Koe Wetzel Night Champion Album Release Details

Before singer-songwriter Koe Wetzel’s new album, The Night Champion, was even released, the party hearty country star had logged some serious miles traveling to play shows in support of the release.

“We got to Chicago yesterday, and we do a pop-up show at Carol’s and then we fly to San Diego,” says Wetzel via phone. He performs on Thursday, Aug. 27 at the Wolstein Center. “We left the bus at the house for this trip.”

He also went to the Land Down Under earlier this year and found that Aussies appreciate his rowdy shows just as much as Americans do.

“Australia was kind of the kick-off to the Night Champion Tour,” he says. “Australia was crazy. I don’t know what it is about it, but in the last three or four years, in my eyes, the genre has grown. Dude, they are so fuckin’ great. They are so cool and love the music. They are true fans. It makes me feel like I’m back in the day and having crazy fans come out in smaller rooms. It was a damn blast.”

Wetzel says that The Night Champion was like an unplanned pregnancy. He didn’t intend on making an album, but a few whimsical studio sessions gave birth to it, and he couldn’t be prouder of the results.

“We were just trying to follow up what [the 2024 single] ‘High Road’ did for us,” he says. ‘I wanted to give something back to radio, so we wrote a few songs, and it turned into what The Night Champion is. It came organically. We had a lot of the same writers with me. I wasn’t planning it. It just happened. It’s been cool to see from where it started to where it ended up. We’ve been sitting on it for a about a year now, dude.”

For the first time ever, Wetzel, a Texas native, recorded an entire album in Nashville.

“It was a great process,” he says. “[Producer] Gabe Simon (Noah Kahan) set everything up, and he is phenomenal.”

The first single, “Hurts Like You,” finds Wetzel contemplating a toxic relationship and getting more introspective than he has in the past. “I can take the pain if it hurts like you,” he sings on the tune that features a catchy refrain and shows off his pop sensibilities.

“It’s [about a relationship that’s] like a drug you can’t get away from,” he explains. “You know it’s bad, and it’s going to hurt you. There’s something about it that brings you back. That was the idea going into it. You can tell that that song stands out on its own. We didn’t write for a radio hit; that’s just what we came up with.”

Wetzel exploits his red dirt background on the grunge-y “Time Goes on,” a tune that evokes Soundgarden and Nirvana with its heavy guitars. Wetzel doesn’t hide his affinity for those Seattle-based bands.

“I grew up on Nirvana and pop-punk music,” he explains. “With the last couple of records I’ve done, I’ve slowed it down a little bit. The records weren’t as heavy. I tapped into the emotional side to comprehend all these feelings. I wanted to put a little spark on it, so we grunged it up as best we could, and I think it turned out pretty good.”

For Wetzel, who first performed when he was 6, the album represents the culmination of a lifetime of listening to all kinds of music.

“Each record is a chapter in my life, and this record ropes everything in and closes the book,” he says. “It looks back on everything, and I think I will look back on it in 10, 20 or 30 years and still think highly of it.”

He half-jokingly thinks his embrace of so many different musical genres has to do with a learning disability.

“I think I have ADHD but was never tested for it, and I can’t stay on one thing too long,” he says. “My mom would play honky-tonk country stuff and put me on ’90s country music. My dad loved hip-hop and rock and in high school, I found out about grunge and then alternative rock. I love so many styles and that has pointed me to where I am today. I never sat down and said I wanted to play this kind of music.”

Wetzel broke out when his 2016 debut album, Noise Complaint, became an underground hit.

“That album was just the right place at the right time,” says Wetzel. “In the Texas country scene, there was stuff being done the same way. It was a brash record for Texas. It stood out because it was so honest. It hit the college students in the teeth when they needed it the most. It connected with the younger generation and was a timing deal. It wasn’t anything we did.’

Wetzel signed to Columbia and then released an album called Sellout to show that he hadn’t, in fact, sold out.

“I got everybody’s blessing before I went in there and bashed on everyone,” he says. “It was part of the deal. Coming from the Texas country scene, those fans are so loyal. It was me reassuring them that the music would not change. I told those guys at Columbia what I was thinking. They said, ‘We’re looking for some shock value.’ I said, ‘I got it for you, baby.’”

At the time of this interview, Wetzel had just finished rehearsals for the tour and says he was one of the first Texas country acts to use pyro.

“We have a bunch of fire for this tour too,” he says. “it’s a rock ’n’ roll show. The songs from the record will sound re-imagined. It’s super-loud and energetic. It’s a good time.”