Pressing play on the new album from Wyatt Flores can feel a bit like turning down a gravel road. At times, it may challenge you, like when the steering wheel shakes as your tires catch on a few loose rocks. But tucked between waving tree branches and rolling across wildgrowing fields of fescue, there’s beauty and honesty in each passing mile.
You may get a little lost. But you may also find yourself along the way.
The album’s called Welcome To The Plains, and it takes listeners to the corner of the world that this 23-year-old country-folk singer-songwriter knows best Oklahoma.
“Welcome To The Plains is all about my fight to come home,” said Flores. “The struggle of coming from home – the little towns – and going out in the real world. Just being lost in it all.”
A 14-song trek through tales of fiery love, small-town truths, and lighthearted mortality, Welcome To The Plains captures the grounded, sincere storytelling forged by Flores in-part during formative years in his hometown, Stillwater, Oklahoma. He was raised on timetested rock ‘n’ roll, like the Eagles and John Mellencamp. At age 12, his sister passed him a copy of Turnpike Troubadours’ sophomore album, Diamonds & Gasoline, unlocking a love for roots music that later extended to artists like Jason Isbell, 49 Winchester, and Sturgill Simpson.
Flores began his songwriting career in earnest after studying at Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology for a semester in late 2020 that ended in his dropping out, because “college will take your money no matter how old you are, I’m gonna go chase down a dream,” he said. After his brief run on campus, Flores ranched while moonlighting as an aspiring songwriter. He began independently releasing music, and soon took extended trips to Nashville in hopes of honing his craft alongside seasoned songwriters.
In the months after releasing a handful of singles – including the fan-favorite, “Please Don’t Go,” – and his debut EP, The Hutson Session, Flores began building a steadfast following of listeners who often heard shades of their life experience in his honest songs. Gigs in tiny Oklahoma bars turned into shoulder-to-shoulder club shows and, eventually, a contract with Island Records. With 2023 EP Life Lessons and early 2024’s eight song collection Half Life under his belt, Flores’ music now reaches millions each month.
In summer 2024, he joined the soundtrack of Twisters: The Album alongside trendsetting artists like Tyler Childers, Luke Combs, Leon Bridges, and more. His standout summer continued with a nomination for Emerging Act of the Year at the 2024 Americana Honors & Awards.
And before this year ends, he’ll deliver Welcome To The Plains, an album that opens with the scene-setting title track, co-written by Ketch Secor, bandleader of the Grammy Award-winning group Old Crow Medicine Show. In the foot-stomping country-folk tune, Flores stretches a new take on his homeland. In the chorus, he sings, “It’s red dirt poor and wanting more/ Mr. Weatherman knocking at my door/ Where dreams go drying up like rain … Welcome to the plains.”
On writing “Welcome To The Plains,” Flores said, “You don’t have to scratch the surface to figure out the state is pretty messed up. We just have a rough history of who we are and where we come from, and how you’re gonna make it out.”
The album continues with “When I Die,” an ode to celebrating life after it ends. Like a laundry list of tongue-in-cheek dying wishes, the song requests that the narrator be cut in half after he passes, because funerals can cost a fortune. And if you talk shit, be prepared for a ghost to spook your kids. In a sincere chorus, Flores sings, “Oh no, don’t you cry/ Life was worth living, well I did it, didn’t I?/ I can only get so much time/ So don’t focus on the wrongs I never got right/ I hope it’s you who’s on my mind/ When I die.”
Cut in Los Angeles and Asheville, North Carolina, and produced by Beau Bedford, Welcome To The Plains digs into heavy topics, like on “Oh Susannah,” which comes from the emotional toll Flores felt as he connected nightly with fans who shared stories of depression, anxiety, and other struggles. Earlier this year, Flores canceled a handful of tour dates to prioritize his mental health.
“I couldn’t keep up with myself,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking about myself. I was trying to be whatever I needed to be to help others heal themselves, but I wasn’t healing.”
Welcome To The Plains also plays into Flores’ throwback country tastes, like on the 1990s-inspired “The Only Thing Missing Is You,” and showcases his ability to deliver campfire folk ballads, such as the love torn standout “Habits.”
Flores channels the aforementioned Mellencamp in “Little Town,” which offers his country-roots take on heartland songwriting. In the song, he invites listeners to a place that doesn’t need city lights to shine in his eyes. But he strikes a different note on small-town life in “Stillwater,” a sobering song from the perspective of a longtime local who understands the give-and-take of living permanently – in a college town. On “Stillwater,” he sings, “It’s the best four years of her life until they’re gone/ But to me she wrecked the one place that, well, I call home.”
About the song, Flores shared, “I love my hometown. I’ve had to realize that it is a love song for my hometown.”
This fall and winter, Flores tours extensively to support Welcome To The Plains. Dates include two nights at Washington’s famed Gorge Amphitheater (supporting Luke Combs), as well as London Music Hall in the United Kingdom, Washington D.C.’s 9:30 Club, The Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles, an appearance on the coveted Grand Ole Opry program and two nights at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
In the meantime, when you next turn down a gravel road, turn on Welcome To The Plains. Maybe you’ll find something you weren’t searching for.
