“It shined a light on the music that we’ve been playing, music that we set out to play," says the Grammy-nominated trio's Mark Wystrach
It’s impossible to listen to the year’s biggest charting song, Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” without hearing shades of traditional country songs that came before it. That includes Midland’s 2017 debut single, “Drinkin’ Problem.” The band themselves tell Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now that Langley’s success helps illuminate the traditional country music they were making during a time when bro country was still king.
“‘Choosin’ Texas’ coming out might be the best thing to ever happen to Midland,” the trio’s singer Mark Wystrach says, seated next to bassist Cameron Duddy and guitarist Jess Carson. “It shined a light on the music that we’ve been playing, music that we set out to play.”
The Texas group’s new album Stages builds on the sounds they were working in on their first album On the Rocks. But Wystrach says they couldn’t have made their latest without going through certain experiences. “Stages is the album we would have made 12 years ago if we had the chops… We evolved so much as musicians.”
“And writers,” Duddy adds. “The songs that came to us [for Stages] were not there.”
“You gotta go and live life,” Wystrach says. “Get a bunch of scars, some Ws, some Ls, fuck up and course correct.”
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During their Nashville Now interview, Midland also address the authenticity attacks they weathered early in their career, and take us further inside Stages, which includes the hits “Marlboro Man” and “Shooting Memories With Tequila.” Watch the full interview below.
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s country-music podcast, Nashville Now, hosted by Deputy Editor, Head of Country Joseph Hudak, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature interviews with artists and personalities like Shania Twain, Shaboozey, Vince Gill, Lainey Wilson, Sheryl Crow, Ashley McBryde, Brothers Osborne, Maggie Rose, Hardy, Charley Crockett, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Kings of Leon, Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, the Black Crowes, Braxton Keith, Carly Pearce, Amy Grant, Luke Grimes, Brandon Lake, Breland, Bryan Andrews, Noeline Hofmann, Adam Mac, Aaron Raitiere, Devon Gilfillian, Gavin Adcock, Amanda Shires, Shooter Jennings, Margo Price, Michaela Anne, Ink, Ne-Yo, Rival Sons’ Jay Buchanan, Halestorm, Dusty Slay, Lukas Nelson, Ashley Monroe, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, Clever, Love on the Spectrum’s Tyler White, Willie Nelson scholar John Spong, and authors Marissa R. Moss, Josh Crutchmer, Mark Gray, and Jonathan Bernstein.