The Wilder Blue and Silverada
Artist and Venue Presales: 9/10 at 10am
Public on Sale: 9/12 at 10am
The Wilder Blue
“There is music. And then there is The Wilder Blue, who feel so transcendent, they’re in a category all of their own.” —Saving Country Music
The Wilder Blue began in 2019 when Zane Williams, already a seasoned troubadour with seven solo albums under his belt, pulled together a select group of multi-talented musicians from the Texas music scene. Their debut album Hill Country (2020) and its follow-up The Wilder Blue (2022) garnered comparisons to early Eagles and 80’s-era Alabama by interweaving five-part harmonies with bluegrassy arrangements of folk-rock and country songs.
For their newest release Super Natural in the fall of 2023, the band enlisted Grammy nominated Brent Cobb to produce the album and perform on the title track, a song he and the band co-wrote in the studio. Brent’s groovy, vintage sensibilities proved a natural fit for a band with influences as diverse as Little Feat, Del McCoury, and Robert Earl Keen. A cover of the Eagle’s classic “Seven Bridges Road” also features band admirer Luke Combs, who has added The Wilder Blue to his 2025 stadium tour lineup.
Twenty years before he was fronting a break-out band, Zane Williams was a solo coffeehouse performer and aspiring songwriter in Nashville. After moving back to his native Texas in 2008 he eventually became a dancehall staple and respected songwriter with cuts by the likes of Pat Green, Kevin Fowler, and Cody Johnson. To the surprise of his fans (and the bemusement of his booking agent), Zane announced the formation of the new group in 2019 by soliciting band names from his fans and promising lifetime free tickets to anyone whose suggestion was picked. (The winning name “Hill Country” had to be changed just after the release of their first album due to a trademark conflict, but the winner is still on the guest list for life!)
Multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter Andy Rogers was the only member of Zane’s former band to join the new group. Born and raised in Lebanon, TN, Rogers learned bluegrass chops from an early age and excelled on bass, banjo, dobro, guitar, and just about anything with strings. Rogers moved to Denton, TX in 2004 to study jazz bass at the University of North Texas and made a long-term home in the eclectic arts community he found there. Playing in a series of rock and country gigs eventually led him to join the Zane Williams band on bass and vocals in 2016.
Looking over the Texas music scene for likely bandmates, Williams sent a text to a singersongwriter and lead guitar player whose voice had caught his ear a few years before on local radio. Paul Eason was ensconced at the time in a comfortable guitar gig with Texas staple Kevin Fowler but was immediately intrigued by the notion of joining forces. Originally from Houston, TX but living at the time in San Antonio, Eason fronted various bands beginning in his teens and released two solo albums in the early 2000’s before joining the Fowler band full time. A third solo album followed in 2016, which showcased his distinctive lead vocals, southwestern aesthetics, and impeccable guitar playing.
Eason, in turn, vividly recalled meeting a singing drummer named Lyndon Hughes who had been with the Roger Creager band. Eason and Williams paid a visit to the studio in the Woodlands, TX where Hughes was working as an engineer, producer, drummer, and vocalist. Singing together that day on a new song Williams had written called “Dixie Darlin’,” the three realized they were onto something special. Hughes, a Houston native, brought a wide range of skills to the new band. His effortless harmony vocals, his versatile drumming, and his ears as an engineer and producer would end up having an major affect on the shaping the sound of the band.
After an experimental jam session and some casual demo recordings in 2019, the four existing members agreed that Rogers would be best utilized playing primarily banjo and dobro which meant the search was on for a permanent bass player to round out the band. After several months of searching and two dead ends, the band reluctantly decided to begin recording its first album without a dedicated bass player. With the first gig only a few months away, the pressure was building to find someone—-anyone?—-who could fill the role. Which is when the perfect person happened to come along.
Only in his mid-20s, Sean Rodriguez was already both a road dog and a fixture in the live music scene of Austin, TX. Originally from Corpus Christi, TX Rodriguez grew up playing everything from funk to rock to conjunto to country. It’s a diversity reflected in his flamboyant dress and vintage playing style, delivered on stage with a boot-scootin’ joie-de-vivre that quickly earned him the nickname “The Boogie Man”. The four existing band members asked Rodriguez to join them in the studio and play on the final two songs as a trial run. Shortly after he arrived, the five members of the Wilder Blue first gathered around to sing something together in the lobby of the studio. “Let’s try “Seven Bridges Road”, someone suggested. The blend was magic, and the chill bumps on their arms are the same ones fans are now feeling at venues all across the nation.
Silverada
Mike Harmeier was still in his early 20s when he formed the band now known as Silverada. From the start, they were the definition of a workingman's country band, cutting their teeth with five-hour sets on Austin's dancehall circuit before spreading their music to the rest of America. By the early 2020s, they'd become global ambassadors of homegrown Texas music, flying their flag everywhere from Abbey Road Studios (where they recorded 2019's Cheap Silver & Solid Country Gold with help from the London Symphony Orchestra) to the Grand Ole Opry.
The band's newest self-titled album, 'Silverada', marks a new chapter in the band's history. It's not just the title of the boldest release of the group's critically-acclaimed career; it's also the name of the reinvigorated band itself. "Back in the day, all we wanted to do was play the Broken Spoke," says Harmeier, nodding to the hometown honky-tonk in Austin, TX, where Silverada began sowing the seeds for a sound that mixed timeless twang with modern-day dynamics. "We had different aspirations back then. We were still figuring out what kind of band we were gonna be, and that took a lot of time and a lot of records."
A lot of records, indeed. Silverada marks the group's ninth release, and it balances the strengths they've accumulated along the way - sharp, detailed songwriting that bounces between autobiographical sketches and character studies; gorgeous swells of pedal steel that drift through the songs like weather; a rhythm section capable of country shuffles, hard-charging rock & roll tempos, and everything in between - with a willingness to break old rules and open new doors. "Radio Wave" is a roots-rock anthem for the highway and the heartland, peppered with Springsteen-worthy hooks and War On Drugs-inspired atmospherics. "Eagle Rare" launches the band into outer space during its explosive middle section, which the band improvised in the recording studio. "Stay By My Side" showcases Silverada's road-warrior credentials - the band recorded the track live during a tour across the American Southeast, capturing it in a single take at Capricorn Sound Studios in Macon, Georgia - while "Wallflower" blends the organic with the otherworldly, finding room for harmonized guitar solos, driving disco beats, and 808 percussion.
"Going into the studio, everybody in the band felt inspired to do something bigger than what they'd done before," Harmeier explains. "We all knew we were at a precipice, and we wanted to jump. I brought in some songs that were metaphorical and not always straightforward, and that showed the guys that I wanted to take this music somewhere new... so they threw their own rule books out the window, too."
Harmeier wrote the bulk of Silverada in his backyard studio, surrounded by dozens of books he'd picked up at a local Goodwill. “We'd been on tour for so long, playing the same set for almost two years, and I wanted to write something that was a departure," he remembers. Jeff Tweedy's books on songwriting were a big help, but Harmeier pushed himself to get weird, too, finding inspiration in everything from astronomy texts to sci-fi novels. "I would read some, work a little bit, read some more, and work a little more," he says of the creative process. "I spent a full month in that studio, going there every night, making word ladders and highlighting lines and learning to free write." Recorded at Yellow Dog Studios with longtime producer/collaborator Adam Odor, Silverada propels the band forward without losing sight of their roots. "Stubborn Son" - a loving, unsparing sketch of the family patriarch who set Harmeier's creativity in motion - unfolds like a close cousin to Steak Night at the Prairie Rose's title track, laced with fiddle solos from longtime George Strait collaborator Gene Elders. "Doing It Right" channels the same throwback, slow-dance ambiance that informed 2019's "You Look Good in Neon." "Load Out," which chronicles the grind of blue-collar jobs both on and off the road, could've found a home on 2021's One To Grow On.
There's a smart sense of history here - a celebration not only of where the band is headed, where they've been, too. Even so, Silverada doesn't spend much time looking in the rearview mirror. Instead, it keeps its gaze focused on the road ahead. This is a snapshot of a band in motion, chasing down the next horizon, writing the soundtrack to some new discovery. It's the sound of alchemy, of some new metal being forged. And like silver itself, Silverada shines brightly.
"We spent the first part of our career figuring out who we are and what we're good at,” says Harmeier. "Now we want to evolve not only the sound of the band, but the dynamic of the live show, too. Silverada is us setting the stage for the next leg of the journey."
