The Evolution of Tyler Childers THE BITTER SOUTHERNER – The Bitter Southerner

Even when in Nashville for business, Childers sometimes looks like he is ready to go walk the land at his farm. Work boots, Wrangler jeans, and a feed store cap. Some country stars pay stylists lots of money to dress them similarly, but they cant quite pull off the look; they dont know how to move realistically in clothes made for climbing hills and slipping between strands of barbed wire. But Childers has been doing such all of his life. One morning when we go to a coffee shop in Nashville for breakfast, he is wearing a sharply cut linen jacket, a crisp button-down, chinos, and a pair of brown leather Sabahs. Somehow he pulls off wearing these Turkish espadrilles, too, mostly because he seems comfortable in his own skin. There is no pretense about Childers. He is not easily defined.

Nor is the sound of his new album, Rustin in the Rain, which was released September 8. The title track of the seven-song record includes barn-burners that allow Childers incredibly tight band, The Food Stamps, plenty of room to show off their talents, as well as precise ballads that let Childers use his full vocal range, including on the lead single, In Your Love. After a euphonious piano intro, the song opens with Childers at the top of his vocal game, singing about a cosmic love before the song continues with a ghostly synthesizer effect. By the time he sings Honey, I will stand my ground, the listener is hooked on this extraordinary ballad that is bound to become a wedding staple.

I first heard the song on a long drive with Childers as we ambled over the glowing green Kentucky hills on an afternoon in early spring. We had been friends for a couple years but mutual admirers of each others work before that. He read my first novel, Clays Quilt, when he was in high school and has said it helped him better appreciate his heritage; hed later write an introduction for a reissue of the book. I have loved his music since the very beginning of his career. His wife, singer-songwriter Senora May, was one of my students at Berea College and used to bring me CDs shed burn of him picking and singing at home.

To me, In Your Love announced a fuller, richer sound. I knew right away the song would take his career in a whole new direction, but I was stunned when he asked me if Id be interested in writing a treatment for the video. Childers had only three suggestions: that Casey Campbell, an actor and musician who has appeared in all of his videos, show up in some way; that there be a scene that includes a mule; and, best of all, that it would be a gay love story. Childers has always been as close as brothers with a cousin who is gay, and he told me that he wanted his cousin to be able to see himself in a country music video.

I collaborated with my husband, Jason Kyle Howard, on the story of two coal miners who not only fall in love but also leave the toxic masculinity and industrial confines of the mines to live out an agrarian existence where they can control their own lives. I also wrote the treatment and served as the creative director on the shoot, orchestrated by director Bryan Schlam and starring Colton Haynes and James Scully, two gay actors who brought tremendous chemistry to the roles.

The video struck a nerve, racking up more than 1 million views in the first day. (As of this writing, it has more than 7.8 million global views.) The song has amassed 30 million combined streams across all platforms globally andbecame the highest-charting single of Childers career.

Childers knew he was making a statement, but most importantly, he wanted to make a piece of art.

More:

The Evolution of Tyler Childers THE BITTER SOUTHERNER - The Bitter Southerner