For more than two decades, Ryan Bingham has built a career out of turning his own experiences into songs for restless souls — cowboys, drifters, vagabonds, road warriors, and anyone who fantasizes about such a way of life. But on his latest record, They Call Us The Lucky Ones, he sounds less like a man outrunning the darkness of the past and more like one who has found peace in the light of the present. The ironically titled album still carries the scars of the hard-lived experiences that have always defined Bingham’s music. But on They Call Us The Lucky Ones, Bingham, who recently sat down with us at Whiskey Riff to discuss the project, reframes those experiences through a lens of love and gratitude – emotions that have become especially prominent in this current chapter of his life. It’s no coincidence that this is Bingham’s first album since marrying his wife, Hassie Harrison, nor is it a coincidence that it is his first project recorded with The Texas Gentlemen as his backing band. But to understand how different this chapter really is, you have to go back to where it all started. In 2007, Bingham introduced himself to the alt-country and Americana world through the release of his acclaimed debut record Mescalito. A standout album steeped in the life of a near-the-border rambler, Mescalito immediately earned Bingham a cult following that has only grown in both stature and intensity over time. A couple of years later, in 2009, Bingham’s “The Weary Kind” won an Oscar for Best Original Song after being featured as the theme for the film Crazy Heart, accelerating the trajectory of his career. As his fanbase grew, Bingham put the pedal to the metal, and over the next decade he became one of the defining voices of modern roots music. Following his acting role as Walker on the hit TV show Yellowstone, Bingham’s fame achieved an all-time high in recent years, and as a result, his music is reaching more ears than ever. But despite the expanded reach, he still has not compromised his authenticity. His music has long been rooted in the loneliness of small border towns and lost highways, and with tales of addiction, loss, and depression, they’ve have often served as an anthem for the downcast. But They Call Us The Lucky Ones feels different from the start. Written and originally recorded by Bingham’s longtime guitarist Cody Huggins, the album’s title track, “The Lucky Ones,” is the only song on the record that he didn’t write himself. But Bingham had been a fan of it for quite some time, and at this point in his career, he felt the phrase was fittingly ironic: “I feel like [the song] kind of sums up our whole little ragtag group — The Texas Gentlemen and me, Cody, and all of us… guys who have been through the trenches and wear a lot of hard-earned luck on our sleeves.” The “hard-earned” aspect is where the irony comes in, as it’s clear everyone involved in this album — especially Bingham — has been through a lot over the years. Much like he has done in his music throughout his career, the title track and album as a whole turn the mythical nature of the outlaw troubadour on its head, revealing a lifestyle far less glamorous than it appears. Instead, it’s often defined by exhaustion and loneliness — the emotional toll that comes with chasing highways and outrunning problems. But They Call Us The Lucky Ones differs from much of Bingham’s earlier work in one major way. Throughout the record, love emerges as an anchor, one of the only things capable of grounding such a life. And much of that perspective can be traced back to Bingham’s wife, Hassie Harrison. Having met and fallen in love on the set of Yellowstone, Bingham and Harrison married in 2023, and this album marks the first collection of songs he has written and released since the beginning of their relationship. As a result, this may be the first Bingham album where love feels permanent instead of fleeting. In “Blue Skies,” Bingham sings “Wouldn’t trade a blue sky honey, for the way I feel for you.” And in “I’m A Goin’ Nowhere,” he states that “Love is all around and nothing more.” That emotional shift isn’t accidental, either. When asked directly whether his relationship with Harrison was a major aspect of this record, Bingham didn’t hesitate to agree. “There’s just a lot of laughs and a lot of joy hanging out with her,” Bingham said with a smile, agreeing that his improved perspective after meeting her has shone through in these new songs. Still, They Call Us The Lucky Ones features plenty of references to the darker themes that are synonymous with Bingham’s catalog. “Cocaine Charlie,” for example, considers the brutal reality and intertwined nature of desperation and life on the border, and is based on stories he’s heard and people he’s known in his own life. “Twist the Knife” and “Relevance” both wrestle with regret, anger, and the pressures of the outside world. But unlike many of the previous records, those darker notions are no longer presented as inescapable, rather aspects of life for which genuine love can be a cure. He makes this as clear as ever in “Relevance,” as the final line in each verse may as well serve as the album’s thesis statement: “What’s the relevance if you can’t get no love?” With Harrison by his side, it seems as if Bingham no longer romanticizes the suffering that has long been central to his songwriting. “That’s part of growing up – we don’t have to keep living the same story we did when we were kids. I think it’s important that you experience things, and the stuff that wasn’t so good in your life back in the day, you don’t have to keep repeating that,” he explained. But even as a man who is at peace with the present, Bingham still sounds incapable of slowing down and staying put, holding onto the instincts that led him to competing on the rodeo circuit as a teenager and young adult, and to being a touring musician ever since. They Call Us The Lucky Ones is full of references to highways, trails, and trains. That restless spirit wasn’t necessarily an intentional theme in the album, but Bingham wasn’t a bit surprised it came out that way. “I think I’ve always just gravitated towards that vagabond kind of lifestyle. So much of my life has been spent traveling and being on the road.” Bingham may have found the love and happiness he was searching for all along, but that hasn’t stopped him from heeding the road’s call. And his new backing band, The Texas Gentlemen, are partly to blame (and thank). An established Dallas/Fort Worth-area act with killer original music, The Texas Gentlemen are an eclectic five-piece outfit of accomplished musicians that started playing together as far back as 2014. As Bingham recalls it, their paths crossing was equal parts happenstance and fate, but it happened in a rather high stakes scenario in 2021. “When I was working on the Yellowstone show, I couldn’t really put out music or tour very much. I was under contract with them, and had to be on call and working in Montana. I had a one-off show booked at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth, and it was sold out. I didn’t have a band at the time because all the guys that I was normally playing with were working with other bands and on the road. My friend Charlie Sexton told me to call these guys The Texas Gentlemen… So I literally called them up and said, ‘Hey, I got a show in a couple of weeks, and I really need a band. And a good one.’ And they said, ‘Yeah, just send us the songs and the set list, and we’ll learn everything. We’ll meet you there.’ And they did. They showed up. We had hardly rehearsed at all, and played a sold out show at Billy Bob’s, and just had an absolute blast.” And the rest is history, because The Texas Gentlemen have backed Bingham at most every show since, and they’re just as important a part of this album as Bingham himself. In fact, if it weren’t for the band, this album might not even exist and he’d be spending all his time at home with his family this summer instead of in a tour bus: “If it weren’t for The Texas Gentlemen, I probably wouldn’t have put a record out, and I probably wouldn’t be going on tour. I’m pretty happy at home these days, enjoying my wife and my animals and kids and enjoying being home, but this has been a whole lot of fun.” Whether he realized it in the moment or not, the same ease and joy that Bingham was feeling in his personal life with Harrison had eased into his professional life, with a reinvigorated love for the creative process of making music that was inspired by The Texas Gentlemen. And what better way to capitalize on it than by releasing new music together? Working with his friend and longtime collaborator Grant Wilborn at his studio in Fort Worth, Bingham and The Texas Gentlemen started out with a plan to just cut a song or two for the fun of it. But in just as organic a manner as their relationship was forged, so too did the prospect of creating a full album together. “We would go in for a couple of days at a time, without much of a plan. Just to go in there and have fun and hang out and have an opportunity to jam together. One day, I’d have a couple of songs and we’d go record those two, and a month later I had two or three more. And then we kind of looked up and were like, sh*t, we’ve got an album here. Let’s put it out and go hit the road!” And that’s exactly what Ryan Bingham and The Texas Gentlemen have done. Sonically, the album is a sensible extension of Bingham’s catalog to date. Weaving seamlessly through rock-and-rollers like “Let the Big Dog Eat” and soulful ballads like “Twist the Knife,” the album spans multiple subgenres of roots music in a manner that pushes the boundaries yet feels tasteful within Bingham’s existing realm. But as tends to be the case, the songwriting and content matter are what sets this album apart from records being released by other artists. From rambler anthems, to heartfelt love songs, to larger than life stories, the album has it all, and every word is personal to Bingham in one way or another. “My songs are always something that I’ve experienced or been through. I find it quite difficult to write about stuff that I haven’t really experienced in one way or the other.” The personal connection Bingham has with the lyrics in his music and the brotherly connection he possesses with the members of the band that backs him both enhance the live show beyond the stand alone strength of the songs themselves. And with 23 shows on the schedule for the summer, beginning in Pittsburgh this Friday and ending at Montana’s Under The Big Sky Festival in July, Bingham and the boys have plenty of opportunities to play the new songs live. They even gave several of these songs a test drive by adding them to his set on the last tour, and things went seamlessly. “The crowds have been really receptive to them,” he said, noting how quickly the songs have connected on tour. And the way that the songs on the new album mesh with the older classics has been a pleasant surprise to Bingham as well: “It feels like they kind of highlight some of the older stuff and then add to this new chapter.So our show really creates this arc from the past, and evolves into the middle of it, and then shows what it’s turning into and where it’s going to go from now.” Even for an artist with as much experience as Bingham, a new album and a full tour can still feel nerve-racking. But with Harrison by his side and The Texas Gentlemen behind him, he’s leaning into the moment — and he’s not measuring its success in terms of streaming numbers or ticket sales. “What matters at the end of it all is that people still want you to come play the songs for them. The happiness of it all right now has been all the success I could ever ask for. There’s a purpose in all of this and it’s a lot bigger than any of the business stuff.” That perspective loops back to the album’s title and the irony at its core. For most of his career, Bingham has written from the perspective of drifters, outlaws, addicts, and a cast of characters who have been down on their luck. They Call Us The Lucky Ones still lives in that world, with never ending highways and scars that never fade away. But it also carries something new. Love, connection, gratitude – reasons to appreciate the moment. And that’s the real irony of it all. After everything he’s written about survival, Bingham now suggests the lucky ones aren’t the ones who got away from the road, but rather the ones who finally found something worth staying for. They Call Us The Lucky Ones Tracklist “The Lucky Ones” “Let The Big Dog Eat” “I Got A Feelin'” “Twist the Knife” “Americana” “Cocaine Charlie” “Blue Skies” “Relevance” “Ballad of the Texas Gentlemen” “I’m A Goin’ Nowhere” Ryan Bingham & The Texas Gentlemen Tour Dates May 22 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE May 23 – Columbus, OH – KEMBA Live! May 24 – Cleveland, OH – The Agora May 26 – Cincinnati, OH – Taft Theatre May 27 – Royal Oak, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre May 29 – Buffalo, NY – Artpark Mainstage Theater May 30 – Kingston, NY – Ulster Performing Arts Center June 1 – South Deerfield, MA – Summer Stage at Tree House Brewing Company June 2 – Portland, ME – State Theatre June 3 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner June 5 – Port Chester, NY – The Capitol Theatre June 6 – New Haven, CT – Toad’s Place June 7 – Montclair, NJ – The Wellmont Theater June 9 – New York, NY – Irving Plaza June 10 – Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore June 12 – Richmond, VA – The National June 13 – Washington, D.C. – Lincoln Theatre June 14 – Norfolk, VA – The Norva June 16 – Chattanooga, TN – The Signal June 18 – Fayetteville, AR – Ozark Music Hall June 19 – Dallas, TX – Longhorn Backyard Amphitheater July 11 – Alta, WY -Grand Targhee Resort July 18 – Whitefish, MT – Under the Big Sky FestivalThe post Exclusive Interview: How Ryan Bingham’s New Album ‘They Call Us The Lucky Ones’ Marks A New Chapter In His Legendary Career first appeared on Whiskey Riff.