Brady Heck Is Rollin’.
Let's just say it. It seems like today's Country Music and certainly Americana in the late stages of its current run can look and sound a little like costume play.
Watch a few seasons of Yellowstone. Get yerself a hat (a cattleman’s crease with a mule kick brim). Get yerself an accent. Get yerself a Tele or a Gibson Hummingbird. Hit the vintage clothing stores and get on Instagram.
Yet there are some artists out there that live this shit. That grew up this way. Whose parents, aunts and uncles fed them the real thing like mother's milk from the time they could understand the language. Hell, it is their language.
These folks are the real deal. You can spot them a mile away. They don't really know how to do anything else but the real thing. And they stand head and shoulders above the pretenders.
Brady Heck is one of those guys. Although he probably thinks it's silly, they call him Richmond's King of Country. Listen to anything he does and you'll hear why.
Everything from this guy's writing to the voice that's as creamy and easy as the head on a Miller High Life, from his stage presence to the off-stage pursuits and the projects he fronts all scream “real”.
If you saw him sitting on Waylon's porch shooting the shit with Jerry Jeff on the radio that night when George Jones drove his Caddy blind drunk up Waylon's drive, tearing up the lawn, in need subduement and tyin' to a tree, you would not bat a fucking eye.
Old Hank caught up with Brady at The Virginia Day Party at AMERICANAFEST in Nashville and sat down to shoot the shit in the above vid. Like most of these interviews, we start talkin’ music but quickly spiral into life's other joys—In this case 70's country culture, vintage Harley's and the CB radio’s old school place in the social media ecosystem.
We caught his solo turn that day at the 5 Spot in Nashville and his side project the Highwater at Durty Nelly's in October. Then we caught his country rock outfit Holy Roller at the Southern a week ago where he, Rebekah and the boys more than set up Will Overman on the final night of his Stranger tour.
This Fall, songs from all three of these projects have been the soundtrack for my favorite time of year--whitetail season at my favorite place in the world (except my dear Maggie's arms) Buck Naked Hunt Camp.
And Friday, we got a real treat. Brady released two new songs as part of his solo project on Spotify, How to Make the Good Ones Hurt (with the wonderful Mavi Taylor) and Used To.
They join Ain't it Cruel, Grey Fox, Watermelon Seltzer, For Sarah, Half a Mind and Saddle Blanket as a body of work that absolutely drips real, down-low, vintage Country Music cred.
Unlike so much of what's out there these days, the trucks have actually hauled something. There's sweat stains on the cowboy hat. The cuttin’ blades are sharp as shit and should not to be fucked with under any circumstance. The dogs hunt. The beer isn’t over-hopped and the motorcycles are American. The hurtin' really hurts. The laughin' is from the belly and sometimes accompanied by an unacknowledged tear.
Keep givin' em the beans Brady Heck.
And y'all get your asses to Spotify and check this shit out right now! And Happy Thanksgiving!
