Kalistani Major History

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Country Supergroup Records album in Kalistan
Musicians from Baltusia, Likatonia and Kalistan join forces to produce AC hit
Vrassa City, Duchy of Vrassa
March 5, 5553


The Outlaws' Debut album is first as a group

Four country music legends, two from Likatonia, and one each from Baltusia and Kalistan have teamed up on a new LP of original music, recorded in Vrassa City over the New Year. The four musicians, long considered forerunners of Outlaw Country, have been long time collaborators and personal friends, but this is the first time all of them have worked together. And the record has made an unexpected splash on Kalistani Rock radio.

The four singer/songwriters, Likatonia's Jerry McCleugh and Christopher Markay, Baltusia's Jacob Martinez, and Kalistan's Sam Conrad, have been corresponding for months about doing a charity tour in Northern Seleya. While the original idea was to play four individual sets, the four friends each also wanted to just come out and jam on each other's songs. "There is so much affection and mutual respect among these four old guys," said VDR producer Kath Yeager, who was contracted by the label to produce the debut album New Horizons for the group who became known The Outlaws. "They have spent years going around Northern Seleya together, decades even. They're probably about as close to kin as you can get."

The charity tour idea was soon nixxed in favor of a supergroup. "The four guys couldn't seem to get their schedules to line up long enough to actually go on tour," said Yeager. "So Sam (Conrad) suggested that they all fly into Vrassa over the New Year and just lay down some tracks together." Soon ideas for songs started flying. Numerous meetings and jam sessions followed: sometimes it was two of them, sometimes three and sometimes all four would get together to work on songs. "The result was certainly a really different and unique mix," said Yeager. "Each one brought something new to the table, and each represented their own brand of outlaw country in the sessions. The result was actually very special and is certainly unique by Kalistani standards, though listeners in Likatonia and Baltusia may be more familiar with the sound."

The resulting album has produced its first single, "A Single Drop of Rain," which could be described as something like a mix of rock and roll themes, tinted with country and western aesthetic. "Well, I don't get to play too often in Kalistan," said Conrad. "The music in this country is very loud and very distorted, and like these guys, I'm more of a troubadour. A lot of our songs are about being free and wandering, maybe you might even say, drifting: Living the wandering life of a touring journeyman musician is a lot like being a desperado or a merchant marine or a migrant laborer, shifting from job to job, or even you could imagine, an explorer of deep space. It's a lonely, solitary life in a lot of ways, and those are the themes in a lot of our songs here. But the best thing is, you are in a local club in a place like Likatonia and don't know a soul, and then you see someone like (Jerry) McCleugh come in and you know you got a brother in the crowd. That's in those songs too."

The single has risen on the Adult Contemporary Singles Chart to number 8 this week, and the album sits at Number 15 on the Hot 100 Albums chart, a stunning foil to the otherwise locked Noisey Top 20. The album's music is country and blues music, and has a traditional structure that is absent in most of Kalistan's music. "This, I think is the source of its popularity in the Empire at this moment," said Conrad. "It doesn't sound like other stuff. We know what sounds good and interesting in Kalistan, and if it is different than every other thing on the radio, people will pick it up. Having the guys on this record made it popular, because it has the potential to reach a much larger audience."

Check out the first single "A Single Drop of Rain" by The Outlaws, from their debut LP, as a supergroup, Called New Horizons, recorded in Vrassa City at VDR right here!

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFkcAH-m9W0]

OOC: RIP Kris Kristofferson Surely He is living still