a scorching “wi-i-i-ld” passage in verse two.

Jenee Fleenor also overdubbed fiddle, taking a solo and threading some choice shimmering notes at the end of the bridge. In the end, the personal tone and catchy chorus of “Forever From Here” helped it beat out a couple of other recordings to become the next single. Monument released “Forever” to country radio via PlayMPE on Feb. 13, and it’s already being embraced by dozens of stations, creating a sense that it could become the duo’s biggest single to date. Tigirlily Gold is cautiously considering what kind of success the recording might harvest.

“If this song goes No. 1,” Kendra says, “I’m definitely painting my shutters blue.”

The country music industry honored those who get (and keep) country music’s top shows on the road on Monday night (March 3), as the 19th CMA Touring Awards were held in Nashville, as members of Nashville’s country music industry elite gathered at Marathon Music Works.

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The annual awards ceremony honored winners in 20 categories, in addition to honoring one touring individual with the lifetime achievement award. Notably, the touring sector represents the largest category of CMA membership.

CMA CEO Sarah Trahern called artists’ touring crews “the backbone of country music’s incredible live experience.” Singer-songwriter-entertainer Keith Urban, who has twice won the CMA’s entertainer of the year honor, served as host for the event for a third year.

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Luke Combs’s Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old Tour crew won the lion’s share of the evening’s trophies, including the evening’s most coveted honor, the crew of the year. Members of Combs’s team and crew also won in categories including tour manager of the year, production manager of the year, lighting director of the year and publicist of the year.

Host Urban said jokingly at one point, “Welcome to the Luke Combs touring awards.” Combs’ record-breaking 2024 stadium tour — which broke attendance records in its first three weekends — has further cemented two-time CMA entertainer of the year winner Combs’s superstar status.

Luke Combs and his team won the overall “crew of the year” honor, in addition to numerous other accolades throughout the CMA Touring Awards ceremony.

John Russell/CMA.

“This is one of the coolest nights of my career,” Combs said as he took the stage and welcomed his entire touring crew onstage with him. “I have done so many incredible things, played os many incredible shows in so many incredible places and none of that happens without these people up here… I owe everything that I have to these guys onstage and so many other people who couldn’t be here with us tonight.” He also thanked all of the touring crews of all country artists for all their hard work behind the scenes.

Last year’s crew of the year winner, Chris Stapleton’s “All-American Road Show Tour” crew, took the trophy with them around the world on Stapleton’s tour. Combs promised to carry on the tradition, saying, “We are going to take this thing to some places that country music has never been this year.”

More touring members were honored in categories including lighting director, tour video director, tour videographer/photographer, stage manager and tour manager. Guitarist Charlie Worsham, who picked up the CMA’s musician of the year honor in November, was named touring musician of the year, for his role on the road with Dierks Bentley.

The evening also highlighted the importance of caring for mental health, as the CMA’s senior vp, industry relations and philanthropy Tiffany Kerns led a segment of the evening devoted to spotlighting the trade organization’s work to help touring crews care for their mental health. They also spotlighted the work of organizations Amber Health, All Access Onsite, MusiCares, Backline, Music Health Alliance and Porter’s Call. The evening also spotlighted the CMA’s Touring Mentorship Program, which aims to give early-career touring professionals access to guidance from experienced touring professionals.

“A healthy professional leads to a healthy community,” Kerns said.

Later in the evening, the late concert promoter Ben Farrell was honored with the CMA Touring Awards’ lifetime achievement award. The accolade is reserved for an individual who has achieved the highest level in the country music field of touring. Farrell began his country music career in 1970 and worked in the industry for 52 years. He remained at Varnell Enterprises for the entirety of his career. Notably, during that time, he also served three decades as a concert promoter for Garth Brooks, first joining Brooks in 1989.

Brooks was among several people who took part in a video tribute to Farrell, with Brooks noting, “I knew him, I loved him, and if you knew him, you loved him, too.”

Over the years, Farrell also worked with such artists as The Statler Brothers, Merle Haggard, Randy Travis, Kenny Chesney, George Strait and Charley Pride. Among those honoring Farrell’s legacy Monday night were his wife Autumn, daughter Ella Grace and Morris Higham president/partner Clint Higham.

Higham was also feted as a winner during the evening, being named manager of the year. Higham is known for his decades of work with artists including four-time CMA entertainer of the year winner Chesney, as well as other Morris Higham clients including seven-time CMA group of the year winners Old Dominion, Country Music Hall of Famer Barbara Mandrell and estate work for late music legends Kris Kristofferson and Roger Miller.

See the full list of CMA Touring Awards winners below:

Business manager of the year: Julie Boos (Flood, Bumstead, McCready & McCarthy)Coach/truck driver of the year: Wendy Holt (Lainey Wilson)Venue of the year: Ryman Auditoriium (Nashville)Publicist of the year: Carla Sacks (Sacks & Co.)Lighting director of the year: Kevin Northrup (Luke Combs)Tour video director of the year: Tyler Hutcheson (Luke Combs)Tour Videographer/photographer of the year: Andy Barron (Chris Stapleton)Talent agent of the year: Austin Neal (The Neal Agency)Front of House engineer of the year: Todd Lewis (Luke Combs)Monitor engineer of the year: Michael Zuehsow (Luke Combs)Support services company of the year: Dega CateringBackline technician of the year: Derek Benitez (Chris Stapleton)Touring musician of the year: Charlie Worsham (Dierks Bentley)Talent buyer/promoter of the year: Adam Weiser (AEG Presents)Manager of the year: Clint Higham (Morris Higham Management)Production manager of the year: Jerry Slone (Luke Combs)Stage manager of the year: Donnie Floyd (Morgan Wallen)Tour manager of the year: Ethan Strunk (Luke Combs)Unsung hero of the year: Robin Majors (Kenny Chesney)Crew of the year: “Growin’ Up and Getting’ Old Tour” Crew (Luke Combs)Lifetime achievement award: Ben Farrell

The Big Ass Party will now begin before the official festivities kick off. Post Malone announced on Tuesday (March 4) that he will be hosting 10 free, open-to-the-public Travelin’ Tailgate parties at select dates on his upcoming summer Big Ass Stadium Tour. The events will offer fans with (or without) tickets an “unforgettable day of live music, great food, cold Bud Light, exclusive merch, carnival games, BIG ASS photo opportunities, and tattoos by Posty’s personal tattoo artists from Oxford Circle Tattoos,” according to a release announcing the stadium parking lot events.

In addition, one lucky fan will take home the ultimate door prize: a 2025 Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

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The first tailgate event will take place on May 3 before the singer/rapper’s show that night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, followed by similar stops at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX (May 9), as well as darties in Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, Miami, Ridgedale, MO and Denver, with one last daylight blowout on June 21 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, AZ.

The daytime throw downs (noon-6 p.m.) will feature a DJ, as well as sets from local artists, turning the parking lots into a “full-scale party.”

The tailgates will not take place on all the dates of the upcoming stadium swing featuring support from Jelly Roll and Sierra Ferrell. The following shows will not feature tailgates: the April 29 kick-off at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, UT, as well as the May 7 gig at the Alamodome in San Antonio, the May 13 stop at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, a May 20 show at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, the May 22 date at Wrigley Field in Chicago, a May 26 gig at Rogers Centre in Toronto, the May 28 show at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, PA, as well as a May 29 show at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

There will also be no tailgates at gigs at: Gillette Stadium (May 31, Foxborough, MA), Northwest Stadium (June 2, Washington, D.C.), CitiField (June 4, Queens, NY), Camping World Stadium (June 10, Orlando, FL), Albertsons Stadium (June 26, Boise, ID), T-Mobile Park (June 26, Seattle, WA), Providence Park (June 28, Portland, OR) and Oracle Park (July 1, San Francisco, CA).

See the dates and venues for the Travelin’ Tailgate parties below:

On the brick wall facing the Pittsburg Hot Links parking lot, a mural memorializes the small East Texas town’s most famous citizens, including Mean Gene the Hot Link King and Homer Jones, the New York Giants receiver who invented spiking the football after a touchdown.
Soon enough, Pittsburg native Koe Wetzel could be right up there with them. “Maybe [after] a couple more No. 1s,” Wetzel muses as he looks up at those faces. He sounds dubious that he has earned his spot quite yet, but the 32-year-old singer-songwriter is well on his way. His breakthrough hit about a volatile relationship, “High Road” with Jessie Murph, spent five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart in December and January. “I know the folks who own the place,” he adds with a laugh. “I might go buy some watercolors and paint it myself.”

Koe Wetzel performs at Billboard Presents THE STAGE at SXSW at Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park in Austin on March 13. Get your tickets here.

Wetzel may not believe he’s a local legend yet, but it’s clear that here in his hometown, his star status is confirmed. As he strides across the crosswalk Abbey Road-style in historic Downtown Pittsburg at 8:30 a.m., a fan sticks his head out of a store door and yells “My hero!” his way. Wetzel left Pittsburg (population: 4,335) when he was 18 to attend Tarleton State University in Stephensville, Texas, on a football scholarship as a linebacker. He now lives outside Fort Worth, but his roots run through his gritty brand of country rock, which he delivers in a powerful twang that draws on the long tradition of Texas outlaw country and confessional storytellers like Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark.

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“Koe is the epitome of an artist that is writing his own narrative,” Jelly Roll tells Billboard of Wetzel, whom he toured with in 2022 on the wryly titled Role Models outing. “He’s not writing what everyone else writes. He’s not trying to write another person’s narrative; he’s writing the way he naturally feels. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time — since his first project.”

Whatever he’s singing about — turbulent romances, getting busted for drunk driving or popping pills to get to sleep after a show — in song and conversation, Wetzel is unashamedly himself, with no apologies and no regrets, just like his namesake, country rabble-rouser David Allan Coe. “I was probably conceived to a David Allan Coe song,” he speculates. (His full name is Ropyr Madison Koe Wetzel; “My mom was pretty indecisive,” he says with a playful shake of his head at the multiple names.)

By the time he got kicked out of college his sophomore year for “having too good a time,” Wetzel was already playing shows and focused more on music than books. “Being a Texas artist, you can tour year-round here in Texas. A lot of people do and make a damn good living at it,” he says. “Coming up, that was kind of my main goal and pretty much my only goal.”

Koe Wetzel photographed January 22, 2025 in Pittsburg, Texas.

Eric Ryan Anderson

Jeb Hurt, who has managed Wetzel since 2019, recalls seeing him at a 300-capacity venue in San Marcos, Texas, in 2016. “If there were 200 there, 125 of them were college girls, and they were crammed against the stage screaming every word back to the band,” he says. Hurt, then a booking agent, quickly signed Wetzel, whose audiences grew exponentially through word-of-mouth. “If it was 200 people, the next time there were 400, then 800,” Hurt says. “Next thing you know, we’re in 5,000-cap venues in 24 months.”

Now, Wetzel — who signed with Columbia Records in 2020 — is building his audience around the rest of the country and the world. He toured in Europe last year and will play Australia in March. “It used to be about having a good time, making rent, making gas money to get to the next show,” Wetzel reflects. “And now it’s completely different. It’s wild to see where it’s come from and where we’re at.”

While his act is still built around raising hell onstage, Wetzel has realized that by sharing his own often unsettling stories, he’s helping others feel less alone. “Whenever I see those people sing the songs back or I’m meeting them and [they’re] telling me that what I told them saved their life — they were going to off themselves — that is really special,” Wetzel says, his voice growing thick with emotion. “I didn’t know that it was going to be that way, but now that it is, it’s opened up my mind and my eyes … This isn’t about just taking care of the family anymore and setting everybody up. It’s more about helping these folks live life. But they’re helping me as well. Without them, I’d be out pouring concrete.”

When Wetzel began working on his current album, 2024’s 9 Lives, with Columbia senior vp of A&R Ben Maddahi, his relationship with the label was bruised. “We’d had a bumpy road in our first few album cycles with Columbia,” Hurt says. “Some people left pretty consistently, and so by the time we got to Ben, there was kind of a sense of exhaustion on our [part] of just another A&R person being thrown our way.”

That’s not to say he hadn’t achieved some level of success. After releasing three albums independently, Wetzel had put out two more through the label, including his cheekily titled Columbia debut, Sellout. That and his second album, 2022’s Hell Paso, had together registered eight songs in the top 40 of Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, and the latter set reached No. 3 on Top Country Albums.

Columbia Records chairman/CEO Ron Perry asked Maddahi, who had worked with pop forces like Sia, Flo Rida and Charlie Puth, to meet with Wetzel. “Ron said something to the effect of, ‘He sells tons of tickets and has a die-hard fan base … We have really high hopes for him, but for some reason this hasn’t worked so far,’ ” Maddahi says.

In June 2023, Maddahi flew to Fort Worth to see Wetzel perform a sold-out show at the 14,000-capacity Dickies Arena. “He had an entire arena of people shouting out every word from the nosebleeds to the front row,” Maddahi recalls. “I came back [to the office] saying, ‘This guy’s a superstar.’ ”

Eric Ryan Anderson

Maddahi next flew to a show in Modesto, Calif., after which he and Wetzel had a heart-to-heart about the next album. “I wanted to slow things down,” says Wetzel, who was listening to acts like ambient pop band Cigarettes After Sex. “I didn’t want the super-edgy guitars, really loud drums.”

Maddahi paired him with Gabe Simon, best known for co-producing Noah Kahan’s Stick Season, and brought in several new co-writers, including Amy Allen, who won the 2024 Grammy Award for songwriter of the year and has written hits for Sabrina Carpenter and Harry Styles. It was during a writers camp with Allen and several other songwriters that the midtempo “High Road,” about a tempestuous, dysfunctional relationship, was born.

He and Maddahi immediately thought of Jessie Murph, whom Wetzel had co-written with before, to join him on “High Road,” and when she sent over a verse, “she killed it,” Wetzel recalls. Columbia partnered with RECORDS Nashville to work the song to country radio, and its ascent began.

“He’s very true to himself, and the songs he writes are exactly how he is, which is something I respect a lot,” Murph says of Wetzel. “When I first heard ‘High Road,’ it felt very nostalgic to me. It felt like a song I could’ve heard when I was a kid, which I loved.” To thank Murph, Wetzel bought her a pistol engraved with their names and the song’s title that took three months to make. “I felt it was really Texas of me,” he says proudly.

9 Lives’ cover is a photograph of the double-wide trailer Wetzel lived in with his parents until he was 12. It’s abandoned now and has fallen into disrepair, with broken slats on the wood steps and prickly bushes growing over the front porch. But inside, it’s still full of books, video tapes, pots and pans, photos of his maternal and paternal great-grandparents and a CD of Miranda Lambert’s 2007 album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Long gone are the posters that hung on Wetzel’s bedroom walls of his first crush, teen pop star JoJo, and legendary slugger Mark McGwire. The last inhabitant he remembers was his uncle, who died several years ago. He’s not sure who’s living there now, if anyone. Standing inside, he surmises, “I think it’s just a big ol’ family of raccoons.”

His father was a truck driver who shifted into construction when Wetzel was around 11, enabling the family to build a house on the land and move out of the trailer. His mother was a bank teller and a singer who often took Wetzel along to her gigs. He remembers, at age 5, grabbing his dad’s old Hummingbird guitar that was down to two or three strings, “being in my Spider-Man underwear and feeling like I was playing to a million people. Looking back now, it’s like a dream come true.”

Koe Wetzel photographed January 22, 2025 in Pittsburg, Texas.

Eric Ryan Anderson

As a teen, he loved ’90s country, especially acts like the rough-hewn Kentucky Headhunters. But he also loved Nirvana, so much so that at 12 he asked for tickets to see the band for Christmas — and his parents had to break the news that not only was the band not together, but Kurt Cobain had been dead for a decade. “Nirvana had a huge impact,” he says. “I think that resonates with the way I play music — the big guitars, the catchy melodic hooks.”

The trailer sits on 100 acres of land that his great-grandfather bought in the 1930s. Wetzel’s family had gotten behind on the taxes and risked losing it until he bought and paid off the property in 2021. “This land means so much to me and my family. I never wanted anyone else to have it,” he says. While he doesn’t see living on it again himself, he plans to add some cows and, “hopefully, raising a family and having them come out here.”

That family is expanding soon: Wetzel and his girlfriend, Bailey Fisher, are expecting a baby girl in June, news they would announce on social media a few weeks after our interview. “We dated in college, and the last two years resparked everything,” Wetzel explains, then adds with typical candor, “It’s not some random chick I knocked up. I mean, we’re excited as hell. I’m scared as f–k … I’m getting older, I’m growing out of the college party lifestyle I’ve been on the last 10 years … They say there’s always a time to grow up and get your s–t together, and my stuff is not together by no means at all, [but] it’s a lot different than what it was.”

In a corner of Koe Wetzel’s Riot Room stands Dirty Sancho. The nonworking mechanical bull, named for the first Professional Bull Riders bull Wetzel bought (he now owns eight) is just one piece of his personal memorabilia decorating the 7,000-square-foot bar and nightclub Wetzel opened in Fort Worth’s Cultural District in 2023. “We’ve had to sew his head back on a couple of times,” he says of Dirty Sancho. “He’s seen some s–t.”

Wetzel opened the Fort Worth bar, in part, so he would have a place to “drink and party and not worry about people putting me in jail at night,” he says, sitting on a stool in the Riot Room sipping tequila over ice. (A second Riot Room will open in Houston later this year, with hopes of more locations to follow.)

He’s not kidding around. His boisterous “February 28, 2016” from 2016’s Noise Complaint chronicles the night he was arrested for drunk driving, describing how in his inebriated state he just wants to find someone “sober enough to take me to Taco Bell.” The song has become an anthem for his fans, so much so that they’ve made Feb. 28 unofficial Koe Wetzel Day. On that day this year, he released a live album culled from 2024’s Damn Near Normal tour to thank his fans and dropped by the bar to play a few songs live, but he winces a little when he talks about the tune.

“Whenever we play it, I’m very grateful for what it’s done for us, but I’m kind of like, ‘F–k,’ ” he says. He doesn’t hate the song, exactly — it’s just that he’s in a very different place at 32 than he was when he wrote it at 24. “I’m not that person as an artist anymore,” he says. “I’m not that person just having a good time.”

Eric Ryan Anderson

He has different regrets about “Drunk Driving” from 2020’s Sellout. In a catalog of dark songs, it’s one of Wetzel’s darkest: The narrator is driving drunk and trying to outrun his sins as he sings, “Everybody’s got to die somehow/Why not me right now.” It was Wetzel’s attempt to put himself in the mindset of some friends who had died in drunk driving accidents, and, looking back, he wishes he had named it something else. “The song’s not about condoning drunk driving or anything like that,” he says. “It’s a very emotional song.”

Then there’s Hell Paso track “Cabo,” which he swears is a true story about spending money on hookers and blow in the Mexican resort town. The crowd goes crazy when he plays it, he says, but he admits, “Me and Mama haven’t really talked about that one. I know it’s not her favorite by far.” (His mother and father do have plenty of other favorites and frequently come to his gigs: “I think they cry every damn show, her and my pops,” he says. “They’re crying, singing all the words. They’re proud of their baby boy.”)

The connection his fans have to some of Wetzel’s older, often brutally honest lyrics can lead to the misperception that he’s “some f–king hellion,” says Wetzel, who quit counting his number of tattoos at 36. “I feel like most of my music came from whenever I was going balls to the wall, and it’s just kind of not who I am anymore. I can still run it with the best of them, but I feel like they make their opinion of me before they get to meet me, and sometimes that sucks.”

Still, he admits that 1 p.m. Koe and 4 a.m. Koe are two different people. “That’s rock star Koe. He’s kind of a d–k,” he says of the late-night version. “He’s a lot of fun, but he can get out of hand really f–king fast.”

Eric Ryan Anderson

He has somewhat curbed his drinking, including switching from whiskey to tequila. On his Damn Near Normal tour last year, he and some of his bandmates had a ritual: “An hour before the show, we’ll drink a bottle of tequila. If I start earlier, then the show will be s–t, but if I start just after 5 p.m. and kind of drink a couple beers, bottle of tequila, then it’s like the right amount. You get onstage, everything’s smooth sailing, and it feels good.”

He has also changed his after-show routine, hopping straight on the bus as soon as the concert is over. “They took the after-parties away from me. I go shower on the bus, put my comfy clothes on, drink a couple beers, watch a movie, and I was in bed by midnight, 1 o’clock,” he says before admitting: “Honestly, I kind of enjoyed it. I sounded better than I ever had because I was taking care of myself a little bit more.”

Koe Wetzel’s lake house is haunted by a ghost his two younger sisters have named Irene. There’s an underwater cemetery about 100 yards away in the lake, but no one knows if there’s any connection. Irene causes all kinds of mischief, Wetzel says, including throwing bottles off the bar and turning on the TV. “You’ll see her walking the balcony up here every now and then,” he says, describing an opaque apparition. “She kind of f–ks with new people who stay here.” As if on cue, the closed front door suddenly swings wide open on its own.

Irene’s presence notwithstanding, “it’s a safe haven for me,” Wetzel says of this place on Pittsburg’s outskirts. With its spotty cell service, he can unplug, write and relax. “I bought it for us to make more memories,” he says of his friends and family, who come to grill and hang out on his five boats.

The walls on one side are lined with RIAA plaques — 12 of his songs have been certified gold or platinum — while the rest are covered with fish, bird and deer mounts, including deer killed by three generations of Wetzel men. But pride of place goes to an alligator skull on a sideboard; Wetzel killed the reptile with a buck knife during COVID-19 isolation in Matagorda Bay, Texas. “I got in the water, Steve Irwin’d him a little bit,” he says, sipping a Busch Light and pointing to a photo of him sitting astride the alligator. “Cool story to tell but my mom hates that story. She don’t like it when I do dumb s–t. She worries about her baby way too much.”

Eric Ryan Anderson

There’s also a photo of him with a giant catfish he caught with his bare hands — known as noodling — in the lake. His biggest catch has been 62 pounds, which he and his buddies tagged and tossed back. Asked whether killing a bear with a bow and arrow or having a five-week No. 1 is more satisfying, Wetzel pauses to give the question considerable thought, then decides: “Adrenaline-wise, killing a bear with a bow. Accomplishment-wise, a five-week No. 1.”

For all his love of hunting and fishing, those subjects haven’t found their way into Wetzel’s music. “I feel like I was put here to write about relationships gone bad or going good. Real-world stuff, I guess,” he says. “Not saying that hunting is not. It’s a huge part of my life and I love it to death, but I just guess I haven’t figured out what I wanted to say about it yet.”

Yet as he begins working on new music, Wetzel, who will tour this year with HARDY and Morgan Wallen, as well as play Stagecoach and other festivals, says he’s increasingly finding that all his passions are intertwined.

“I feel like every time I’m [writing], it peels back a layer of who I am. I find something that I didn’t know was there,” he says. “Whenever you get the song completed, there’s no more holes in it. There’s nothing else you could do for that song. It’s like, ‘Man, this is insane. This is really cool.’ It’s almost like the noodling and the hunting for me: It’s something that I feel like I’ll never master, but it’s what keeps me coming back and back. It’s a cool deal.”

This story appears in the March 8, 2025, issue of Billboard.

On the brick wall facing the Pittsburg Hot Links parking lot, a mural memorializes the small East Texas town’s most famous citizens, including Mean Gene the Hot Link King and Homer Jones, the New York Giants receiver who invented spiking the football after a touchdown. Soon enough, Pittsburg native Koe Wetzel could be right up […]