This year in Floress life has been detailed in an upcoming book,Red Dirt Unplugged.
It will include aspecial editionshowcasing Flores.
A portion of the book, adapted for timeliness, has been excerpted for Rolling Stone.
Wyatt Flores will release his full-length debut, ‘Welcome to the Plains,’ in October.Natalie Rhea*
Every eye inside the Mission Ballroom locked onto Wyatt Flores.
His fans responded by selling out the place, with a paid attendance of 3,261.
On a giant video board behind Flores, a death scene had just played out.
I couldnt believe I was watching my vision fully play out, Flores says of the 14-track record.
And I also couldnt believe the songs that I had written.
I finally started writing happier songs.
Theres still some heartbreak on there, but I just couldnt believe that I actually had love songs.
However, Flores insists upon constantly turning the world hes experiencing into music.
Ive enjoyed being onstage again, Flores says.
I dont feel like Im faking it.
Im just enjoying my time being onstage, and Im not worried about what the crowd thinks.
Im just happy that Im getting to play with my friends onstage.
On the writing side, Im not as hard on myself.
I look up to my heroes, and I cant write like them.
Im not good enough.
Its on the personal side.
Behind it is an acreage where the family runs cattle.
The shop is dotted with posters from 2021 and 2022 featuring shows Wyatt played around Oklahoma.
In one corner, theres a metal rig his father made that appears to only serve one purpose.
This is our beer-can crusher, Wyatt explains.
A lot has changed.
And, apparently, right now, as we do this interview, Im enjoying my time off!
But, thats been a big part of it.
Man, my life has just gottenbetter!I have different outlooks, and I have different goals.
Plus, part of the problem was that I didnt have goals.
My dreams were coming true so fast, I didnt even have time to think about them.
Id just wonder, Why was I even dreaming about that?
His biggest distraction is that hes gutting and renovating roughly half of this workshop into living quarters.
But on this day, its his next home.
Four months earlier, Flores and I stood in this same workshop.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Noe Flores was a drummer in a regional band.
Also in this band was Noes brother, Bobby, as well as Scotte Lester and Kelley Green.
Eventually, the Divide would reconcile in 2011 and re-assert themselves as torchbearers for Red Dirt.
But, as Flores grew up, he knew little about the band.
Mostly, he knew that Green and Lester were close friends to Noe.
Greens sons and Flores became friends.
The elder Green and Lester became mentors.
But, when it came to actually learning, wed go camping.
There would be like seven families that would go.
Thats what we did every weekend in the summer.
Theyd start showing me chords and scales and little things that you could do.
Scotte literally said, Sing like you got a pair.
He kept telling me that until I finally just said, You know what?
Even if I cant sing, I gotta just full-send all the way.
Their impact on me is huge.
Referencing Turnpikes Good Lord, Lorrie, he says: No one writes better stories.
Who knows how to captivate you, and put you somewhere faster?
Lorrie lit a cigarette and smiled and waved the smoke out of her face?
These opening lines are unbelievably great, and the story just captivates you, right then and there.
Then youre stuck with it the entire song.
Because you want to know more.
Thats the part that I feel like I have not accomplished yet.
Thats what I am really after, is writing the real stories.
A lot of times, I leave a lot of things out and dont tell full stories.
I love that Turnpike has characters.
That makes everyone lose their mind.
You feel like you know Lorrie.
Theres plenty of Lorries that youve seen.
just Dont Go is, straightforwardly, a song pleading with another person not to take their life.
And, in 2022, Flores was living in Nashville.
He moved to Music City, he says, to improve as a musician and songwriter.
I didnt come to Nashville to be Nashville.
I came here to get an education on my own, he says.
In spring 2023, Flores uploaded a version of just Dont Go to TikTok.
By summer 2023, Flores found himself on the road supporting 49 Winchester.
I still dont know how to fully talk about their sound, Flores says.
And, those guys taught us how to be out on the road.
Theyve helped us with so much.
For his part, Gibson valued the short time that Flores opened for 49.
By now, the two artists consider each other peers and friends.
Hes one of those few artists that are truly, authentically themselves, Gibson says of Flores.
I hear tinges of so many different things in Wyatts sound.
I think he is a big breath of fresh air in the country scene.
But his momentum ground to a halt.
But, in August 2023, while on tour, Flores learned his maternal grandfather had committed suicide.
The pace of his sudden rise had already been wearing on Flores when he got the news.
I already needed a wake-up call when I found out about my grandpa, Flores says.
Id lost a lot of people in my life.
It fucks with you, he says.
You cant do nothing about it.
Theyre gone, and all that you have is these leftover conversations.
So, you go diggin through them, and it kills you that you cant say goodbye.
While Flores tour rolled along, his mind became clouded with grief.
He had written kindly Dont Go, but it did not save his grandfather.
Days later, she died by suicide.
Flores sent condolences to her family on social media.
Ive struggled with mental health for a really long time, Flores says.
I remember the first time I brought it up to my parents.
I was one of those kids who got bullied a lot.
Im not gonna lie, I was a weird fucking kid.
I look at photos now like, Id punch the shit out of me too!
There were a lot of conversations.
Theyre telling me to do things, and I do not know why I hear these things.
Your mind plays tricks on you for some weird reason.
I was lucky enough to have a youth minister to talk me through it.
And I had a lot of good people supporting me through it.
But, thats when I first learned that I struggled with it.
He wanted his music to make a difference.
To be clear, this did happen often.
But, he dwelled on the people he did not save.
The driver said that just Dont Go had kept his wife from killing herself.
A few minutes later, the driver got a phone call.
His wife had been found dead of suicide.
That was what was on his mind when he broke down in Kansas City in February.
Fortunately for Flores, his two day-to-day managers William Dyer and Braden Milford saw the breakdown coming.
Within a day, they decided to pull Flores off the road for a month.
They sent him to a therapist in Nashville.
He played with his dogs.
He picked up a pop-up concert at a bar in Stillwater called the Salty Bronc.
He re-discovered an appreciation for himself, and for his music.
And he wasted little time putting pen to paper.
But by the time the EP was released, Flores mind was already on his bellwether project.
One song, in particular, illustrates the progress he made during and after his break.
Oh, Susannah was written, by Flores, to his fans.
Oh, Susannah is my entire fanbase, Flores says.
It starts with the same riff as like Dont Go in the beginning, and I love it.
Flores shared that sentiment in June.
Barely two weeks later, he changed his mind.
On July 10, Flores played the Grand Ole Opry for the second time.
Flores parents were also in attendance.
He had a four-song set that night, and Oh, Susannah was the third tune.
Before the songs final chorus, Flores had his band stop playing.
I did not write that song, kindly Dont Go, for everybody out there in the world.
I wrote it because of the situation that I was in with a girl that I loved.
But, this song is for yall.
Oh, Susannah is you.
I wrote this for you.
From the side of the stage, Divide frontman Mike McClure was blown away.
That aint easy to do.
And he did it with something that came from his heart, clearly.
Hes just gonna keep getting bigger and bigger.
I dont see how he couldnt.
Its a powerful, energetic love song about a real good time coming to an end.
That song, to me, is all gas, no brakes, Flores says.
I used to beat myself up about the writing.
Theres not enough imagery!
Theres not enough emotion!
If Flores story has not already made it clear,Welcome to the Plainsis heavy on Oklahoma.
Red Dirt gets name-checked in the title track.
He wants you to know youre welcome there any time.
Excerpted fromRED DIRT UNPLUGGED.2024 Josh Crutchmer and reprinted by permission from Back Lounge Publishing.
