Unpacking All the Easter Eggs in Tyler Childers' Snipe Hunter album artwork and the Hickman Holler Hunting Club

Swifties are used to Taylor hiding "Easter eggs" in her music videos and artwork in the lead up to an album release, which her fans then feverishly try to decode, and now it seems Tyler Childers has got his own loyal fanbase in a frenzy over the cover art to his recently announced forthcoming album, Snipe Hunter.

Due to be released on his own Hickman Holler imprint through RCA on 25 July, and produced by Rick Rubin with additional production from Nick Sanborn, the album will be made up of 13 original songs that showcase the "signature artistry Tyler Childers has cultivated throughout his esteemed career, while continuing to push his own creative boundaries" according to the album announcement.

Trailed by a cryptic new website for the mysteriously named Hickman Holler Hunting Club, the artwork for the new album is filled with hidden "Easter Eggs" for the songs on the album, and with the first release from the record being fan-favourite, 'Nose on the Grindstone,' Childers' afficionados are hoping the rest of the album is collected together from his deep catalogue of previously unreleased songs. “Nose on the Grindstone”, one of Childers’ most popular unreleased songs has only appeared previously as a solo, acoustic OurVinyl session from 2017.

The Hickman Holler Hunting Club is a reference to the Hickman Holler Records label imprint that Tyler began releasing records through back in 2011 via Thirty Tigers, which he has continued with since moving to RCA. So far, he has used The Hickman Holler Hunting Club socials and website to share videos and content teasing the album.

Holler takes a look at all the clues so far, to try and get to the bottom of it all and decipher which of those previously unreleased songs are most likely to feature on Snipe Hunter.

The first big clue for the album arrived ahead of the release date announcement on the Hickman Holler channels on Wednesday 11 June in a 48 second long clip featuring a man getting a haircut in an old school barbershop. The barber asks the man, "What's the clean up for, bossman," to which the customer tells him the "boys called a meeting at the hunting club” and that he was to dress his best and "clean himself up some" so he had come in to "get his ears lowered."

As the barber finishes the haircut and removes the man's cape, the customer says, "Looks mighty fine" and calls the barber "Gregory." The barbershop used in the video is Stylesville barbershop, the oldest black owned barbershop in Los Angeles and Greg in the video is in fact the actual owner.

The actor in the barber's chair appears to be Casey Campbell, who starred in the video for Tyler Childers’ ‘Angel Band’ from 2022's Can I Take My Hounds To Heaven? When Campbell references cleaning himself up it could be a reference to the music video for 'Angel Band', in which appears with a thick beard and long hair.

On his way out of the barbershop, the customer is humming along to an instrumental version of 'Nose on the Grindstone' playing over the speakers, and Gregory calls out for the next customer. When he says the name, "Oneida," the customer on his way out does a double take and looks back at her. It seems like they both recognise each other, which is probably the first hint that we get that all these songs on the new album will be familiar to us in some way.

The video ends with the date June 12th, 8am ET flashing on the screen, which would later be revealed to be the album announcement time and date.

Having been heavily teased in the Snipe Hunter trailer, it's almost certain that 'Oneida' will be on Snipe Hunter. 'Oneida' has a long history in the lore of Tyler Childers songs with the singer first performing the songs back in 2016, with a video existing online of Childers delivering an acoustic rendition of the track during a Red Barn Radio session. The tale of ‘Oneida’ explores a loose, friends-with-benefits relationship with an older woman, and may also reference the Oneida Community in New York in the 1800s, which believed strongly in a system of free love known as "complex marriage", where any member was free to have sex with any other who consented and women over the age of 40 were to act as sexual “mentors” to adolescent boys, as these relationships had minimal chance of conceiving. These women would often become religious role models for the young men.

Turning our attention to the album title, the song 'Snipe Hunt' has been a firm live favourite since it began turning up in Childers' sets in early 2018. The term itself refers to a practical joke played on unseasoned hunters, which involves tricking them into believing there is an animal called a "snipe" and making them look for a creature that doesn’t exist. Although Tyler could be pranking us all with this one, it seems fairly likely that this deep cut will be on the record since it pretty much gives the album its title.

The album artwork seems to hold the most clues for the contents of the album though. Featuring an intricately painted Erik Thor Sandberg portrait of Tyler Childers sitting in a library, the image invites the viewer into to try and scour the details of the painting for their significance.

The room itself, although possibly fictional, does seem to be familiar to one fellow country star at least. "I recognize this room!" Margo Price enthused in the comments underneath a post of the Snipe Hunter album artwork on Instagram, although it's not exactly clear how. Tyler Childers will also be featuring on Margo Price's upcoming album, Hard Headed Woman, released at the end of August on the song 'Love Me Like You Used To.'

Of all of the unreleased songs by Tyler Childers, perhaps the most well-known is 'Jersey Giant.' Despite having been covered by everyone from Sam Barber and Dom Ellis to Josiah and the Bonnevilles and Evan Honer with Julia DiGrazia, Tyler himself has never released a recorded version and until April 2025 had never played the song live before with a full band.

In November of 2022, when Elle King released her version of the song, he took to his socials to explain why a studio version of the song had never been forthcoming from him.

"I wrote 'Jersey Giant' over ten years ago and only performed it for a short period of time," he wrote. "I was pleased with how it turned out structurally (it even has a bridge, which is rare for me), but I was over performing it pretty fast. I reckon that’s just how songs go sometimes. They can be like that coat you saw and had to have, only to get it home and think, 'Why gah, I ain’t never gonna wear this thing.' Or, one that you got from an ex which you would rather just toss out. But that’s not saying anything against the coat, it just doesn’t fit me anymore and hasn’t for some time. I’m super excited that Ms. King has dusted this old song off and given it a new life. I’m extremely grateful for her seeing the potential in this tune, and wish her the best out there on the road."

It seems there might be clues on the album cover to the song’s inclusion on Snipe Hunter though. In the painting Tyler is holding a large chicken leg, which could be literally from a Jersey Giant, an oversized breed of American domestic chickens developed in the late 1800s and known for its size and docile personality. We think it's fairly safe to say that the giant chicken leg Tyler is Holding is an Easter Egg for 'Jersey Giant' being on the album.

Looking around the room, our eyes were drawn to a pair of red soled high heels, presumably from Christian Louboutin, which could allude to the inclusion of 'Redneck Romeo' in the album tracklisting because of the line, "Her high heels and my Red Wing boots / Cuttin' couches in the living room" from the previously unreleased song. Written early on in his career, he began playing the song live in 2018 and it was often thought to have been inspired by the long drives he had to make between Lexington and his hometown of Lawrence County, Kentucky, to play shows.

A slightly more recent fan favourite, Tyler Childers began including the song 'Her and the Banks' in his live shows in September 202 and he's performed it live on multiple occasions since then. Although we can't pick out any direct references to the song on the cover, an album made up of previously unreleased favourites would be remiss not to include 'Her and the Banks.'

On one of the shelves there is a snake ornament and what appears to be an anatomic model of a heart, which could point to the songs 'Heart of stone,' or possibly to a Taylor Swift collaboration. Personally, we'd be happy with either.

One of the reasons behind the timing of these potential re-records could be in response to rare and unreleased Tyler Childers songs illegally finding their way on to streaming services back in February of this year under the name of Alexia Rigmund, a verified artist on Spotify.

Rigmund uploaded an EP called I Wanna Know Her Name on January 19th, 2025 which contained live or demo recordings of Childers' 'Losing You,' 'Redneck Romeo,' and live or demo versions of 'Fraulein' and 'Long Long Time To Get Old,' along with a version of '22nd Winter.' With this in mind, it's likely that '22nd Winter' could be included on Snipe Hunter next month.

Although unreleased songs like 'Fraulein,' 'My Rifle, My Pony and Me' and 'Long Long Time to Get Old' would be welcomed with much enthusiasm, all are cover versions so won't be included on the record of entirely self-penned songs. We could however be treated to the previously officially unreleased 'Losing You,' if that "hell of a hound" at Tyler's feet is anything to go by, and although we can't see any clues for them, we would love to have 'Woodward Creek' and 'Messed up kid' on Snipe Hunter.

If this was the case, the tracklisting could look something like this.

• Snipe Hunt
• Oneida
• Jersey Giant
• Nose on the Grindstone
• Redneck Romeo
• Her and the Banks
• Losing You
• Messed up kid
• Woodward Creek
• Heart of Stone
• 22nd Winter
• Seng
• Previously unknown song

Of course, these might not be clues to old songs at all, and we might be getting an album of entirely unheard of previously unreleased Tyler Childers originals. Either way we can't wait until 25 July to find out. Not long now!

Snipe Hunter will be released on Hickman Holler Records via RCA on 25 July.

For more on Tyler Childers, see below: