Exclusive Video/Single Premiere / Joe Stamm Band / "Bottle You Up"

Photo by Elise Kingland

We’ve got a video premiere for you from countrified roots rockers The Joe Stamm Band today. Joe’s rich, character-filled voice is the centerpiece of the band's new single “Bottle You Up,” a love song from the heart. It’s a commercially accessible sound without kowtowing to the trends of the day, instead keeping it real with an in-the-pocket rock ’n roll band playing the hell out of this catchy country rocker. RIYL: Chris Stapleton, Whitey Morgan, Cody Jinks, The Steel Woods. 

Joe on “Bottle You Up” -

"There’s been a grand total of two times that I’ve done one of them, “I just wrote this song and now I’m posting a video of me playing it to Facebook” type of things. One of those times was just yesterday (as I’m writing this up). The only other time was a couple years ago and the song was 'Bottle You Up.'

I’d just got home from a Sunday afternoon gig, and I sat down at my kitchen table with a little glass my mom had recently purchased for me. It said, “Apple of My Eye” on the side of it. I started pouring Busch Light down into it. Then emptying it. Repeat. Pretty soon I was writing a song and about 25 minutes later, I had “Bottle You Up” down on paper.

All them beers convinced me I should take the song straight to social media. So I did, and pretty soon folks were requesting “Bottle You Up” at shows. It didn’t take long to realize we were going to have to cut it on our next record.

While you can still find that old acoustic performance on YouTube, we did decide to go down to Nashville and have our buddies at Midtown Motion put a bonafide music video together for the song. We’re pretty happy about the results. Though I’m not sure the feller in the video was by the song’s end…"

More information about the Joe Stamm Band and their upcoming album below the player.

Joe Stamm Band - The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny)

The Joe Stamm Band makes countrified roots-rock with an emphasis on the roots, drawing on Stamm's small-town upbringing in rural Illinois for a sound that blends heartland hooks with Nashville twang. It's a sound that's taken the songwriter from the college apartment where he strummed his first chords to venues beyond the Midwest, sharing shows with personal heroes like Kris Kristofferson and Chris Knight along the way. With his debut studio LP, The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny), Stamm begins building his own legacy, leading his band of road warriors through an album rooted in all-American storytelling and guitar-driven swagger.

Recorded in a converted barn outside of Iowa City, The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny) is a studio album that owes its electrified energy to Stamm's live show. It was there — onstage, guitar in hand, headlining a club in Peoria one night and playing with artists like Tyler Childers and Easton Corbin the next — that Stamm sharpened the edges of his self-described "black dirt music," rolling Americana, country, and blue-collar rock & roll influences into his own style. Some songs were autobiographical, spinning true-life stories of love, loss, and life in Middle America. Others, like the barn-burning "12 Gauge Storyline," were character-driven and fictional. Whittled into sharp shape by a touring schedule that kept Stamm and company on the road for as many as 150 days a year, those songs took new shape in the recording studio, shot through with amplified riffs, grooves, and arrangements that rolled just as hard as they rocked. 

Fiction and autobiography come together on the album's title track, a coming-of-age anthem that finds Stamm writing about the humor, heartache, charm, and chaos of youth in America. 

"Everyone falls into at least one — and usually several — of those categories," he says of "The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny)." "That song really captured a sense of things, a sense of people, and a sense of what it's like to grow up in America."

For Stamm, growing up in America involved a good amount of time on the football field. A teenage quarterback in a sports-obsessed town, he led his high school team to back-to-back state appearances, becoming a local celebrity along the way. When an injury brought his sports career to an end during his college years, though, Stamm found a new passion in music, diving into the work not only of classic country crooners like George Jones and Johnny Cash, but also the modern-day heavyweights of Texas' country scene, including Randy Rogers Band, Pat Green, and Reckless Kelly. Before long, he was writing his own songs — and just like his favorite Texas artists, he rooted his music in a strong sense of place, bringing a midwestern spirit to his own brand of country music. Stamm was soon packing venues across central Illinois, trading the athletic fame of his teenage years for an equally rewarding — and longer lasting — brand of recognition.

"I like writing about characters and coming up with stories," says Stamm, whose diverse past — including his time in an evangelical Christian household, his athletic days behind the line of scrimmage, and his creative rebirth as country music's newest rule-breaker — is woven throughout The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny), lending personal details to even the most fictional of songs. "Songwriting is where experience and imagination meet," he adds, "and each song finds a different spot on that spectrum."

With The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny), the spectrum is as wide as it is compelling, with Stamm roping together a range of honky-tonk hooks, rock & roll guitars, heartland twang, and country swagger. He's a songwriter. A bandleader. A storyteller. And while he'll always be a proud midwestern native — a man shaped by the creek bottoms, fields, and fence rows of Metamora, Illinois — he writes from a more universal perspective on his full-length studio debut. These aren't just his stories, after all. They're all of ours. 

Joe Stamm Band's The Good & the Crooked (& The High & the Horny) is due out September 25.

PRE-ORDER:

https://www.joestammband.com/merch/gchhvinyl

https://www.joestammband.com/merch/gchhcd

Sunday Mornin' Music / The Steeldrivers (Stapleton) / "Where Rainbows Never Die"

Chris & Morgane Stapleton Perform "Starting Over"

Chris' new single, out today.

More Monday Memes: Stapleton, Uncle Tupelo, Dixie Chicks

Country TwitterWINs: May 2020

Ranking the Country Chrises With Steak

(I actually like medium rare the best, so this isn't necessarily saying rare steak = best steak. 

It's just a dumb meme metaphor. And Chris Gaines was soft rock, thus the exclusion.)

Monday Morning Memes: Merle, Stapleton, Dwight

Arguing About the Decade

More Monday Memes: Brantley Gilbert, Christmas, Kristofferson

Chris Stapleton & Kendell Marvel Perform "Hard Livin'"

New Video / Chris Stapleton / "Second One to Know"

Saturday Night Music / The Jompson Brothers (Stapleton) / "The River"

Titanic Country Reaction Gifs

When he says he's going to Cody Jinks with his friends and not taking you

How long since you've heard a country song on country radio?

When Jack's been listening to Kane Brown

What's it like to listen to the new Jason Aldean song?

When your mother says new country is better because her era was all twangy and sad.

She's cranking up "Huntin', Fishin', and Lovin' Every Day" but

When Stapleton then Strait or Reba play in a row on the CMA Awards and you feel like the king of the world, but

there's a Florida-Georgia Line iceberg on the way

There's some kind of metaphor for country radio here

John Mayer & Chris Stapleton Perform "I Just Remembered That I Didn't Care"

Song starts about 1:35.

Appropriate Country Singer TV Guest Appearances

Murder Was the Case

The Crud Report: April '19

Song Premiere: Kyle Daniel - Somewhere in Between

Sometimes the side-man deserves to be a front-man. Kyle Daniel, who's been a touring guitarist with artists like Casey James and Clare Dunn, steps to the mic and displays an exceptional voice on "Somewhere in Between", a song from his forthcoming second EP. This easy-rolling song fits easily on a playlist with the likes of Brent Cobb and Chris Stapleton, sonically and vocally. "Somewhere in Between" straddles Americana and the more traditional leaning parts of modern country - in other words, the kind of stuff I wish was dominating mainstream radio. Give it a good listen; I think you'll dig it. 

From Daniel: "Over the past few years as a musician, I have kind of felt like I was in the waiting room of my career. Although I have accomplished some things I am very proud of, I have yet to feel like I’ve really had the opportunity to do what I want as an artist, on an elevated level. I’ve felt “Somewhere in Between.” I think that we all feel this way at some point in life; when things seem to be moving, yet at a standstill all at the same time. 

This was an internal struggle song, so it was a little easier to write than most. When Jackie Leigh, Seth Rentfrow and I got together to write this song, it came out so naturally and honest. There was some sort of magic in the room that day that really helped to shape this song. I think we were all able to get on the same page with this because we all felt the exact same way, at the exact same time. 

When we went into the studio to begin cutting this song, I vividly remember telling the boys seconds before the record button was hit, “Let’s make this one sound like it should be in a Quentin Tarantino film.” We wanted it to have that southwestern/Americana feel that was tied to the melody and lyrics. I felt like we hit as close to the mark as we possibly could have on the production."

More information about Daniel below the song player! 

Kyle Daniel // What’s There to Say? (March 15)

What’s there to say when you’ve conceded to the hardships of life? Kyle Daniel wrestles with this question throughout his sophomore EP, aptly titled What’s There to Say? Delivering his message via bright melodies and a wall of electric guitar, Daniel navigates the trials and tribulations of being a working musician, failed relationships, being surrounded by addiction and growing up in modern-day America. Wearing his heart on a tattered sleeve, he pairs everyman lyricism with a rusty vocal akin to Blackberry Smoke, Will Hoge and Chris Stapleton, bristled with a warm guitar bravado. It comes as no surprise that he’s road-dogged as a guitarist for Clare Dunn, Jimmy Hall and Casey James, as well as opened for the likes of Jason Isbell and Miranda Lambert. These are rich, authentic stories told from the perspective of someone who’s wrestled with the ups and downs of being a touring musician.

His new project carries with it tremendous gravitas, particularly in a time when truth is under the microscope. Daniel draws upon the uncertainty of an ever-evolving music scene, currently in a state of transition especially in the age of streaming. “You learn to take the victories as they come and be proud of those,” he says, considering the weight of his new music and the past year of his personal life. “Born to Lose” ignites the set from inside out, as he turns his gaze on the taboo topic of addiction and its omniscience in our everyday lives.

“I tried to start digging through all of the shame in hopes I’d see her again,” he sings, the yearning in his soul spilling over onto gold-flecked guitars. The instruments crash against each other like rolling thunder, and it’s both a cathartic sigh and a mountain cry.

“I wondered what it would feel like to be completely down on your luck and feel like there’s nothing you can do about it or nobody to help you. In the title itself, you feel like you were damned from the time you popped out into this world,” he says. Within the song’s shiny structure, borrowing from classic rock as much as contemporary country, he observes such tragedies as the opioid crisis but veers on the side of uncompromising empathy. “I wanted to bring awareness to it without being completely negative in that respect,” he stresses.

It is from such a caring viewpoint that Daniel has approached much of his work, whether it be music-making directly or working behind the scenes. Born and raised in Bowling Green, Kentucky, he was instilled early on with a diligence for an honest day’s work and never giving up. Through much of his youth, he played on various traveling all-star baseball teams, but an accident in his freshman year of high school left him with a broken femur -- and idle hands.

He picked up the guitar to pass the time and was instantly struck by the power of music.

He spent three months honing his craft and later formed his first band. “By default, I had to learn to sing. Nobody else wanted to sing because they were too timid,” remembers Daniel, downplaying his own raw abilities as a natural born storyteller. When that endeavor ended, he founded a trio called the Kyle Daniel Band at 16 and went on to win the Southern Kentucky Blues Challenge. He was given the opportunity to head to the International Blues Competition, held in Memphis, Tenn., and placed in the finals.

Feeling the buzz of success, he initially opted out of college and took off his first year to explore music on the local scene. “But my dad was like, ‘You need a backup plan. Not everybody can be a freaking rockstar,’” he says. He put his guitar away and sought a music business degree at Middle Tennessee State University. “I felt like a piece of me was missing at some point and decided to put together a college band,” he says of The Last Straw, a blend of outlaw country, blues and southern rock. They soon caught the attention of the industry and snagged opening gigs for Jason Isbell, Blues Traveler and the Black Crowes.

Following college, Daniel focused his attention on using his business degree and accepted a merchandise manager position for a Los Angeles group called Vintage Trouble. Through his work, he gravitated toward artist management and went on to rep a band on the road with Taylor Swift for the global Red Tour. “I absolutely got annihilated,” he recalls. “It was not my bag.”

He soon left his tour manager gig, and not a week later, he received an unexpected call from Wet Willie’s Jimmy Hall, who was seeking a guitar player for their upcoming tour. “I hadn’t played for three or four years really,” he says. “So, I put myself through boot camp to start playing with him.” Daniel toured around the country with Wet Willie for about a year before landing on Casey James’ tour, a risk he took that later led him to nab gigs with Bob Seger, Clare Dunn, Miranda Lambert, Lee Brice and Chris Young.

A new cycle of life came his way, and he made his way back home where he worked with a group called Jericho Woods. But feeling dissatisfied creatively, Daniel stepped back from collaboration and spent the next few years concentrating on finding his own songwriting voice, penning hundreds of songs in that time. He worked his way around Nashville and linked up with such titans as Brent Cobb, Dave Kennedy, Channing Wilson (Jason Eady, Luke Combs) and Seth Rentfrow, a force of nature who would soon become vital to Daniel’s many solo artistic endeavours.

“It took every single step of the way for me to be ready for this type of career and well-versed in in music both on front of and behind the scenes,” says Daniel, whose career was nearly derailed completely last spring when he had extensive surgery on his right ear. Four and a half hours post-op, he awoke and soon discovered things were much worse than he thought, his doctor prompted an immediate surgery on his left ear. “The doctor said if I had waited another month, I would have been completely deaf in my left ear. An infection had eroded two of the bones in my ear, and I couldn’t walk by myself for two weeks after the surgery.”

The fighter that he is, Daniel was in the studio cutting his new EP just under two months later. What’s There to Say? is pressed with unwavering perseverance, gritty urgency and viscerally-charged brokenness that quakes at his core. His voice is even more self-assured than on his 2018 debut, which landed on the iTunes Country Chart and was written about three times in Rolling Stone County. With such standouts on the new record as “Somewhere in Between,” in which he laments feeling stuck in second gear of his life and career, and “God Bless America (Damn Rock ‘N Roll),” a ‘70s-inspired arena revolt against the system, Daniels illustrates a colorful blend of tales backed by a rollicking beat.

“This EP came out in a flash. It was unbelievable how seamless this thing worked,” he says, citing how everything was tracked, dubbed and mixed within 12 days. “Songs have their power in the person.”

What’s There to Say? captures a special moment in time for Daniel as he looks to build on momentum built and praise garnered in 2018. This EP is lightning in a bottle; a readily-accessible, deeply relatable culmination of his years of surviving each and every challenge life has thrown at him, and it’s the perfect vessel for Daniel break out in 2019 and beyond. 

Brandi Carlile & Chris Stapleton / "Hunger Strike" / Chris Cornell Tribute

The Current Poop of Mainstream Country: January '19

A poop emoji is negative; a strike-thru is positive.

The current Poop Rating of the Mediabase Top 20 is (-16) overall which is a 2 point drop from last September (the previous time we did this chart). The best song on the chart is Chris Stapleton's "Millionaire."  The worst is Mitchell Tenpenny's "Drunk Me" followed closely by Dustin Lynch's "Good Girl." There is 1 solo woman on the charts. In fact, there's only 1 woman in the entire top 20.

Chart info from Mediabase/Country Aircheck.