Artist Info

MIDLAND
STAGES
“That was me, a jaw like steel, a heart like stone

Leather tough to the bone and always gone

Born to run to anywhere than where I was

I’d leave it all in the dust, just like us…”
— “Marlboro Man”

It would take a Country Music Hall of Fame songwriter like Dean Dillon with classic country stalwarts Josh Thompson and Tim Nichols to capture the essence of Midland, the hard touring progressive country band who embody all that North Hollywood’s Palomino Club, Texas’ holy trinity of New Braunfels’ Gruene Hall, Pasadena’s Gilley’s and Austin’s Broken Spoke contain. Footloose, free, chasing adventure, working hard, drinking harder and always riding into the sunset or sunrise, the Grammy-nominated purveyors of beer joint music understand the forces that drive the authentic cattlemen, landmen, line workers, farmers and hell raisers who make the genre so viscerally alive.

For lead singer Mark Wystrach, bassist/vocalist Cameron Duddy and  guitarist/vocalist Jess Carson – all fine writers in their own right – music isn’t a pose or a means to an end, but a way of living, a state of mind and most importantly, the reason for always refining their throwback modernism. Whether the billion streaming, No. 1 “Drinkin’ Problem,” the wildly conceptual The Last Resort: Greetings From, soundtrack/origin story The Sonic Ranch, recorded at the historic Texas studio or the rollicking Live From The Palomino, the music leads and drives Midland further into the corners of what made ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s country great.

With STAGES, out June 12^th via Blue Highway Records, Midland consolidates all the layers of a singular sound that’s been imitated, but never duplicated since “Drinkin’ Problem” established their smooth harmonies, electric twang guitars and the plaintive stain on Wystrach’s voice. From the opening “Marlboro Man,” a loping shuffle that weighs the realities of being restless with the regret from what’s left behind, and the fiddle-laced George Strait-ery of the regret-reckoning “One Day You Won’t,” to their Brooks & Dunn-evoking industrial honky tonk “Glass Half Empty,” the boys have come to pay homage, lean in and have some fun with all the tropes that country music is known for. The success of their catalog has translated seamlessly to the stage, carrying Midland everywhere from barrooms to massive festivals, including a standout set at Stagecoach in 2025 for an estimated 85,000 fans. It was one of those defining moments that set Stages in motion, as the trio reflected on the places they’ve made their stand and the journey that’s carried them there.

“We’ve gone so many places and done so many things,” says Duddy, “I think we got to that place in the road where we wanted to pull it all together. The title is really a tribute to all the places where we’ve made our stand, but it’s also about all the phases and stages we’ve been through to get here.”

“And the more you dig into country’s roots,” adds Wystrach, “the more there is to work with. We’ve always had real respect for the original Texas and California country, so this album lets us pull all that through the songs we’ve written and found to really focus on what matters to us.”

Produced by Trent Willmon, the man behind Cody Johnson’s resounding and award-winning country success, there’s a fluidity to these ten songs that belies the Texas producer and songwriter’s own sense of how to walk the line between Red Dirt, Lone Star and Music City aesthetics.

Recorded in Nashville, with supplemental playing from five-time CMA Musician of the Year Jenee Fleenor, Midland delivers a sinewy collection of songs laced with fiddle and soaked in the kind of pedal steel that gets buckles polished and dancefloors full. Longing in places, back-beat forward in others, these are songs to drown in your beer or howl at the moon to.

Carson agrees, “We’ve been in a pick-up, then a van and finally a bus. We set out to find ourselves and ended up in constant motion. Always becoming, never quite arriving, it’s been the music that’s carried us across ten years of seeking what takes country music so far beyond the city limits to places nothing else gets you to.”

Whether a barnstorming take on the SteelDrivers (and Gary Allan’s) “Drinkin’ Dark Whiskey,” written by Chris Stapleton and Mike Henderson, the luxurious, moment-before-everything-changes duet with Mackenzie Carpenter “I Wish You Would” and the name’n’location-checking reel “Up In Texas,” which cites Lonesone Dove, Jerry Jones, Billy Bob’s, Billy Graham, Lucchese boots, Shiner Bock beers, Sam Houston, Davy Crockett and Willie Nelson, Midland inhabits these songs with a native ease.

Indeed, “Texas,” twin fiddles forward, delivers a comprehensive homage to the Lone Star State, one that enlists no less than Killin’ Time icon Clint Black for the second verse and bridge.

That veneration takes a more serious turn on the closing “Vaquero,” equal parts high plains requiem and elegy for a cowboy whose world is gone. Drawing on those sweeping New Mexico/Arizona vistas, the seriousness takes on “Pancho & Lefty”’s benedictive resonance.

And tequila ain’t helping, whiskey just hurts
But it was one helluva a friend when it worked
Praying ain’t saving, wishing ain’t changing
A damn thing, it’s just making it worse…

“Drunk Enough”

Beyond the cliches, there are stages. The living and learning that saturates dignity with knowing. Never ones to tell people how to live, who to love or when to leave, Midland savors the flashfloods of emotion, high and dry wash-outs and head-splitting morning afters more than some notion of happily ever after. Sometimes it’s the extremes: whether good-timing of Carson Chamberlain/Wyatt McCubbin/Michael White’s shrug it off party-chasing “Walk A Mile” or the sorrow drowning “Shooting Memories With Tequila,” Midland nails the moment and the feeling.

“The more you play, the further you can go,” says Duddy, also an accomplished director helming the forthcoming film “Cowboy,” which follows a traveling rodeo and the group of entertainers within it as they deal with the harsh realities of their chosen careers. In the film, Midland’s Mark Wystrach portrays Buck and stars alongside Ben Foster (“Hell or High Water”), Rudy Pankow (“Outer Banks”) and Gabriel Basso (“The Night Agent”). It marks Wystrach’s latest acting role since his performances on Prime Video’s breakout drama “The Runarounds” and the critically acclaimed 2021film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.”

Duddy continues, “You know where the lines are, you’re not afraid of what can happen. Again, it’s what makes country great: you can take it to the limit, soak in it and not look back. It’s the thing that makes us feel so alive.”

“From the first time we sang together,” Wystrach recalls, “we had the same influences, the same sense of what mattered. That’s never wavered, only gotten stronger – and you can hear it on these songs.”

Carson agrees, “Nashville, Texas, California, everywhere in between, it’s in these songs. The road dust, sweat, music listened to, it all seeps into who we are and what we do. It’s an adventure and a wild ride, but it’s always the fuel we take into the studio.”

Which is what makes Stages such a high-test affair. All the stages of seeking their place have brought Midland to this point. To know it’s earned, not plastic injection molded, all you have to do is listen.