Artist Glimpse: Waylon Wyatt & The New Era of Raw Country
- Andersen Beck
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
A Perhaps Necessary Preface:
Dearest blessed Readers, due to your zealous support and unwavering faith in My Vision over the last year of this accursed career path, an interesting pattern has come about in my email inbox. Every so often, at a rate of about once a month, an A&R, PR, or Marketing representative sends me an offer to "cover" whoever they represent. Usually this is just reposting a press release or doing a review of a new single or EP or something, and usually the artist in question is a corpo-slop Hollywood aspirant (emphasis on aspirant), though sometimes they are authentic artists and we just couldn't work out any collaboration. Enter Waylon Wyatt (and team).
Two or so weeks ago, a member of Waylon Wyatt's record team hit me up inviting me to his sold-out show at Mr. Small's, not even asking me to push some press release or anything. I had no clue who this guy was, but after looking into him (details that I'll get into momentarily), he seemed like a story ripe for Bloodhound's catalog. At 19 years old, Wyatt has amassed a bit over 300k followers on instagram and 3 million monthly listeners. Numbers aren't everything, but they certainly mean something. We'll talk about the significance of these details later as well.
Waylon's rep managed to get me a photo pass (we used to pray for times like this) and some tickets for the show. This will be somewhat of a different story than usual, but what the hell, I gotta ease back into the Bloodhound game after consecutive months of EXTREMELY STRENUOUS AND ARDUOUS LABOR as a managing editor for Deja. We'll begin with reporting of the events witnessed, followed by an examination of the, uh, elements of the story, I suppose. Maybe the two will fade in and out like a gradient, I shouldn't try to predict how this will flow. I know this is a change of the formula, but I hope you enjoy it all the same. Luvvv guys.
I've never seen a sold-out show at Small's; the upper level balconies make it feel like a stadium. Very prudently, I wore a thick hooded jacket in a sea of 800 people. To even get to the photo pit I had to be escorted around the building through the loading bay. On my way through the lower level of the theater, I passed by nearly a dozen people sitting around the bar and surrounded by instrument cases. They didn't appear to be part of the band, but they were sitting in a sort of ring in what appeared to be a bluegrass jam session. Fiddle and banjo and the like.
Quite unfortunately, my (fashionably) late arrival at the show caused me to miss the opener, Julia DiGrazia. I should never have familiarized myself with her discography since now the regret of missing it has doubled. However providentially, Ms. DiGrazia would return to the stage to accompany Waylon on the fiddle throughout the show. A most impressive multi-instrumentalist talent, I suggest you take a following to her.
Waylon's appearance on stage was met by the crowd with nothing less than apostolic ardor. As a city, Pittsburgh has something of an odd relationship with country music; not a poor one by any stretch, but abnormal – we'll discuss this later. People do not play about their country music.
Let's actually talk about the subject of The Story, Waylon Wyatt. Waylon hails from Arkansas, and started making music while in high school. Talk about getting your career rolling. In between songs, Waylon mentioned writing songs while working in construction. In the time since releasing his first EP in November, 2024, Waylon has collaborated with many notable artists, toured the globe alongside modern icons like Sam Barber, amassed millions of fans, and has received coverage from the highest echelons of the press (res ipsa loquitur eh?). Impressive doesn't begin to describe his come-up – meteoric does.
Though he has every right to sing his own praises, Waylon performs with a markedly humble and well-mannered air. He frequently interacts with his band on-stage and shouts them out, and he's not afraid to be open and honest when telling stories between songs. Personally, I'm a sucker for great stage presence, and Waylon's is nothing short of admirable.
When I was contacted to work on this story, I had never heard of Waylon Wyatt, but since the show and exploring his music, I can say I've grown quite fond of his work, specifically speaking, his melody constructions. His vocals seem to be of a style that's grown massively popular among Gen Z listeners – a style I simply label "Raw Country," where the singing is akin to an earnest, well-calculated howl. Examples include Tyler Childers, Zach Bryan, and most closely perfected, the aforementioned Sam Barber.
I like Sam Barber, primarily for what his success means for our generation and for country music as a whole, but music-wise I think Waylon Wyatt surpasses him ever so slightly because of his sense for melodies. The universal complaint about country is "I feel like I'm always hearing the same thing, every song is the same." A complaint lodged most commonly by the ignorant, but it rings true even in otherwise great quality Country. Chord structures, walk-ups and downs, sparse instrumentals – I wouldn't be surprised if people began thinking earnestness has become trite. I think Waylon is dismantling this idea by writing much more dynamic melodies than what we've come to expect out of Raw Country.
All things considered, Waylon (and band) delivered an amazing performance in Pittsburgh. To a sold-out show nonetheless, and to an audience of adoring fans (as opposed to the clusters of middle-aged white collar male debutantes that haunt the shows that I usually see at Smalls). He should be proud of his young and impressive career, and I'm excited to see where he'll go from here. After the show, those bluegrass players from earlier kept doing their thing long enough that people had to be kicked out and sent home. I missed country shows.
Remember what I said earlier about Pittsburgh's relationship with country music? Let's talk about that briefly here in these final waning moments of your attention span.
Pittsburgh is not Midwestern, certainly not Southern, and not really Appalachian either, and yet it can draw crowds for country music the likes of Nashville or Austin. Like I mentioned before, people do not play about their country music. Pittsburgh hauls in thousands from Ohio and West Virginia (and probably other states as well) every concert season for country acts. God help you if you're ever caught in the North Side during a big country show at PNC Park or Heinz Field.
The Silent Majority is something that looms in the back of my mind when doing the music coverage I do. I've been to a lot of shows for amazing local bands that have around a dozen people in the crowd. These bands typically play something along the lines of shoegaze, indie rock, Midwest-adjacent, whatever. You know what I mean because you're reading this publication. I think it would be fair to say their target audience is art-inclined college kids, which urban-region Pittsburgh is loaded with, and yet often times the turnouts for these shows are underwhelming. What I'm trying to say is the talent/quality-to-turnout ratio is not what it should be.
Coming from my field of study, my music environment, the Bloodhound's Territory, it's something of a culture shock to see the explosion of support for music or an artist like what I saw for Waylon Wyatt. Take from all of this what you will; there wasn't really a clear point in mind, other than that this music gig is a lot bigger/more encompassing than one on the outside may think, and it's a thought worth considering I suppose. Or maybe not. Maybe it's time to cut the line and let this bastard swim away.
Big thank you to Isabella, the Darkroom Records Rep, for getting me this story in the first place and your great communication and open dialogue! I hope you haven't come to the conclusion that it was a massive mistake to give this unhinged maniac free tickets and a photo pass to see your guy.
Thank you readers as well. Big things coming, talkin' huge. If you've made it this far, I'll give you a little teaser – biggest project I've ever taken on coming early this fall with Scrum Force. In the near future, I have more stories coming up and I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my website plan, so I might make use of new features.
Be blessed my acolytes, see you soon.
-Andersen Beck Founder, Reporter