It’s Outlaw Music—a lonesome train-whistle in the mysterious midnight or the hungry yelp of a wandering coyote. It’s sittin’ on the porch with your boots up on the rail, watching the sky turn red as the sun sets behind the dark, lonesome pines. Slithering swamp music, like some impossibly big reptile crawled out of the muck and sat on your head. Revved-up country—limited only by the highest number on the amplifier’s volume knob. Come for the rocking music, stay for the stories: there are ghosts here—sometimes a whole town full of ‘em. Pick-up trucks race trains and dodge possums at 3 a.m. for no good reason. Couples flee the Northwest for the flatlands of Texas in the hopes of saving their tempestuous, ill-fated relationships. Rodeo Clowns contemplate the meaning of life and love while staring drunken and bleary-eyed into the snorting, horned face of their own mortality. There are strange lights in the sky; little gray men; mutilated livestock. God and Satan make appearances—but, more importantly, so do Johnny, June, Waylon and Hank Williams. Misunderstandings sometimes lead to violent confrontation but could just as easily result in leaving the bar with some girl on your arm, even if you’re not sure of her name. And remember, even if Heaven is in your backyard, Hell’s always only a heartbreak away.

There is dirt and blood in the hard and calloused furrows of Rodeo Kill’s collective palm. The bodies of those who couldn’t survive lie behind them, vultures casting an indifferent eye on their unpicked bones. It’s hard work blazing new trails across uncharted territory…