Moonshine Bandits: Music For The Working Man's Soul

Bear Frazer from Arena recently published an interview he conducted with the Moonshine Bandits. In this article Moonshine Bandits discussed their upcoming album "Blacked Out", being underdog, Nashville, music videos and much more. Moonshine Bandits are currently promoting their upcoming new album “Blacked Out,” which is scheduled to be released next Friday, July 17th. You can read the full interview below.

Moonshine Bandits are looking to unite every artist within the country-rap genre, as well as the hard working fans who adore the culture.Just a year and a half after the release of their fifth studio LP, , the Central Valley's favorite lyrical duo (comprised of Bird and Tex) will drop their latest full-length, Blacked Out, on July 17th via Average Joes Entertainment. Fueled by the leadoff single, the Crucifix-assisted "Lady Luck," and highlighted by the massive eight minute collaboration, "Outback (Extended)" featuring a who's who of country-rap's finest, Blacked Out is a 15-song collection driven with the intention of being the soundtrack to a blue-collar worker's life. As Tex says, "It's an album you can play if you're tailgating at your kid's football game or if you're just riding your Harley down the highway. It's something you can crank up." Or, in this case, it's an album heads can learn more about. In this Arena exclusive, Tex talks in-depth about Blacked Out. He also discusses his frustration with radio, working with Nashville songwriters for the first time and still feeling like an underdog. Arena: Let's just start this interview off with the toughest question of all. I got the advance to, listened to "Good Times" and was curious as to who is the better uncle? Uncle Jack, Uncle Jim or Uncle Johnny? Tex: (Laughs) Ah. Well, if you're talking music, I'm going to go with Johnny. If you're talking whiskey, I'm going to go with Jack. Arena: No love for Jim, huh? Tex: You know what? Bird is a Jim Beam fan and I've never been a Jim Beam fan. I don't know. I'm just not a fan of the old Jim Beam. (Laughs) Great question though. Arena: Great lyric. Tex: Yeah, thanks man. It's pretty much how it is, just sitting in the back of my parent's house. The more we drink, the more we feel like we can solve everybody's problems. Arena: Isn't that called liquid courage? Tex: Yeah, pretty much. If we're not solving other people's problems, we're creating our own. Arena: Recently, you dropped a video for "Lady Luck" and "Pass The Ammo," and lyric videos for the likes of "Lasso," but you just shot a video for "Outback (Extended Version)" featuring Durwood Black, Redneck Souljers, D.Thrash, Demun Jones, Bubba Sparxx, Lenny Cooper, Jeff McCool and The Lacs. Basically, it features half of America. Anyways, tell me about this clip because you kept it pretty hush hush. Tex: Yeah, it's kind of been hush hush, and it all came about really quick because it's got a lot of people on it. It's an eight minute song. It's got Bubba, it's got The Lacs, it's got Lenny Coper, pretty much everyone in the genre. I think it's going to be a monumental song for everyone in this genre because it has everybody from all these different markets and everybody has their own fanbases. Just coordinating everybody's schedule form the video shoot is pretty bad ass. Arena: I know The Lacs represent the lovely city of Baxley, Georgia, Demun Jones is somewhere on his father-in-law's property playing Bigfoot, and Colt commutes quite often from Georgia and Tennessee, and that's not even counting everyone's hectic tour schedules because y'all are always on the road. What was it like even recording this song? Tex: It's crazy, man. It's just started off with a couple of guys on the song and basically, it had to be done all through email because everybody is everywhere. We just reached out to [everyone]. A couple of guys were too busy and couldn't make it happen, which is very common as far as recording schedules go, so a couple of guys we weren't able to get on it. But, pretty much, everyone we sent it out to was like, "Hell yeah, I want to be a part of it." It feels good. Nobody on this song doesn't not have a legit fanbase. But yeah, it was all done on email and we compiled it into an eight minute song, and we were like, "This is pretty bad ass." The video shoot, that just came about recently. The record label made all the scheduling happen because, logistically, it's kind of a nightmare to get everybody out there at one spot, so it happened really fast. Arena: Just listening to this album, you can tell a bit of a difference between this and the last album, , whereas that record focused a bit more on your Cali lifestyle and showed another side of the state not normally portrayed by the mainstream media, and this one, is more of a working man's album. Tex: Yeah, no doubt. We actually had that in mind when we were doing this album before we even went in and started writing. We were like, "Let's do an album that's basically a soundtrack for our fans' lives and the people who work their ass off during the week. They want to crank the music up if they have a shitty job or work day, so let's make this is their soundtrack." That is what we set out to do and it pretty much end up being that way. We feel like this is our best album we've ever done. Arena: So what was the song that got everything started? What was the approach? Tex: Well, we took a different approach with this album. We actually went to Nashville before we started recording and we just wanted to get the whole "Nashville" vibe of writing with writers to see if we liked it or if we fit into that type of model. We weren't going to compromise our sound or what we're about, but we wanted to get that feel to see what it's like. We started off writing with guys out there who are pretty big songwriters. Some of the [original] themes stuck with the album and some didn't, but we worked with Ira Dean from Trick Pony and Ira has been around forever. He wrote some huge hits. He lived with Johnny Cash for part of his life, and just being around guys like Ira and hearing stories about music or being on the road, that kind of inspired us. We wrote that song, "I Earned It," together, which is pretty much a working man's anthem. It kind of went from there into other songs, and the theme came to life towards the end. Arena: Were there any reservations with other songwriters? Because you worked with quite a few from Nashville, as you previously mentioned … Tex: We went over there and probably wrote about six concepts, and maybe only used two. I think the only two that made it were the Ira Dean tracks we worked with him, but I think it was more or less us just going over there to see if we could fit into something. Of course we had the reservation of, "Man, our style is so different than sitting down and writing a country song." We never really ever went through that whole process where you write with writers and we wanted to see [how it worked for us]. It worked with some stuff and it didn't work with other stuff, and then after we left Nashville, we went to Oregon and sat in the studio. We never had the opportunity to sit in the studio for a week and just sleep in the studio, work with our producer, lock the doors, turn the cell phones off and get into the vibe. That's where the album came to life. We did the recording and finished writing the other songs in a week. Arena: But now, looking back and having these experiences, do you feel Moonshine Bandits fit into the Nashville and Salem, Oregon scenes? Tex: Man, I don't know where we fit in. We're all over the map and I don't know if we fit into either one. We've always kind of done our own thing and it's been like that since day one. I just don't think we like to get stuck in one little box and not have our feelers out in all these other avenues, so it's hard to say where we fit in. I don't know if there is a spot up for us left (laughs). Arena: Well you two, Colt, The Lacs and Big Smo have to be opening whatever box you're in a little bit more though, right? Tex: Aw man. I mean, it's crazy to see guys like us, The Lacs, Colt and Smo, all top Billboard sellers on the charts, but not now country radio. I mean, Colt is a little bit on radio, but nothing like these other [country music artists] are spending to be on radio. Shit dude, we're on the top of the food chain on some of these Billboard charts when the album comes out, and it's pretty amazing considering we're not on TV or getting that type of exposure. Arena: and he is still frustrated that he isn't on radio as much as he'd like to be. Tex: Well, I don't blame him. Those songs he has with [Jason] Aldean and Jake Owen ("Drive Around Song" and "Back," respectively), those are hits. Those are two songs that are better than anything on the radio. It's not like he don't got the fanbase. It's there. People want to hear it on radio. Whether it will happen or not, that's the million dollar question. Arena: Like you just mentioned, Moonshine Bandits have performed extremely high on the Billboard charts. But do you two still feel like the underdog? Tex: We do. I mean, it's just been a road we came through, what we've been through as a group. I can remember it like it was yesterday when we were at Kinkos printing CD covers, making our own copies and selling them out of our truck. We grinded for so long where it's like, we always had a finish line, but we ran through that finish line and we'd set another goal, and run through another finish line. But we're not to where we want to be yet. So yeah, I still consider us an underdog because you're still not hearing my stuff on radio 24-7 and you're not seeing me on TV. I'm not bitter about that, but yeah, we have more work to do. We're still going to grind it out and do 150 shows a year so we can reach those people because that's just how we do it. Until I see my fat face everywhere, I'm not happy. Arena: You should create a magnet so you're always in people's faces. Tex: (Laughs) A magnet or a bobblehead. We thought about the bobblehead before. That's funny.