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If you’re going to go in, you might as well go all in. The Shootouts have never been the kind of band to hold back and they’re certainly sweetening the pot with a full stack on their new album Stampede.
It wasn’t all that long ago the band were flying high in the Top 10 Americana albums chart with their last album Bullseye, released in April 2021. A new album wasn’t even on the table, but when one of country music’s most legendary artists agrees to produce your next record, you don’t say no.
That’s exactly what happened when a mutual friend introduced the band to Ray Benson – the long-time frontman and 10-time Grammy-Award-winning founder of Asleep at the Wheel – and so, just a few months after their last album came out, Northeast Ohio’s finest found themselves back at work in the studio with Benson and co-producer Sam Seifert on their third album in five years.
The bulk of Stampede was recorded at Son of Moondog Studios over a five-day period that brought Benson, Seifert and Asleep at the Wheel to Northeast Ohio to work with the Shootouts on the band’s home turf; and they weren’t the only Americana legends to get in on the fun.
‘Better Things to Do’ features Marty Stuart’s unmistakable bluegrass-tinged mandolin, while Benson and members of Asleep at the Wheel join them on the western swing-rooted ‘One Step Forward.’ Country hit songwriter Jim Lauderdale joins the band on the Bakersfield-esque ‘Tomorrow’s Knockin’ while famed guitarist, singer-songwriter, and producer Buddy Miller sings with the band on the California-country-rock number ‘Anywhere But Here.’
The special guests don’t stop there. Raul Malo of The Mavericks lends a soaring harmony vocal to the latest taste of the forthcoming album, ‘I’ll Never Need Anyone More’.
“This song was written by Michael Stanley, a legend of the Cleveland, OH music scene,” guitarist and vocalist Ryan Humbert explains. “He passed away from cancer in early 2021, and we wanted to pay tribute to the legacy he left on Northeast Ohio. You couldn’t grow up around the area without knowing who Michael Stanley was. While his original version is an uptempo rocker, I fell in love with his solo acoustic version. I knew we could put our own spin on it and that it would make a great country song.”
The result is a silky-smooth, early-80s influenced jukebox classic that mines the creamy country soul of the Urban Cowboy era with its Bellamy Brothers harmonies, and nods to the softer side of Ronnie Milsap and Johnny Lee.
“Having Raul Malo join us on this song is a really special moment for me,” says Humbert. “My mom, who passed away in 2018, was a big fan of The Mavericks. I remember her listening to the cassette single of their song ‘I Should Have Been True’ on loop when I was young. I am a lifelong Mavericks fan because of her, and that certainly had a big influence on The Shootouts. To come full circle and have Raul lend his voice to this song - and his ongoing support to the band - just means the world to me.”
‘I’ll Never Need Anyone More’ is premiering exclusively at Holler below.
Stampede is released on February 24th. Click here to preorder and presave.
