This week, the Lyric Oxford will be energized with the bold lyrics and searing sounds of chart-topping Southern country band Whiskey Myers.
Whiskey Myers will take the stage Thursday night to perform songs from its 2016 album “Mud,” along with other older, popular tracks.
According to its website, Whiskey Myers aims to portray “raw, visceral emotion” in its gritty, soulful music. Playboy Magazine described Whiskey Myers as “the new bad boys of country music.”
Whiskey Myers originated in the early 2000s in Elkhart, Texas, when roommates Cody Cannon and Cody Tate began writing songs together.
With Cannon on vocals and Tate on guitar, the roommates’ songwriting habit evolved to include members John Jeffers on guitar, Gary Brown on bass and Jeff Hogg on drums. The five members officially founded Whiskey Myers in 2008 and debuted their first single, “Lonely East Texas Nights.”
Since then, the group has produced four albums, including “Early Morning Shakes,” which hit No. 1 on the iTunes Country Music Chart.
Whiskey Myers is often labeled as country, but the band credits its sound to everything from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Led Zeppelin and Nirvana as inspiration.
The Dallas Observer called Whiskey Myers “required listening for fans of the Allman Brothers.”
“Where you come from and where you grew up influences your music a lot,” Cannon said. “As a band, we don’t go into the studio with any preconceived theme. You just sit down, and you write and the songs come out naturally.”
The tough but realistic lyrics center around issues relating to pride, faith, desire and defiance.
The album takes the listener on a journey through different times and places, with an emphasis placed on telling stories of people just living their lives.
“On the River” transports the listener back to frontier times, when every day was a fight for survival. “Frogman,” another one of the group’s top hits, follows a Southern man who risks his life to defend freedom and fight terror in the Middle East as a Navy SEAL.
According to its website, “Home is sacred ground for Whiskey Myers, not just a plot of land, but rather the cornerstone of an identity worth dying for.”
Such lyrics and strong sense of identity may have been what prompted Esquire to call Whiskey Myers “the real damn deal.”
Despite such serious lyrics, Whiskey Myers aims for its studio to be a relaxing, creative sanctuary.
“We don’t want a high-stress situation, and we don’t want to feel uncomfortable while we’re recording because we want to make sure everybody can get into their creative mode,” Brown said on the Whiskey Myers website.
The show starts at 9 p.m., but doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $15 to $20.
