“A catchy collection of pop hooks that mix Beatles melodies with a bottom-end groove torn from the Stax Records playbook…Baxter’s sharpest batch of social commentary” -Rolling Stone

“As a songwriter, Rayland’s got a way of twisting near-universal truths into new ideas and songs” -NPR

“This is modern, American rock music at its finest” –Relix

“Wide Awake is Baxter fully blossoming from the folk singer bud we’ve come to know into a full-blown master of pop music” -No Depression

Rayland Baxter is sharing a new video for his single “Hey Larocco” via Rolling Stone today. Directed and filmed entirely on an iPhone in Key West, Florida by Asher Moss, the video is the second installment in a trilogy (which kicked off with the “Casanova” video in October) that sees Rayland on the run from the law. Rolling Stone called it “an engaging freewheeling fugitive romp… a spiritual descendent of Baxter’s most recent video ‘Casanova’.”

 
Rayland is currently in the middle of a massive US run, christened the “hey baby hey baby” tour, playing the biggest headline shows of his career including a nearly sold-out NYC date at Brooklyn Steel, and just added West Coast dates in March including a stop at the Teragram Theatre in LA (all tour dates below). Rayland is touring in support of his latest LP Wide Awake which won critical acclaim across the Americana and rock spectrum. Lead single “Casanova” shot up the Triple A charts to land at #9; GQ named it one of their Songs of the Summer 2018.

 
NPR Music called Wide Awake “perfection…a huge leap [that] dips into the rich tradition of witty, sonically complex pop”, and the record has also been spotlighted by the New York Times, Paste, American Songwriter, World Cafe, Relix, No Depression, and Flaunt among other places. Currently Rayland has over one million monthly listeners on Spotify and has been featured on numerous Spotify and Apple Music playlists. This summer, he opened several shows on Shakey Graves’ August tour before a run of West Coast headline dates that saw sellouts in numerous markets including LA, Portland and Seattle.

 
Wide Awake is produced by Butch Walker (Weezer, Pink, Pete Yorn) and features Walker himself on bass, Cage the Elephant’s Nick Bockrath on guitar, Dr. Dog’s Eric Slick on drums, and piano wizard Aaron Embry (Elliott Smith, Brian Eno) on keys. Rayland’s father Bucky Baxter contributes pedal steel, as does original Nashville cat Lloyd Green.

 
Listen to ‘Wide Awake’ on all platforms here: http://wideawake.raylandbaxter.com/
 
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Rayland Baxter will be playing as follows:

1/25 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall
1/26 – Nashville, TN @ Marathon Music Works
1/29 – Ithaca, NY @ Haunt
1/30 – Holyoke, MA @ Gateway City Arts
1/31 – Portland, ME @ Port City Music Hall
2/01 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground Showcase Lounge
2/02 – Boston, MA @ Sinclair
2/05 – Newport News, VA @ Boathouse Live
2/06 – Charlottesville, VA @ The Southern
2/07 – Charlotte, NC @ Visulite Theatre
2/8 – Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle
2/09 – Charleston, SC @ Charleston Pour House
2/10 – Jacksonville, FL @ Murray Hill Theatre Benefit Concert
2/28 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
3/01 – Frisco, CO @ 10 Mile Music Hall
3/02 – Boulder, CO @ Fox Theatre
3/04 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown
3/05 – Des Moines, IA @ Wooly’s
3/08 – Madison, WI @ The Sylvee^
3/09 – St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre^
3/10 – Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater^
3/13 – Tucson, AZ @ Rialto Theatre^
3/15 – Tempe, AZ @ Marquee Theatre^
3/16 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan^
3/21 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
3/22 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom
3/25 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
3/27 – Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom^
3/29 – Houston, TX @ Revention Music Center^
3/30 – Austin, TX @ Stubbs BBQ^
3/31 – Austin, TX @Stubbs BBQ^
4/03 – Orlando, FL @ House of Blues^
4/05 – St. Petersburg, FL @ Jannus Live^
4/06 – Key West, FL @ Key West Amphitheater^
4/11 – Las Vegas, NV @ Bender Jamboree
4/12 – Las Vegas, NV @ Bender Jamboree
4/13 – Kahului, HI @ Color Festival Hawaii
5/05 – Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees
9/14 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks

^ = w/ The Revivalists