For a band that regularly plays 250 shows a year, there's nothing like coming back home.      ‘One To Grow On,’ the eighth studio album from Mike and the Moonpies, is a musical homecoming that returns the group to its roots as a working man's country band. Layered with Telecaster twang, honky tonk harmonies and lyrics that highlight the Everyman's struggle to remain optimistic during a 9-to-5 world, this is organic music for dance halls and car stereos—a soundtrack for the mid-week blues, shot through with weekend energy.      "I wanted to create a record you could crank loudly in your truck on Friday afternoon at quitting time," says frontman Mike Harmeier, who wrote ‘One To Grow On’ in his backyard studio on the outskirts of Austin. "To do that, I developed a narrative and a central character. It's a guy who's working hard to make ends meet, all while living in the moment and hoping to stay appreciative of the things he has. A guy who takes pride in what he does but is still searching for a balance in his life. There are a lot of similarities between him and me.      "For more than a decade, Harmeier and his band of hard-touring road warriors—pedal steel player Zach Moulton, guitarist Catlin Rutherford, bassist Omar Oyoque along with new drummer Taylor Englert —have traveled far beyond their Austin homeland, flying the flag for homegrown Texas music in more than a dozen countries. They've become global ambassadors of a blue-collar country sound, striking a balance between timeless influences and cool, contemporary appeal. Along the way, they've stretched their legs, following the breakthrough success of 2018's Steak Night at the Prairie Rose with records like 2019's Cheap Silver & Solid Country Gold (an album inspired by the classic countrypolitan hits of the early 1970s, recorded at Abbey Road Studios with help from the London Symphony Orchestra) and 2020's Touch of You: The Lost Songs of Gary Stewart (a collection of nine unreleased songs written by the honky-tonk hero).      When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the Moonpies' busy schedule to a halt, Harmeier found himself back home in Austin, inspired to return to the sound that had launched his band's career. He didn't need to look far for ideas.      "I have an old, square-bodied Chevy pickup from 1985," he says. "My dad had the same one. I used to work with him as an electrician when I was younger, and I started thinking about my dad, my grandfather, and the original owner of that truck. I thought about the kids I grew up with. Everyone I know who isn't a musician is working construction.They're putting one foot in front of the other and trying to appreciate the moment they're in, while basically working 24/7, 365. A lot of people live their lives that way, and they inspired me to write a working man's story.      A working man himself, Harmeier headed to his backyard studio, where he used his free time to his advantage. He wrote. He revised. He sent ideas to his producer and bandmates, who helped mold and modify the songs from their own home studios. What emerged was a sound that split the difference between 70s southern rock and 90s country, with twin guitar leads and earthy storytelling. ‘One To Grow On’ took shape during those months of isolation—months that found all of the Moonpies collaborating remotely, remaining active even while in quarantine.      "We'd never had that kind of time on our hands before," Harmeier remembers. " I would develop the character as far as I could then send it to our producer [Adam Odor] for even more rewrites and then finally to the band for their input. They got to know the material long before we went into the studio. They got to know the album's central character, as well, and they wrote instrumental parts to convey the consciousness of that guy.      "Co-produced with longtime collaborator Odor and recorded at Yellow Dog Studios in Wimberley, Texas, ‘One To Grow On’ kicks off with "Paycheck to Paycheck," an anthem for hardscrabble living. Driven forward by fiery fretwork, breakneck tempos, and vocal harmonies from Shiny Soul Sisters' Alice Spencer and Kelley Mickwee, the song serves as a primer for what's to come—the wild west atmospherics of "Whose Side Are You On," the greasy funky-tonk of "The Vein," and everything in between. Shooter Jennings makes a pair of appearances, playing synthesizer on songslike "Social Drinkers," while former Moonpie John Carbone returns to the fold to play keyboards throughout the album. Three members of fellow Texas-based outfit Quaker City Night Hawks join the band on "Burn Out," an autobiographical country-rocker that closes 'One To Grow On' by focusing not upon the character Harmeier has created, but upon the narrator himself.      "I knew I was writing a character-driven record, but I wasn't sure who he was until we finished," says Harmeier. "He'sa bit of me, a bit of my father, and a bit of my friends. He's the Everyman. He's everyone I know, and everyone I don't know."

In the six years since she signed to John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, Kelsey Waldon has earned wide praise for her “self-penned compositions [with] the patina of authenticity” (Rolling Stone). On her new album, Every Ghost, she confronts addiction, grief, generational trauma, and even herself — and comes through it stronger and at peace. “There’s a lot of hard-earned healing on this record,” Waldon says of the nine-song project, recorded at Southern Grooves studio in Memphis with her band, The Muleskinners. As she sings in the record’s title track and first song, “Ghost of Myself,” she’s put in the work not only to better herself and leave behind bad habits, but also to learn to love her past selves. Doing so wasn’t easy, Waldon admits. “It took time and experience,” she says, adding that she can now find compassion for her younger self. “I think you’ve gotta respect her,” Waldon says, “because she was trying as hard as she could for where she was at, and she was doing a damn good job.” Compassion is a throughline on Every Ghost, whether it’s for Waldon herself, for the person in the throes of addiction in “Falling Down,” or for a suffering world in “Nursery Rhyme.” The people in Waldon’s songs aren’t irredeemable — they’re struggling. “You’ve got to have compassion; you gotta stay humble and have gratitude,” Waldon says. However, she’s learned that you also can’t let people take advantage of an empathetic heart. “Comanche” — which Waldon jokes is her very own truck song — finds Waldon grappling with the loss of a loved one, not to death but to boundaries she’s set for her own good. Waldon owns a 1988 Jeep Comanche, and driving it serves as a kind of therapy for her. “I love the whole aspect of when design mattered,” she says, “and owning your car was an expression of yourself.” “Comanche” is deeply personal, but Waldon’s most introspective reflections bookend My Ghost. Its penultimate song, “My Kin,” extends the idea of loving yourself in spite of yourself beyond the choices she’s made and the circumstances she’s put herself in, to reckon with both the good and the bad that come from her family tree. Those traits, Waldon concludes, make her who she is. “As the song says, ‘I’m the best and worst of my kin,’ and I love that for myself,” says Waldon, who was born and raised in a hunting lodge at the end of a dead-end road in the rural, unincorporated community of Monkey’s Eyebrow, Ky. “And I’m also at a point where I’m willing to break these cycles, I’m willing to grow, I’m willing to evolve.” Among those best parts of her lineage is Waldon’s grandmother, who died in June 2024. “She was a remarkable woman. The women in my family have been rocks, and they’ve all been colorful and full of character,” Waldon says. “Her garden and her yard, that might have been one of the things she took the most pride in,” Waldon adds, recalling how her granny would often stop to dig up roadside flowers, then transplant them into her yard. A display of tiger lilies, some of which now grow in Waldon’s yard in Tennessee, was a particular point of pride. “Transplanting is such a tradition — it can teach you a lot,” Waldon says. “Life goes on, beauty can grow from anywhere, and as long as a person is remembered, they’re never gone.” Waldon honors her granny with the song “Tiger Lilies.” She didn’t want an over-the-top sentimental song, so she instead leaned into the idea of traditions as a way to remember loved ones. “I’m sure Granny would love it,” Waldon says. Every Ghost concludes with a Hazel Dickens cover, “Ramblin’ Woman.” Waldon covered two Dickens songs on 2024’s There’s Always a Song and had added “Ramblin’ Woman” to their live sets as well. While Waldon didn’t originally intend to include their cover on this album, it served as “a sonic star” during the recording process and has a message Waldon feels is still relevant decades after Dickens wrote it. “Hazel was ahead of her time,” Waldon says. “Our existence is more than just what society expects of us. We’re more than just somebody’s girlfriend or wife or mother, and those are all beautiful things, but we can have our own independence, and we don’t have to do it for anybody else. We’re beautiful, magical, and powerful creatures.” That’s certainly how Waldon sees herself after completing Every Ghost. “It feels like there’s a spirit of fearlessness throughout this album,” Waldon says, “and I’m really proud of that.” Waldon’s fearlessness is among the reasons she landed at Oh Boy Records in 2019, as the independent label’s first new signee in 15 years. It’s attracted fans to her headline tours and her festival sets, and prompted artists including Tyler Childers, Charley Crockett, Robert Earl Keen, Margo Price, and Lucinda Williams to invite her on tour. It helped earn her both the title of “Kentucky Colonel” — an honor recognizing goodwill ambassadors of Kentucky’s culture and traditions — and a spot in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s annual American Currents exhibit in 2024. “True outlaw shit is sticking to your guns, and I feel like I’m doing that,” Waldon says. “I’m not saying I’m unbreakable, but I feel almost unbreakable. I’ve already hurt the worst that I could and lived to tell the story. We can be thankful for our ghosts."