10 Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know

It's time for another of our monthly roundups of the 10 Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know.

This month, we've got a cosmic country quartet from LA fronted by a Colombian-American singer with pipes like Linda Ronstadt, a pop country queen from St. Petersburg, Florida, who discovered her country side when she moved to the Utah mountains during lockdown, a champion of The Voice whose country croon has got as weak at the knees and a wide receiver for the Texas Tech Red Raiders turned country troubadour.

There's all this and more as we dive into another of Holler's monthly roundups of our latest loves; a who's who of the most exciting prospects leaving their mark on the country and Americana landscape.

Here's Holler's 10 New and Upcoming Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know for June 2025:

There is something delightfully home baked about Taylor Demp's songs. Fresher and more intense in flavour, without all the hidden additives or preservatives often found in store-bought alternatives. It's like her songs are cooked up using only the highest quality ingredients and natural sweeteners. Fresh, warm, wholesome and made in minutes.

Hailing from Cheatham County, Tennessee, an hour or so outside of Nashville, Taylor Demp seems to be just far enough from music city to allow her the freedom to come and go as she pleases musically and to concoct her country recipes beyond the watchful gaze of the country mainstream.

"The area is steeped in country music," she says. "It’s pretty rural but it was close enough to Nashville for me to go downtown and sing on the street after school."

She has that same kind of close neighbour sensibility that Dolly Parton has always had in her songs, mixing up a little bluegrass, traditional country and Appalachian folk into something that could only come from an outsider looking in.

Following the viral success of her dark murder ballad 'Good Mournin'', her latest single, 'Little Spouse,' is blowing up on TikTok in much the same way appealing to cottagecore girls and Yallternatives alike with its rural southern country aesthetic

"Me and my boyfriend, Brad Brownfield, were building a log cabin all of last year and we wrote it just as a cute little song about being so in love with someone that it makes you excited to build a life together," Demp says about the song, and with lines like, "You make we wanna build a log house / Little spouse on the prairie / Couple brown cows on a hill of blackberries / Hear the rooster crow make some babies / You’ll mend the fences I’ll grow the daisies" it's easy to see why its resonating in an oversaturated digital age where people are yearning for a simpler way of life.

When it comes to what's next for Taylor Demp, she seems to be just taking each day as it comes, writing songs and letting them blow up one by one.

"I’m just releasing songs as Brad and I write them," she says simply enough.

You know, that lemon drizzle cake in your shopping basket is probably made with lemon "concentrate" in place of fresh zest and juice, but it's only when you taste a real home baked lemon drizzle cake that you can tell.

'Little Spouse' is out now

Listen If You Like: Hailey Whitters, Amanda Shires, Dolly Parton

When Bryce Leatherwood goes out, he wants to go out two-stepping.

"Instead of roses on my rock, throw a little bit of Diffie on an old jukebox," Bryce Leatherwood sings on 'In Lieu of Flowers,' the rollicking honky tonker that kicks off his recently released self-titled debut, giving his loved ones strict instructions for his funeral arrangements.

Since being crowned champion of season 22 of The Voice just over two years ago, Bryce Leatherwood has teased a trickle of whiskey soaked, sawdust shuffling, standalone country classics that come good on the early promise he showed on the show; the wildcard that went on to become the ninth and final winner from Team Blake Shelton, winning over audiences at home with covers of Keith Whitley, Travis Tritt and George Strait.

The 24-year-old from Woodstock, Georgia, first fell hard for country music by listening to the classics in his grandfather’s truck over the long summers spent at his family farm.

"This is where I found my love for the outdoors and country music," Leatherwood says. "My grandfather was a big fan of Conway Twitty, George Jones, John Conlee and Merle Haggard so I was influenced by an older sound very early on. "

When his debut album arrived last month, it didn't disappoint. A mix of originals and expertly crafted outside cuts, it's Leatherwood's deliciously rich and creamy country croon that reaches deep down inside you and pulls at your heart strings.

“There are a lot of influences in my life – but you can’t hide the voice,” Leatherwood says. “It’s going to come out country no matter what.”

From straight-out-the-gate honky tonk party starters like 'Neon Does' and a cover of George Strait's 'The Fireman' to more measured two-steppers like 'Something Bout A Girl' and 'Shenandoah,' Bryce Leatherwood sounds like he's time travelled through every golden age of country and let a little of each era's magic rub off on him, before landing back in 2025 like a country katamari ball made up of all the best bits from the last 75 years.

“I want people listening to walk away knowing country music is not going anywhere,” he says. “Country music’s here. The next generation’s here – people who believe in country music. Let’s do this thing.”

"I want people to hear my music and say 'that’s Bryce Leatherwood.'"

Bryce Leatherwood's self-titled debut album is out now on Mercury Nashville

Listen If You Like: Drake Milligan, Midland, Zach Top

Whether you like your indie a little bit country or you like your country a little bit indie, we've got your new favourite band for you!

Case Oats are a Chicago-based band led by songwriter Casey Gomez Walker, who founded the group alongside drummer Spencer Tweedy - best known for playing for Waxahatchee, Mavis Staples and Beck and in the band Tweedy with his father, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy - and they've just announced their debut album, Last Missouri Exit, for August on Merge. The fact that it's dethroned Plains at to the top of our Holler Indie Country playlist shows just how seriously we're taking them.

Ahead of the album, they've already released the sublime singles, 'Seventeen' and 'Bitter Root Lake,' two effortlessly cool, alt-country slacker anthems reminiscent of Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins or Best Coast with a scratchy lo-fi anti-folk charm and the easy conversational delivery of Frankie Cosmos.

"It's laidback," admits Casey Gomez Walker about the sound of her records. "All I want to do when making art is be un-precious and honest. I know I don't have the most beautiful voice but it's what I have and it's what I want to put out there - no more, no less."

"I like to think you can tell this record was made by a group of best friends in a basement in Midwest summer," she adds, about the album, recorded by Spencer Tweedy "Big Pink-style” in a house shared by bassist Jason Ashworth, guitarist and pedal steel player Max Subar and touring member Chet Zenor over three hot August days. "I think that's the sound."

Growing up in the suburbs of St. Louis, Michigan, she left for Chicago when she was 18, but Last Missouri Exit is a love letter of sorts to the hometown she kind of broke up with when she moved away.

"I always thought I was going to write a novel but I ended up making a record instead," she says of the songs on Last Missouri Exit, wryly observed small town coming of age vignettes rooted in all the hopes, messy heartaches and search for belonging in Midwestern suburbia. "It's full of songs based on short stories and events that happened to me in early adulthood. It's a labour of love made in living rooms, basements, backyards with people I love. It feels completely true to who I was and who I am now and that's all I can ask for."

It quite simply does not get better than this.

Last Missouri Exit is released on 22 August on Merge

Listen If You Like: Waxahatchee, Haley Heynderickx, Horsegirl

Shaquille O’Neal, John McEnroe, Adrien Nunez. Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle. Sports stars have crossed over into music over the years with varying degrees of success, but Haydon Wiginton is one multi-disciplinary artist that's definitely getting it right on and off the field.

Coming from a curiously unique spot where the West Texas flatlands and the playing fields meet, this Lubbock, TX-based singer-songwriter is not only making a name for himself out on the football field as a wide receiver for the Texas Tech Red Raiders, but he’s also providing the playlist for the pre-game.

His debut EP, Talk Funny, released in 2023, put him on the map, and on the way to his recently released first full-length album, West Texas Dirt, he's now become a regular crowd pulling attraction.

"I’m from Midlothian, TX so Texas country music has always been part of my life," the singer says about growing up surrounded by a very Texan kind of country music. "Randy Rogers Band, Cross Canadian Ragweed and Parker McCollum were heavy influences of mine growing up. I also loved George Strait and Brooks and Dunn, that’s what my grandparents always had on in their houses."

"It’s just raw West Texas music," Wiginton says about his own songs. "I never can describe my sound just right, but I’d say it’s Texas Country with my own twist on it."

That twist comes from his wide eyed, youthful fearlessness that adds a freshness to the easy going, widescreen sound of traditional West Texas country. Poetic, sweetly melodic and dripping in that peculiarly Texas kind of melancholy, the songs off his entirely self-penned West Texas Dirt EP easily hold their own against the very finest country music to come out of the Lone Star State.

The West Texas Dirt EP is available now.

Listen If You Like: Midland, Parker McCollum, Pug Johnson

"Theatrical country with a sharp tongue," is how MAYCE brilliantly describes her sound. "It’s folk-rooted storytelling with a modern bite. Some songs feel like diary entries, others like sarcastic letters I never sent. There’s heartbreak, humor, and a lot of honesty. Think vintage flair, acoustic backbone, and lyrics that are sometimes petty, sometimes poetic depending on the day."

Originally from St. Petersburg, Florida - a little beach town where she spent half her time training to try and get her Olympic Trial cut in swimming and the other half practicing piano - MAYCE took her first musical steps sharing heartfelt covers on YouTube, which caught the attention of Flo Rida, leading to a record deal and an opportunity to tour with him from 2015 to 2017 during his My House album era.

After signing with EMPIRE in 2018, she released the quirky dubstep-tinged pop single 'Cry for Help' - a song that's already racked up nearly seven million Spotify streams - but it wasn't until the COVID-19 pandemic hit that she relocated to the mountains of Utah and experienced the slower pace of life there, finding herself drawn back to the storytelling traditions of folk and country music.

"Once I found country and Americana, it was like, Oh. This is what I’ve been circling around this whole time," she says, explaining how she grew up on a "chaotic mix" of music that's influenced her own fearless genre-bending approach. "My mom would play Billy Joel, Norah Jones, some Faith Hill and, my dad was big into Boston, Bruce Springsteen, classic rock. I was in my room learning Christina Aguilera riffs while writing emo lyrics to imaginary breakups. Then YouTube happened and I got obsessed with every genre imaginable. I think that’s why my sound has always had a little genre ADHD — I’ve pulled from so many places."

Since the genre switch up, MAYCE has released a string of abolsutely perfect pop country singles that tap into her musically eclectic upbringing. From the scratchy, harmony soaked mountaintop country folk of 'Til the End' to gently strummed, diaristic break up songs like 'Confident Soul' and bombastic country clap-a-longs like latest single, 'Cheap!'

With her sophomore EP Halfway to Healed dropping in June, MAYCE has the potential to be pop country's next big superstar, capable of taking intimate, deeply personal songs written in her bedroom and turning them into gigantic, joyfully relatable stadium sized sing-a-longs.

"It’s a collection of songs that walk through the phases of healing," the singer explains about the project. "Visually, I wanted it to feel like a self help book. Each song represents a chapter in getting back to yourself after heartbreak."

MAYCE's Halfway to Healed EP is released on 27 June via EMPIRE

Listen If You Like: Dasha, Kelsea Ballerini, Shania Twain

Fans of a particular kind of classic '70s cosmic country will find a lot to love in the songs of LA's Dominique and the Diamonds.

These are sweet and sad, old-school honky tonk songs that stretch all the way from Broadway to West Coast California, and there's a little hint of the weariness and rich melancholy of Linda Ronstadt in the voice of singer Dominique Gomez, the Colombian-American front woman who heads up this raggle-taggle band of country traditionalists.

Formed in 2024, the band was put together on a whim after Gomez was asked to perform a country set at LA’s summertime series, The Grand Ole Echo. Friends from the cosmic country group, Caravan 222, and rock band Triptides, were asked to join as a backing band for Gomez and it snowballed gently from there.

"I’m based in Los Angeles, CA, but my influence for the Diamonds project began when I started living in San Francisco back in 2012," explains Dominique Gomez. "I was immersed in this budding music scene with new friends who were all just as in love with classic country from the 60s and 70s as I was. I’d always been a singer-songwriter of different genres, but once I was surrounded by country all the time, I naturally started writing a lot more of it."

"I was living in a small town on the country side of Marin County during my final years in the Bay; dirt roads, farms, small town talk, nothing better to do than sit on the porch and pick some songs while basking in the beauty of California," she says. "I bring myself back to those days quite a lot when I write. I’m Colombian-American, and truthfully, I’d never really felt like there was a place for me in country music. I have my friends to thank for really pushing me to get this project going."

“I write country music and love to sing country songs," Gomez explains. "But I’ve always associated myself with the Colombian half of my identity more than the white side. My Dad and his immediate family immigrated to the US from Colombia in 1966 and they’d endured so much struggle in the process. Then, you have my Mom’s side who were small town farmers in Minnesota and Southern trailer park girls. When you look at me, you see a brown girl, and I fucking love that. And when I was younger, I felt like I was forced to fit into a category, but I was too white to be Latina and too Latina to be white. It’s a beautiful thing to have the wisdom now to embrace both and just be me.”

Produced by Glenn Brigman of Triptides in his mountain home studio, the band’s self-titled, debut EP was recorded using a mixture of analog and digital equipment amongst the forest of Crestline, CA. The result is a deeply satisfying set of instant country classics that tips its hat to the rattling amphetamine fueled cosmic country of Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels, the dramatic, sweeping countrypolitan of Patsy Cline and the women of '70s FM radio.

"Dominique and the Diamonds channel the soul of classic country through the eyes of today’s young adults," Gomez says, tipping her hat to The Diamonds. "In writing these songs, I’ve always wanted to capture the comforting nostalgia I feel when listening to country from the past. The Diamonds help me bring it all to life. Each of them are so incredibly talented, it makes the creative process so easy and that much more fun."

Dominique and the Diamonds' self-titled EP is out now on Desert Rose Music

Listen If You Like: Linda Ronstadt, Emily Nenni, Margo Price

Born a little outside Boston, 19-year-old Emma Andersen moved to Connecticut, then San Diego, then Oregon, then back to San Diego and now she calls Nashville home. She digs into the memories of her ever-changing surroundings, turning it into a personal travel diary over the years for her keenly observed, carefully written and quietly thoughtful songs.

"I love aspects of every single place and it’s been really fun recently to write about my experiences in each one," she says. "I love writing about the insane California driving, the nature of Oregon, the new life I’ve started to develop in Nashville, and all my family on the East Coast."

Playing guitar since she was eight, her passion for theatre naturally led her to songwriting and performing. Inspired by artists like Lizzy McAlpine, Taylor Swift, John Vincent III and Noah Kahan, and her debut EP, I'll Be Alright, released in April, is filled with songs that speak to those influences as well as some more adult pop touchstones inherited from her dad, like Hall and Oates, Mat Kearney, and Simon and Garfunkel.

Latest single, 'Simple Math,' is the feel sad hit of the summer and with her sweetly earnest, confused coming-of-age songs about the hopes and humiliations of girlhood, Emma Andersen is recording the kind of indie folk songs you imagine Olivia Rodrigo would sing if she ever decided to switch it down a gear.

"I actually wrote Simple Math last summer," she shares. "I have some of the worst spending habits known to man. I love my iced coffee, thrifting, shopping, and sweet treats, so when my parents told me I should really try and save (which I really should have) my response was that id rather spend it and have fun! I realized my reaction to that said a lot about my nature as a person, and it really just evolved into a broader commentary about how I live and want to live!"

'Simple Math' is out now

Listen If You Like: Lizzy McAlpine, Noah Kahan, Role Model

Anyone with a soft spot for Kacey Musgraves' Deeper Well will find a lot to fall in love with in the soul soothing, deeply personal songwriting of Maddie Lenhart. Heartfelt, dreamy and vulnerable, these are the kind of warm and comforting country songs that you'll want to turn to like a best friend when the world gets too much for you.

Hailing from the misty hills of West Virginia, Maddie Lenhart has taken her mountaintop soul and Appalachian storytelling down into Nashville, playing everywhere from The Listening Room and Bluebird Café to CMA Fest and all the way back home again for a sold-out hometown show at The Barns at Wolftrap.

"It's a really charming little town surrounded by farmland, mountains, and winding country roads," she says about her hometown of Warrenton, Virginia. "There’s no peace like being back home. Being rooted in Virginia and familial ties West Virginia gave me this deep respect for tradition - family, music, hard work, and simplicity. I think that’s why I care so much about honest songwriting and why so much of what I write comes from a really grounded, real place.

Written with Brianna Nelson and Julie Eddy, her latest single, 'Time Traveler,' feels like a quiet retreat for the soul. A gently strummed, soft country gem filled with the kind of smooth and rich melancholy that makes you want to take time out of life just to luxuriate in it.

"‘Time Traveler' is a song from the heart for sure," she says. "l'm someone who's always been deeply sentimental and nostalgic. I’ve always had a hard time staying grounded - whether I’m longing for the past or worrying about what’s ahead. The song came from the realization that life is moving faster every year, and if I don't start being more present, I'm going to miss it. It's a reminder to slow down, appreciate what I have, and hold onto the now before it becomes another memory."

'Time Traveler' is available now

Listen If You Like: Kacey Musgraves, Sydney Quiseng, Kelsea Ballerini

"Rustic and badass," is how Blake Whiten describes his sound and that pretty much sums it up. It's a richly flavoured sonic bouillabaisse that mixes a distinctly southern blend of smoky country rock with just enough mainstream country production touches for it to perfectly compliment any contemporaries like Morgan Wallen and Kameron Marlowe that you have sitting on your plate.

Initially sparked by a viral cover of Wallen's 'I'm the Problem,' the 20-year-old singer, songwriter and instrumentalist from Six Mile, South Carolina, started getting attention from Nashville’s most acclaimed songwriters and producers, setting the tone for his single 'Rollin’ Stone,' with over 25 million streams, and leading to his debut EP, Six Mile, which has since garnered upwards of 40 million streams across platforms.

"It influenced me a lot to try and really chase and achieve my dreams," he says of his hometown in Pickins County, South Carolina, population 759. "My town is very small and it’s not very easy to actually make your dreams come true."

His latest single, 'Carolina,' arrives as his boldest statement of intent yet and a sure sign that all of those difficult-to-make-come-true dreams of his are in no danger of losing momentum any time soon. A powerfully emotional love letter to his home state, it's a grinding, highly charged, high stakes power ballad that could have easily slipped unnoticed into the tracklisting for I'm The Problem, and we'll happily look forward to 36 more songs as good as this when it comes time for a full-length Blake Whiten album.

'Carolina' is available now

Listen If You Like: Chris Stapleton, Morgan Wallen, Kameron Marlowe

Born and raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Josh Stumpf grew up on a mix of the '90s country that his parents were listening to like David Lee Murphy, Brooks and Dunn, Joe Diffie and Shania Twain and the early noughties post-grunge that he was drawn to as a teenager; bands like Nickelback, 3 Doors Down, Three Days Grace, Daughtry and Hinder.

It's from that melting pot that Stumpf forges his own raw, soulful take on stadium sized outlaw country, adding a truckload of grit to a glossy mid-2010s sound reminiscent of the pumped up, radio friendly country pop of Morgan Wallen and Graham Barham.

The follow up to his self-titled EP from last Summer, his latest single, 'Highway Money,' is a dashboard pounding, country rock anthem about small towns, young love and hard work that definitely has the desired effect.

"It’s the kind of music that makes you want to hit the open road with the windows down," Stumpf says. "Something you can blast while driving fast, but also dance to and just have a good time."

'Highway Money' is out now on MDM Recordings

Listen If You Like: Dylan Marlowe, Morgan Wallen, Graham Barham

Listen to a selection of songs from our 10 Artists You Need To Know on the playlist below.

For more of the monthly editions of Holler's 10 Artists You Need To Know, see below: