Editor’s Note: In addition to our ongoing preview coverage, Vanyaland and Boston Calling are teaming up once again to showcase the homegrown bands and artists that help shape the local flavor of the city’s most vital music festival. Boston Calling’s ’24 headliners — The Killers, Ed Sheeran, Tyler Childers — and its remarkable undercard are well-known and established; but over the next few weeks, keep it locked as we profile the New England talent that decorates the lineup like few other major festivals in the region. More than a decade in the game, Vanyaland and Boston Calling continue to showcase Boston in new ways, and as usual, we have the sounds to prove it.
Artist: Ward Hayden & The Outliers
Where and when: Performing live on Saturday, May 25 at 6:50 p.m. on the Orange Stage.
Artist bio:
Boston is one of America’s great music towns. But among the various styles the city is known for that have launched many musical acts to success and stardom, country music wasn’t a truly thriving genre there, that’s until singer, songwriter and guitarist Ward Hayden and his band The Outliers (formerly known as Girls Guns & Glory) sang and played their distinctive take on C&W with a rock’n’roll kick to the top of the Boston scene and a thriving, critically- acclaimed and highly-awarded career across America and in Europe.
Now, with their ninth LP, South Shore, Ward Hayden & The Outliers bring their “amber-soaked melodies, tight musicianship, and casual elegance” (Boston Globe) all back home, literally and spiritually. Ward notes that the release is “the closest thing I’ve ever done to a concept album. I wanted to just recount my experience of growing up in a small town and what it meant and what it took to get out and leave that behind to try and pursue something, chase after something that was and is a dream. I used to joke that my greatest achievement was I got out of here because it was no easy feat. My family had moved 12 times by the time I was 12 years old, so once there was a place I could really call home and I’d developed friends and connections, it was tough to leave that behind. But, Scituate, Massachusetts isn’t Las Vegas, if you want to get your music to a wider audience you have to get out in the world and bring it to them.”
Over the course of eight previous albums and playing some 200 shows a year for most of the last two decades, his band became leading lights for contemporary country that integrates the music’s finest traditions into a sound Cincinnati City Beat hails as “incredibly endearing.” They’ve won seven Boston Music Awards (including Act of the Year), the French Country Music Awards crowned them the Independent Artist of the Year, plus an Americana Music Awards nomination for Artist of the Year. As well, they are a regular presence on the Americana chart and SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country channel.
Listen to Ward Hayden & The Outliers on Spotify:
What we’ve written: Ward Hayden & The Outliers on Vanyaland:
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Watch Ward Hayden & The Outliers on YouTube:
For all our coverage leading up to, during, and recapping Boston Calling Music Festival, keep it locked to Vanyaland.
