Webb Wilder returns with Hillbilly Speedball, his first new album in five long years. Backed by a small army of musical friends old and new, Wilder's brushstrokes across the album's 10 songs balance tempered restraint with raucous abandon.

"The further I got into recording these songs, the more the fire got lit," he comments. "I'd been in this sort of stasis, and David Grissom, one of my oldest friends and a brilliant guitarist, sent me a new song to check out called 'Hillbilly Speedball.' I liked it. It was in the same key as my biggest successes, and I asked him, 'Hey, what if I do it?' That's how it started."

Other notable guests on the album are Vince Gill (who Wilder calls "the world's most down-to-earth superstar"), iconic Wrecking Crew session man Richard Bennett, Fats Kaplin (ex-Jack White), and an extended family of heavyweights from across the music spectrum.

As the album unfolds, we're treated to covers famous and obscure woven in with Wilder's latest originals. "You have to strike a balance, you follow the breadcrumbs. I'm a sucker for songs I love. It goes back to hand-me-down 45s I got as a kid. Certain songs hit you at just the right time, the right age, the right moment, and they stay with you forever."

Beneath the groove and the good times that go with it, there's an invisible ink layer of introspection. "The older I get, the more I get to know myself and connect the dots as to why I am who I am. Apparently, I've always been drawn to beat music and roots music of varying stripes, and when genres blend, all the better."

Hillbilly Speedball is the (lucky) 13th album in Wilder's long and storied career. His nearly four decades in the public eye have included stints with major labels, MTV airplay, induction in the Mississippi Musicians' Hall of Fame, and being one of the first DJs hired by a then-upstart XM Satellite Radio. He was Americana before it had a name, and is bonafide Roots Rock Royalty.

From gravel switchbacks to eight lanes of blacktop, Hillbilly Speedball cuts a roadmap through a landscape that goes from the very roots of Rock and Roll to Outlaw Country, straight-up Blues, bits of Brit, and all points in between. It's Americana Rock and Roll in the purest sense, and a joyride worth taking again and again.

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Erik Vincent Huey is an Americana singer-songwriter whose second full-length solo LP—Fort Defiance—will be released on February 13, 2026.

Erik (under the nom de plume Cletus McCoy) is the longtime frontman of The Surreal McCoys a cowpunk “hipster doofus band” (as Mojo Nixon dubbed them) with two albums under their belt that—bolstered by airplay of the mashup single “Whole Lotta Folsom” on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country—enjoys 50K monthly listeners and has collected over 3.5 million spins on Spotify.

In addition to Eric Ambel, Huey is backed on Fort Defiance by Starbelly’s Bryan Ewald on guitar and organ, Cliff Hillis on guitar, Dennis Schocket on bass, and Greg Schroeder on drums. Additional musicians include bassist Keith Christopher (Lynyrd Skynyrd), guitarist Tim Smith (The Surreal McCoys), and drummer Phil Cimino.