The Wild Feathers

A decade plus into their career now, The Wild Feathers over the course of four studio albums, a rarities release, and a live album, have been labeled everything. Some have immediately checked a box for Americana – and they wouldn’t be wrong. Others may lean on a version of rock: Country-rock, folk-rock, heartland rock. They’d all be right, too. Blues? A Southern flare? Occasional punk attitude? It’s all in there.

But as a band who are constantly committed to pushing forward, no label put on The Wild Feathers truly sticks around for long.

The longtime Nashville band returns this year with Sirens, a new LP of road-worn, sharply-woven tales chronicling a life worth living, love worth holding and the hard-earned lessons found along the ride. For the band, it’s the album they’ve been building towards making for years. A true statement piece.

“I love being part of a band that is always growing and evolving,” said co-founding Wild Feathers member Ricky Young. “We want to keep challenging ourselves to make new music while always continuing to grow and be challenged. For us, this is the best version of what we’ve always done.”

He continued “We’re not the band we were 10 years ago. We’re much better writers now. Much better performers. We’re much better people. We’ve grown a lot.”

To cut the follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2021 album Alvarado – the band’s debut for New West Records – the band decamped from Music City, U.S.A., to Los Angeles for sessions with producer Shooter Jennings (known for his work with Brandi Carlile, Turnpike Troubadours and Tanya Tucker, among others) at Dave’s Room in North Hollywood.

Members Ricky Young, Joel King, Taylor Burns, Ben Dumas, Brett Moore – entered the studio with about 30 rough draft song ideas that ultimately became Sirens. But unlike previous sessions where Young, King and company underwent a detailed pre-production and demoing process, they brought a largely blank slate to Dave’s Room.

The goal? To approach the album with a fresh perspective that pushes beyond simply recreating a handful of demos cut in Nashville, some 2,000 miles east of the studio.

“We’re like, if Shooter’s producing this, we’re gonna give him something to do,” King said with a laugh. Young added, “You’re excited because you don’t have expectations but you’re nervous because you don’t know what to expect.”

Wild Feathers were originally formed in 2010 by Young, King, and Burns. Sirens plays like a time-tested, harmonized culmination formed out of years on the road for the group – a collection built from sharing stages with legends such as Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, cutting a live album inside the storied Ryman Auditorium and playing sought-after slots on some of the biggest festival stages, including the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, Austin City Limits Festival and Americana Fest, to name just a few. For tenured listeners – fans who likely jumped aboard for the band’s ability to blend country storytelling with rock ‘n’ roll showmanship – Sirens feels like the evolution from the songs that helped build the Wild Feathers’ career – including 2013’s adult-alt radio hit “The Ceiling” and 2021’s rip-roaring “Ain’t Looking.”

And for Jennings – who first met the band about two decades ago – being in the studio with The Wild Feathers meant scoring a front-row seat to music-making with “a collective of truly deep soulful musicians and writers who have come together and stayed together over the years,” he said.

He continued, “It was my pleasure to produce their newest music. The songs they put together for this record were so fun to work on and getting to really know their musicianship was a blast. I’m proud to be a part of the story of The Wild Feathers now.”

Out of the so-called blank slate, The Wild Feathers built a sprawling album – named in-part after the mythological Greek creatures with an alluring voice. On Sirens, the band channels heartland rock excellence, like on opening number “Stereo” or the organ-laced “Sanctuary.” The group rips into old-school guitar riffs, like rootsy jam tune “Comedown.” And the album showcases heartfelt stories tailor-made for open-road therapy with windows down and speakers blaring, like reflective number “L.A. Makes Me Sad” or richly descriptive crime tale “Sleep For Days.’

With Sirens, the band showcases abilities that individually make them among Nashville’s sought after players and songwriters. Outside of touring, writing and recording with the group, King’s resume includes cutting bass on Miranda Lambert’s 2019 album Wildcard and Lainey Wilson’s 2022 breakout effort Bell Bottom Country, both winners of the annual Best Country Album honor at the Grammy Awards. As songwriters, Young, Burns and King have worked with staple rock band The Jayhawks and collaborated on the hit network show Nashville, among other projects.

And after sweating and straining over small details on the self-produced Alvarado, the band returned to focusing on playing some of the head-turning music listeners expect from a Wild Feathers release. This includes “Pretending,” a stop-you-in-your-tracks piano ballad that’s bound to send lighters into the sky when the group hits the road in support of Sirens.

“We just wanted to write a shit load of songs, find a great producer and let go of the reins a little bit,” King said. He continued, “We were like, let’s just do it like a band.”

That freewheelin’ do-it-like-a-band spirit? It comes through on Sirens with songs like “Slow Down,” a pensive slow-burn that wouldn’t be out of place in a 1980s John Hughes flick, and “Don’t Know,” a rabble-rousing dose of surfy-punk delivered with layered gang vocals and a rolling bass line.

With their new album, heeding the Sirens call has never sounded this welcoming before.