'To hell with everybody': How Koe Wetzel forged his own way to the top in country music

Koe Wetzel knew he’d have to find his own way in the world of country music, where he built the sort of grassroots following that lets a guy whose biggest hits have peaked at No. 28 on Billboard's country chart roll into Florence, Arizona, as a Country Thunder headliner.

“Our music is not for the faint of heart,” he says.

“Our music is not anything your grandparents or parents might listen to. It's a little raunchy. And we understood that. So we said, 'To hell with everybody, man. We're gonna do everything our own way.'”

That's just how it's been since Wetzel self-released a first album called “Out on Parole” in 2016 as the leader of Koe Wetzel and the Konvicts.

“We're just just a bunch of East Texas drunks that like to play music, man,” he says.

“And luckily for us, the fans caught on to that and they enjoyed the music. We've been blessed with a badass fan base, man, that really doesn't give a (expletive) like we do. And it's allowed us to get on the road and be able to do we do without having to go the traditional route.”

Check azcentral.com or follow us on Instagram and TikTok all weekend for live updates, concert reviews and setlists from Country Thunder 2024, which runs April 11-14 at Canyon Moon Ranch in Florence, AZ.

Our complete Country Thunder Arizona 2024 coverage includes the festival's origin story dating back to the early 1990s, concert lineups and set times, traffic tips to get you there with less hassle and a live blog updated hourly all weekend.

When Wetzel signed a major-label deal, he called the album 'Sellout'

That traditional route came knocking after Wetzel crashed the Billboard album charts at No. 20 with “Harold Saul High,” a third album he summed up in a talk with American Songwriter as "'90s country meets early 2000s punk rock with early ’90s grunge and hip-hop music in the background.”

He signed to Columbia Records and immediately let that grassroots fanbase he’d been building know he didn’t plan on selling out to the establishment by titling the major-label debut he released in 2020 “Sellout.”

The label reps he’s dealt with at Columbia have been “super cool with everything about it ever since we signed with them,” he says.

“That was one of the main reasons that I did sign with them. After ‘Harold Saul High,’ we had a couple offers from different record labels and they were one of the labels that said, 'Hey, we know what's going on. We don't want to change anything. We just want to let you be you.'”

Addressing the 'This isn't country music' crowd on 'Hell Paso'

Released in 2022, their second album on Columbia, “Hell Paso,” includes a shout-out to the folk who don’t appreciate his brand of country music as part of a spoken-word snippet called “Cheers.”

“Here’s to everyone that’s enjoyed the record so far,” he says. “Here’s to everybody who’s hated the record so far. And here’s to everybody else that’s going, ‘This isn’t country music. He don’t know what country music is. He’s such a disgrace to country music.’”

Wetzel laughs when asked about that track.

“I don’t know what to call our music,” he says. “We call it, you know, Texas rock, Texas grunge, hillbilly country-rock. We don't know what it is, and I don't think anybody else does.

"But when you play all these country bars, and we started getting a little bit of country radio play and added to these playlists, people get (angry) when you don't have that steel guitar and fiddle. So that was kind of a ‘screw you’ to everybody that was talking that (expletive).”

Wetzel laughs, then adds, “But we’re in the same boat with everybody talking (expletive), so we’re cool with it.”

'Someday there will be a country record ... probably not anytime soon'

There was talk of Wetzel making a more straightforward country album after “Hell Paso,” which gave him six Top 40 entries on the Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs charts and three charting singles on the country charts (all three of which did better on the rock charts).

But that album isn’t happening just yet.

“I think we will make one,” he says.

“I got in the studio to make one, actually. And it wasn't coming to me like I thought it was going to so we kind of pushed it off and went back to the stuff we were comfortable making and kind of went a little different direction with the newer music that we have been working on. But yeah, someday there will be a country record, but probably not anytime soon.”

Koe Wetzel's mother was a country singer

Country music is in Wetzel’s DNA. His mother was a country singer, and he used to tag along and watch her sing as he was growing up in Pittsburg, Texas.

“She traveled around and played old opry houses to old folks,” Wetzel says.

“Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton covers, stuff like that. So I was just always around older country music, going to old opry houses. She never had her own traveling band or traveling the roads like we're doing but it was always fun growing up around that kind of music.”

That had an impact on the way his music sounds, to an extent.

'There are songs that we have that are country'

“I mean, the thing is, there's songs that we have that are country, but you know, we're very diverse in all of our music,” Wetzel says.

“Our records aren't country records. We have stuff that don't sound country. We have stuff that sounds rock. We have stuff that sounds punk. But I think just having that country audience and playing all these country bars and stuff like that, man, it kind of just puts us in that genre. I don't know, man. That's kind of how it's been since the start.”

Wetzel isn’t really that concerned with genres when he’s making music. He’s just doing what comes naturally.

“Coming up in Texas, you had red dirt music,” Wetzel says.

“You had bands like Whiskey Myers coming out of Texas. Bands like Cross Canadian Ragweed. Guys that had that kind of rock sound but the same thing there. They were playing country venues. I think it just kind of happened organically, man.

"When we went into the studio, we just made music. We didn't set out to make country music. We didn't set out to make rock music. We just went in there and made what we thought was cool to us and what we thought people could really vibe with.”

How getting thrown out of college cleared the path to country music

Wetzel was a linebacker at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas, when he decided to pursue a career as a musician instead.

“I was always around music,” Wetzel says. “So it was always in the background. But I never knew that this is what I was gonna do for the rest of my life and never really pursued it until I got kicked out of college.

"I was like, 'You know what? Screw this, man. I don't want to have to have a real job, man. I want to be able to work for myself.' And lucky for us, people actually caught on in the music and started enjoying it and coming out to shows.”

It seems worth asking what the circumstances were surrounding his early dismissal from Tarleton State University.

“I wasn't going to school. I was boozing real hard. We were touring a lot more at that point. So whenever I'd get back from touring on the weekends, I was like, ‘Yeah, I'm not going to school,’ he said.

"So they kicked me out and said I could go to junior college for a semester and come back. But I didn't really want to do that (expletive), either. So I just threw up the deuces and I was gone, man.”

Wetzel's latest single celebrates the 'Damn Near Normal' life he lives

Wetzel recently released an early taste of where he may be headed next, a song called “Damn Near Normal” that may or may not be part of a forthcoming album.

“I can't tell you right now, man,” Wetzel says. “I will say that we've been in the studio a lot, so I'll leave it at that.”

A song about life on the road, it’s Wetzel’s latest charting hit on rock and country radio.

“We were just kind of looking back, as musicians and artists, at how are our life is compared to, I guess, as you would say, a normal life — somebody with a job and wife or a husband and family and kind of their normal routine compared to ours, and how my life is different than my buddies' lives whenever I go back home,” Wetzel says.

But to be clear, he said there’s not a thing he’d change about the way his life is going at the moment.

“If I wasn't playing music, I'd be back in East Texas pouring concrete with a wife and a couple kids, to be honest with you,” he says. “So nah, man, I don't think I'm missing out on anything. I'm grateful for this life I've got. I'm very blessed to be able to do what I do.”

Koe Wetzel at Country Thunder Arizona 2024

When: Sunday, April 14. Music starts at 2:30 p.m. Wetzel takes the stage at 9 p.m.

Where: Canyon Moon Ranch, 20585 E. Price Station, Florence.

Admission: $185 a day; $300 weekend pass.

Details: countrythunder.com/az.

Reach the reporter at [email protected]. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EdMasley.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How Koe Wetzel's 'badass fans' sent him to the top of country music