5th Annual Friendsgiving featuring Vandoliers and Joshua Ray Walker with John Pedigo

Vandoliers

Vandoliers are a uniquely Texas band, distilling the Lone Star State’s vast and diverse musical identity into a raucous, breakneck vibe that’s all their own. After spending much of the last three years furiously writing and recording music, this Dallas-Fort Worth six-piece is back with The Vandoliers, a new album that proves these rowdy, rollicking country punks are tighter, more cohesive and more sonically compelling than ever.

Forged in the fires of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Vandoliers is the product of a time of immense growth and change for the band. Though most of the record was written in 2019, following the release of their much-acclaimed album Forever, plans changed quickly in March 2020. “It was supposed to be a quick turnaround,” frontman Joshua Fleming says. “After touring with Lucero and the Toadies, we were supposed to go into the studio to knock out an album, and head to Europe for the first time.” That didn’t happen —their tours were canceled, the band’s label folded, and what was to come next was totally up in the air.

Recorded with Grammy-winning producer Eric Delegard at Reeltime Audio in Denton, TX, The Vandoliers is an album interrupted. The band’s original two-week recording session ended abruptly in March 2020 as shutdowns began across the globe. The band didn’t get back into the studio until November, at which point they realized that, like many of the best-laid plans, their original strategy for the record had to change. “We wanted to make an album that had the same power as our live performance — a tight, big sound,” Fleming says. “Through trial and error, label closure, fatherhood, sobriety, relapse, the album grew on its own stylistically. After the hardest two years of my life, we created a collection of songs that push us as musicians, songs that reaffirmed my place as a songwriter and a faith in ourselves as a band I don’t think we had before.”

Amid all that uncertainty, Vandoliers did what they knew best: they made music. First came “Every Saturday Night,” a pandemic-era appreciation of all the rowdy, late-night shows that we all missed while stuck at home. “I thought for sure that this would be the last song I would ever write. I missed all the little things about the life I lived up until that point,” Fleming says. “I missed the smells and tastes of a smoky dive bar, the long overnight drives listening to our favorite bands.” Those thoughts clearly struck a chord with listeners, earning the song heavy rotation on the radio, especially Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country, and jumpstarting the band’s plans to head back into the studio to encapsulate their electric live shows into the album that would eventually grow into The Vandoliers.

The Vandoliers is a manifesto, both sonically and lyrically. It’s an assertion of the band’s distinct character, their sonic rebelliousness, and big, bold stage presence. They’ve got range, too, but that should be expected from a band that deftly blends mariachi horns with country-punk rhythms. On “The Lighthouse,” tender vocals pair with Travis Curry’s delicate fiddle to create a sweet cowpunk lullaby written for Fleming’s one-year-old daughter Ruby Mae, born at the height of the pandemic. And then there’s “Bless Your Drunken Heart,” a hard-driving ode to the town drunk that makes apt use of the South’s favorite passive-aggressive slight and has quickly become a favorite at the band’s live shows, and “I Hope Your Heartache’s a Hit,” a swinging, swaggering tribute to a one-night-stand written by multi-instrumentalist Cory Graves.

Taken all together, this impressive fourth album builds to what is the Vandoliers’ most cohesive effort to date without sacrificing any of the distinct identity that makes the band work as well touring alongside punkers Flogging Molly as they do opening for independent country legends the Turnpike Troubadours or Dallas rockers the Old 97s. Few bands can bring together the square toes and the steel toes quite like the Vandoliers. As its members have grown and matured, so has the sound of Vandoliers. But what remains the same, though, is the band’s core philosophy of solidarity and hope, evidenced by the motto they’ve all had tattooed on their arms: Vandoliers Forever, Forever Vandoliers.

Vandoliers are Joshua Fleming, bassist Mark Moncrieff, drummer Trey Alfaro, fiddler Travis Curry, electric guitarist Dustin Fleming, and multi-instrumentalist Cory Graves. Formed in 2015, the band released 2016’s Ameri-Kinda and 2017’s The Native on State Fair Records, and Forever (2019) on Bloodshot Records.

Joshua Ray Walker

The catalyst of Joshua Ray Walker’s new album, What Is It Even?, was sparked on the patio of the Tulsa, Oklahoma music venue and dive bar Mercury Lounge, a fitting origin story for any country record. But this is far from an ordinary country record. It was on that Tulsa patio, deep into tour, when Walker and drummer Trey Pendergrass were half joking about what their gospel jump blues version of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” would sound like, wondering “ what if the Blues Brothers covered a Whitney Houston song?”

At that point, it was still unclear how the Dallas native would follow up his trio of critically acclaimed, interconnected albums, all of which were packed tight with character-driven songs that put multiple national-tours worth of crowds on the precipice of staining their shirts with either beers or tears, depending on the song. The third of the trio, See You Next Time, led to Walker appearing on The Tonight Show and CBS Saturday Morning, brought with it performances at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and Gruene Hall in Texas, landed him on Rolling Stone’s “Best of 2021” list, and prompted SPIN to call him “one of country’s most exciting storytellers.”

Those stories about dive bar dwellers running out of last chances made listeners feel a gauntlet of emotions. What Is It Even?, a 11-track cover album consisting of songs made famous by female pop acts, produced with John Pedigo and arranged alongside his touring band of Pendergrass, bassist Billy Bones, and pedal-steel player Adam Kurtz, was born out of wanting to make people feel joy.

“I just wanted to make something that was fun,” Walker says.

While his audience had grown and he was reaching the sort of success he’d hoped would result from his first three albums, it had been a difficult few years for Walker. Coming out of COVID-19 lockdown, the country artist was dealing with the flooding of his childhood home, a duplex in East Dallas, which he had bought from his mother in order to live in and look after her. Beyond just lost memories, the flood made the house unlivable for months on end, meaning that Walker, who spent 200 days a year touring, would return home only to live in an Extended Stay America, as if he were still on the road.

Career success wasn’t an immediate conduit to happiness, as many artists have learned. Walker wanted to get in the studio and have fun and record the sort of songs that are familiar salves to millions of people. The kind of music that can cheer you up.

After having such a clear vision for what he wanted out of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” Walker and his band finally got in the studio and manifested it, an experience he compares to needing to sneeze for a month and finally getting it out. “I realized how influential female pop records and artists have been on me as a person, even more than in a creative sense,” Walker says.

To say the album zigs and zags would suggest that it even lets the listener establish a solid footing. The genres covered and Walker’s interpretations are equal parts familiar and jarring. There’s a country version of Cher’s “Believe”, a sort of grunge/country adaptation of Q Lazarus’ “Goodbye Horses”, a mostly straight version of Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares To You”, and a type of bluegrass adaptation of Beyonce’s “Halo” that builds with vocal momentum like the original.

For someone who has made waves in country music for his vocal range, from energizing yodels to astonishing falsettos, Walker admits that what was required from this covers album was the hardest he’s ever pushed himself as a vocalist in the studio. Before this album was ever even an idea, these women – with their ability to create instant ear worms with their voices – helped Walker realize his vocal gifts when he used to sing a Beyonce or Sia song in the kitchen or the shower. He did what all of us do, only, unlike most of us, he discovered he could actually hit the notes.

Indeed, the album’s version of Lizzo’s “Cuz I Love You” is a vocal showcase that was recorded after all the other songs because Walker worried he might not be able to pull it off. Rather than rapping, Walker quickly sings the verses before channeling Lizzo to belt the chorus, reaching peaks that are likely to astonish live audiences, similar to how the superstar and fellow Texan took the scene in 2019.

“I think ‘Cuz I Love You’ is about as close as you can get to a perfect pop record,” Walker says. “She’s probably the number one person I’d like to collaborate with. She’s the whole package.”

Walker attacked the vocals for Sia’s “Cheap Thrills” with similar ambition but put a slightly Merengue, Latin beat to his take, calling it a “Spaghetti Western version of the song.”

Seemingly unafraid of whether it strips him of the “standard bearer of authentic country music” label that some circles have tagged him with, Walker says What Is It Even? is a specific snapshot of some of Walker’s inspirations. In previous press cycles, Walker told reporters that it was Texas songsters like Guy Clark and Hayes Carll who inspired his writing, but he now admits that he had been only referring to songwriters in the country realm. Regina Spektor’s “Samson”, covered in the album, was actually the first song that made Walker “care about the lyrics,” as he says. “That was an important moment for me on the path to becoming a songwriter.” Recorded in one take on What Is It Even?, hearing Spektor’s lyrics come out of Walker’s mouth, accompanied by piano, an unexpected picture is painted of how a song like “Samson” might have inspired some of his most critically acclaimed past ballads like “Flash Paper” or “Voices.”

The song choices make the album feel something like an Alice In Wonderland version of your most fun-loving friend’s iPod shuffle dug out of their closet. A traditional country take on “Blue” by fellow Dallas native LeAnn Rimes and a rendition of The Cranberries’ “Linger” with Kyle Gass of Tenacious D on the recorder are both pure nineties nostalgia, in dramatically different ways.

But a powerful sort of catharsis runs through every track on What Is It Even? that raises it above a night of karaoke. In October 2021, Walker performed the national anthem at the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix, an event with a massive global audience. The performance wowed millions, but it came with an unexpected type of negative feedback: Many online commenters, mistaking Walker for a trans woman, used their keyboards to express their prejudice toward the trans community.

Walker, a cis straight man who is baby-faced with long hair, has been periodically misgendered since he was in high school, a source of confused insecurity as a youth in Texas and tension as an adult on the road, even to the point of being threatened in road stop restrooms. The aftermath of the F1 performance, especially online, was a mere snapshot of the vitriol many in the trans community are exposed to constantly.

“I was able to ignore it, which is a privilege for sure,” Walker says.

At 32 years old, Walker has recently conquered his self-consciousness over how people feel about his vaguely androgynous appearance. The album cover of this new project features Walker dressed in pink fur, a seemingly extreme hat tip to the way his wardrobe on the covers of the previous three albums became increasingly flashy with each subsequent album. The title What Is It Even? was a question lifted from the comments section of his F1 performance on Youtube.

“It became kind of a thesis of the record.”

Rather than attempting to speak for or represent a community he can’t claim, What Is It Even? is something of a broad endorsement for personal liberation from judgment. A call to be who you feel you are. It happens to be couched in a reimagining of some of the catchiest and most beloved songs of the past 30 years.