Whiskey Wolves of the West: The Hot Tub That Started It All

I came to Nashville for love

Well
To be truthful
I came for the drinking

I stayed for love

On my way to California
I met the love of my life
In a bar of course

A fringe leather jacket and grin that made my knees all crumbly
He was tall and good-looking
Rough
With a dark sense of humor

Nashville
At the time
Hadn’t yet sacrificed it’s secrets on the altar of progress

There was some mystery
Some skirt still to be lifted
Some bars that weren’t overrun with people asking me if my shoes were Prada

The Range Rovers and the trust funds
Hadn’t yet
Priced out the band vans and the artists and the wanderers 

Add in the broiling Tennessee summer

And you have a recipe for some serious “city disappointment” on my part

Also I have never really been a fan of Country music

Metal
Yes

Simon and Garfunkel and Steve Winwood and Genesis

Yup

I have always had mad respect for Dolly
And her hair

But after 8th grade and a small guilty addiction to the Garth Brooks hit

“The Thunder Rolls”

Country has never been my jam

So as fate would have it

The love of my life
The Father of my children
And the long haired half of the dynamic duo
That is Whiskey Wolves of the West
Is a Country singer

Well

He’s a Country Americana Southern Rock hybrid

Held together by some crazy musical mastermind type glue

After hearing him play and sing

I was sure there was no one else like him

No one that could hang

So to speak

Until he came home from a gig and told me about Tim Jones

Most people might be upset
To hear their partner say to them over dinner one night

“I met this guy at the gig…”

He went on to tell me about how he enjoyed playing and writing with him so much

How they had stayed up till the wee hours drinking drinks and singing songs

Laughing about the first time they actually met
A Hollywood hot tub party that Leroy doesn’t entirely remember

It had been “So easy!”

As he talked I could see the kind of light
We all hope to see in the faces of those we love
When they talk about what they do

After a long haul of so many solo efforts not really resonating
This was something new and exciting and seemingly meant to be

When Tim came to the house one day soon after
I was standing in the kitchen fresh off my first C-section
Scrubbing counter tops while the baby slept

They began playing one of the first songs they wrote together
‘Drifting on”

It drifted into the kitchen

Fairly quickly since that house was the size of a matchbox

I put down my scrubby sponge
Wrestled the knot in my throat
While tears rolled down my face

“Drifting on.
The setting sun.
Burning behind the blue mountain.
Praying tomorrow
Never will come.”

It was honest
Raw and real
In the same moment
Oddly hopeful and fun to play in your car

After Tim went home
I said to My Love
“That’s the guy.
You start a band with him and you make records.
Name it something ridiculous like, Whiskey Wolves of the West.”

And they did

The songs and the sound are like nothing you’ve ever heard
Though when they play
You feel like you’ve always known them

Feel good anthems alongside some soul searching

In a city that can be disenchanting
And at times
A little less than genuine

The Whiskey Wolves are the real deal

They’ve clocked the miles and lived to tell the tales
Lyrics that run deep
But not so deep you can’t still have good time

The finished product
“Country Roots”

Gave some deeper meaning and understanding of an entire music genre to a girl who used to play Pantera at Red Door
Just to piss people off

More impressively
They have done the impossible

They have made a country music fan out of your’s truly

A little goddamned authenticity with a couple shakes of “fuck you”

That will leave you asking
Not “Where have all the cowboys gone?”

But instead

“Where are the Wolves?”