Raised in small-town central Texas and based in Nashville, Tennessee, Joelton Mayfield crafts hard-hitting alt-country that’s at home in any setting. Mayfield’s distinct take on the genre blends his experimental musicality with the dynamics and melodic edge of fourth-wave emo to create a sound all his own. This musical innovation underscores Mayfield’s deft lyricism, which draws a Southern Gothic literary sensibility and deals intimately with the tensions embedded in family, religion, masculinity, and love in the American South.

"Took a whole lot of miles to know what I know now," sings Will Hoge on "Growing Up Around Here," the opening track off of his tenth studio album, Small Town Dreams. "I'm kinda proud of growing up around here." It's been a whole lot of miles, indeed: miles on the road, driving the bus himself from venue to venue since the nineties; miles to and from Nashville writing rooms, where he's spent countless hours penning songs – some for him, some for others; miles exploring lands outside of his native Franklin, Tennessee, chasing the spirits of his musical heroes. Roads meet, roads split, roads led to home. This is the album that follows them all, every twist and turn in Hoge's American journey – a journey that's positioned him as one of our keenest, most honest modern storytellers, telling both his tale and ours.   "It's a reflection of where I am currently in my life," says Hoge of Small Town Dreams, "but also where I grew up, and, ultimately, where I think I'm going." From the streets of the town where he was raised, to the sidewalks of cities a hundred times the size, we all have dreams; and these are the stories of growing up, looking back and passing on those dreams, told as only Hoge can. Nostalgia, in his hands, is truly magic.    An extremely prolific songwriter with ten albums under his belt and countless songs written for others (including a Grammy nomination for Eli Young Band's number-one hit, "Even If Breaks Your Heart," co-written with Paslay), Hoge saw this next phase of his journey as an opportunity to explore even deeper into both his country and rock & roll roots. Never fitting particularly neatly into a genre box, he's always just made the music that moved him – but it's safe to say that he feels more kinship with the country community than ever, particularly as a storyteller.

Kirby Brown was born in East Texas and moved to rural Damascus, Arkansas at age two. His formative years on the farm kept him occupied bottle-feeding calves, fishing for crappie, and shelling peas. His taste for music was also fostered here, being exposed to gospel, bluegrass, and the classic country his grandfather would strum in the evenings. After the divorce of his parents, Kirby and his dad, a closeted poet, would spend visits diving into film, music, and the nuances of American Poetry. He became as much interested in reading Whitman and Frost as he was in grade school or spending time with his friends. This fresh form of expression would become the bedrock on which Kirby’s artistic life would be built. When he was nineteen, his first true love and his best friend died in separate incidents. Through the long process of grieving, Kirby found an outlet for his pain in writing songs. Fearing that he too might die before his time in that same small town, Kirby moved to Dallas and bunked with fellow musicians. An offer to tag along on tour put Kirby on an eight-month road trip through what seemed like every town in America. Immediately after coming off the road, Kirby was offered an opening slot at House of Blues in Dallas. Soon after, Kirby released his first independent record, Child Of Calamity. He found a new stride and began sharing bills and festivals with artists including Willie Nelson, The Flaming Lips, Leon Russell, and The Avett Brothers. Returning back to Dallas after another extensive tour, Kirby decided it was time for a change and moved to New York. A songsmith at his core, Kirby is constantly writing. He has a long relationship with the roots tradition and counts John Prine, The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell, and Warren Zevon as influences, as well as writers and poets such as Theodore Roethke, Flannery O'Connor, John Steinbeck, and JD Salinger. He recently recorded an album at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The theme of this new record is a continuation of what his writing has always striven for—growing up and adjusting to the tides of change, searching for light in dark places, regret, hope, love, and redemption in the mundane repetition of everyday life. ------------------------------------------------ "These stories are not just mine, but really are just versions of what I think we all experience. We all struggle after the same things, wrestle with the same questions. These songs are my way of responding to being made human. If 'the Powerful Play goes on,' this is the best verse I have to contribute." - Kirby Brown