If you've yet to experience a Koe show live in person, let this serve as your warning... Koe Wetzel is a tried-and-true road warrior, who has come up in the Texas scene and toured his a** off all over the country for years before he ever had so much of an inkling of mainstream success. He was plenty successful on his own, honestly. He didn't need it. Last year, though, all of that changed. Koe put out a new album called 9 Lives, which was admittedly, and intentionally, much more mainstream than anything he'd released before. In fact, as an example of this newfound success, Koe's song with Jessie Murph "High Road" just spent a fifth week at #1, and is his first-ever single on mainstream country radio. In a new interview with Holly Gleason for the Pollstar cover, he spoke much more in-depth about his rising mainstream stardom. Koe wrapped up an extensive world tour at the end of 2024, which saw him playing bigger venues in many cities he's played before, but it also saw him returning to some of the smaller markets he cut his teeth on for years. He says those are his people, and he would never "abandon" them just because his star is growing: "Growing up in those outlier markets, that’s more our crowd. I know those people, who come out and support you – and it’s not about [a radio hit]. They’re the people I’d hang out with, so why would we abandon them? We wouldn’t jump ship like that." Koe added that it's those smaller venues, and even "sh*thole bars" back home in Texas that helped him fall in love with the career and idea of playing music professionally: "2011, 2012 when I started touring – sh*thole bars with chicken wire, free beer, maybe a hotel room thrown in – I fell in love with Texas music, its lifestyle. My first show was Stoney LaRue at the Waco Fairgrounds when I was 6. We’d gone for a cousin’s wedding, and I’d asked to go along. I’d never felt anything like that. When 'Noise Complaint' dropped, it exploded: every week, every show, we were sold out. That same feeling; there was no turning back, only turning up." Notably, his tours have been much more calm behind the scenes. Usually, he would drink, go out onstage and party with the fans, then got offstage and drink some more. It was the bonafide rockstar lifestyle, but on the aforementioned Damn Near Normal Tour, he said he felt like "a caged animal," which was an attempt to keep him out of trouble. He also started working out more on the road, which help, and the ladies have certainly taken notice... but he seems content about it, adding that he feels he "never sounded better," and they were "the best" shows he's ever done: "On the ‘Damn Near Normal Tour,’ I was actually working out, then on the bus after the show. I felt a little like a caged animal, but I was good with it as I could take all that energy to the stage. I never sounded better, and it was the best shows we’ve ever done." But don't let that fool you... his grungy, loud, in-your-face rock are just as outrageous as they've always been. So much so, that Koe had to laugh at how some of his newer fans, who recently discovered him through 9 Lives, reacted to his less-than-appropriate or reserved live shows: "This tour, we had a lot of new fans who weren’t used to how hard we go. I could see it on their faces. It’s so loud and they’re so drunk, people leave going, ‘That was a lot.’ But they love everything about it. And the beer sales? We have some records across the country; but in Texas, where we sell a lot of booze, we need to get a percentage of the bar sales." I mean, he's still Koe... he doesn't hold back on stage, his songs are definitely not safe for work, and he is completely himself with the way he talks and the stories he tells. Ultimately, though, his music is an outlet for both himself and his fans, and he wants them to feel that they're all in it together, having fun, at his shows: "I’ve always loved baritone guitars that bring in the low end, that nasty-gritty tone of it that really fills out a song. I love that punk garage music, all the grunge as well as Wade Bowen and Ragweed. You know, you never know what people are going through or why they’re there. So I figure any outlet they can find to unwind, reset or just forget – and have fun – we all go through the same stuff. Let’s go through it hard and together." There's no arguing that he puts his money where his mouth is too, so to speak, because also according to Pollstar, he sold out 27 dates on the tour, and at his Red Rocks debut alone, he "sold 9,029 tickets and grossed $468,105," which impressive for one single night at any venue of that size, to say the least. Pollstar also says the that: "The highest grossing stops submitted to Pollstar Boxoffice include a July 27 show at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands, Texas ($717,978 grossed and 15,796 tickets sold) and a Sept. 6 show at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina ($647,265 grossed; 12,230 tickets)." Not bad for an artist who just now, as of the past few weeks, has a radio hit. Koe has always been a rare artist who consistently puts a**es in seats, for lack of a better phrase, and he's now doing it bigger than ever. It's hard to say where his career will go from here, and the kind of music he'll put out next, but when the time comes for the next record or tour, you can bet thousands of his fans will be there at the sold-out shows, ready to rock... and maybe drink a few beers, too. "High Road" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyAKpowkUDA