Singer/songwriter Koe Wetzel joined Audacy’s Rob + Holly last week, helping to host the show while recapping his incredible year and giving us a look behind his hit with Jessie Murph, "High Road."
Currently on his world tour overseas, Koe admits that lately every day has been feeling like a Friday. “Especially this year,” he says, “it was kind of wake up… ‘where we at? What time do we go on? What time is meet and great?’ Alright, same s***? OK, let's go!’ Everything was repetitive and ‘where are we at today, or where were we yesterday?’”
“We're glad to be here,” Koe adds. “We're thankful for everything we got, and so it's just kind of like, ‘Hey, let's live it up while we got it, and I don't know, man, just have a lot of fun."
Getting his first opportunity to perform at Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks, Koe explains, “was everything I thought it would be, plus a little bit. You know, everybody hears about Red Rocks… it's kind of a top venue for everybody, and I always told myself that I'd never go until we actually played it. So, that was my first time ever being there, you know, spending the whole day there and just kind of taking it all in was insane. The venue, the hospitality, the fans… Everything about it was kind of overwhelming though, you kind of look back on it the next day with a headache and it's kind of like, ‘Wow, that happened…’ We had a great time. It was definitely one of the highlights of the tour.”
“The whole time I was kind of taking it in, even on stage,” he remembers. “I was kind of like just looking up the whole time and I was like, ‘Well, if we ever get to play it again, then I'll get to rock out a little more, and hammer down a little more,' but this whole time it was just kind of… It's wild, man. The venue is, it's special. It's got its own aura to it, man, and it kind of hits you in the mouth as soon as those lights go up.”
As a music fan himself, Koe named a few artists he would certainly pick up tickets to see perform there as well, like Sierra Ferrell, Red Clay Strays, and Zach Top… his top three at the moment, who each have their own special corners carved out in Country. “I think that's the cool part of Country music and where it sits right now,” he says, “because the genre has grown so big, but everything's so unique. Everybody's doing their own stuff, but at the same time it's still being considered Country. Obviously, you're gonna have those people go, ‘Oh, that's not f***ing Country,’ but I mean if you look at it under the umbrella, it's just the way that the genre has grown, everybody's doing their own thing. It's still somewhat Country and so it's really cool.”
As far as the detractors go, he chalks it up as “everybody's opinionated, and I don't think any of them graduated from what's f***ing Country and what's not school. It's like, who are you to tell me what I am? Unless, you know, you go out and say I'm one of the greatest at this Country s*** or whatever it is, and I don't think they have any kind of right to judge who you are.”
Looking back, Koe believes he has “1 million percent” been the bad influence friend, but these days he admits, “It's just the little things, you know, I'm getting older. I'm kind of seeing this in a broader view… You know, we're not in little dive bars anymore and getting in fights outside of clubs and going to jail as much, so this thing is a whole lot bigger than I am, and I think kind of stepping back and looking at it that way, it's helped me out a lot. We're just glad to be part of the party.”
Touching on the backstory behind his hit “High Road” with Jessie Murph, Koe gives us details on the where, why, and what he was drinking when the song was penned.
“Where was I? I was in Nashville at RCA Studio, Studio A," he remembers. "What was I drinking? I was drinking Casamigos and High Noons. Oh no, wait, Casamigos and Busch Light. And what was I thinking? I was thinking back on ...
