Country Next: Wynn Williams

Texas native Wynn Williams is reviving the beloved sound of 90s country with his original music.

The former rodeo cowboy started chasing his dreams of pursuing a country music career after an injury caused him to step out of the saddle. Eight years later, the singer-songwriter has made a name for himself opening for artists such as Randall King and amassing over 12 million global streams.

Country Now recently sat down with Wynn to discuss his musical inspirations, his latest single, “Country Therapy,” what’s to come, and more.

Read on to find out more about Wynn in this exclusive Q&A below.

How did you begin a career in country music?

I’ve always been singing. My first performance would be at the talent show in high school, actually, that’s when I got my first taste of what it was like to play in front of a crowd. I kind of just fell in love with it. And then I went to college on a rodeo scholarship at Weatherford College for two years, which is where I’m from, and then transferred to Texas A&M where I rodeoed there for one semester. Then I had an injury on my leg and my knee, so I chose to stop rodeo and kind of focus on music a little bit more. And then I graduated from Texas A&M in 2016, but my rent was so cheap that I decided if I was gonna try and play music as a career, I needed to do it while my rent was cheap. So yeah, I graduated in December of 2016 from A&M, and then immediately started playing music full time and I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to do it as a career. 

How did growing up in Texas as a rodeo cowboy shape your artistry?

I’m a 90s baby, and I grew up on what I like to call the golden era of country music. George Strait and Brooks & Dunn and Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Garth, all of those artists were such a huge influence on me as a young person who was riding in the car or whatever. And then, as I started to rodeo in high school, obviously country music is a huge part of the rodeo world, and I was fortunate enough to get kind of plugged into some of those rodeos as an artist. So I would go play the rodeo, or I would just be hanging out in the trailers and just playing acoustic guitar waiting for the rodeo to start or maybe after the rodeos. I also kind of relate touring to rodeo quite a bit, because they’re really similar in the fact that you drive, you know, hundreds of miles and lots of hours to make one rodeo and, as a steer wrestler, you need to be under four seconds if you want to be in the money. If you want a chance at winning the rodeo, you probably need to be under four seconds. So you drive all that time, all those miles for four seconds in the arena, right? You kind of do the same thing as a touring act. You drive hundreds of miles, lots of hours, so you can get, you know, whatever set length you have available, whether it’s a 90-minute show, or maybe you’re opening for somebody and you get 45 minutes, you’re going all that way for a short little payoff. But the payoff is what makes everything worth it. 

Your music combines elements of Brooks & Dunn, George Strait, and Garth Brooks. How have these artists influenced your style?

That kind of music, you know, the instrumentation has always appealed to me. I come from a musical family; it’s always been a part of who I am. And, you know, the Texas stuff also runs my family. My grandfather had a band and he was actually asked to be a Texas Playboy with Bob Wills, so the western swing stuff has always been a little bit of an influence in my upbringing. And then as I grew a little bit older and I started to listen to some of the stuff in the early 2000s and kind of the mid-2000s that kind of sound sonically was something that I wanted to achieve once I started to make my own music. So we have a lot of the same instrumentation as a George Strait or a Brooks & Dunn and then we also kind of translate that into a live show, so that is kind of right down the middle of where we’re going with my music specifically. 

What does it mean to you to maintain a more traditional country music sound, especially when the industry is rapidly changing and modernizing?

I think it just comes from, again, being raised on that kind of country music. I can remember whenever Florida Georgia Line came onto the scene in 2009 or 2010 or something like that with ‘Cruise’. And from that point on, things changed a lot, right? Then we had this whole era of what we have now, so now things are starting to swing back towards a little bit more of a traditional sound, which is awesome because that’s what is my taste. That’s how I view country music, so it’s kind of easy to naturally fall into that lane as the country music pendulum swings back towards that traditional sound. It’s a really exciting time for a guy like me and, you know, the Randall Kings and the Cody Johnsons and the Zach Tops and the Jake Worthingtons, that kind of sound, is what I think people are kind of yearning for again.

Congrats on your new single ‘Country Therapy’! Can you tell me a little bit about the story behind that track?

I wrote that song with Jeff Hyde and Ryan Tyndell; they both write over at Little Louder. We sat down to write a song one day and I was like, man, I’ve got this idea, and it’s kind of just about doing all the things that a normal country person would do. Whether it be going fishing, or maybe going to a Honky Tonk and having a beer, maybe taking a girl out dancing, or something like that. And that is the therapy session away from the hustle and bustle of the everyday life that we as Americans live our lives inundated with every single day. So it’s like if you can go out on a boat and just hang out, if you can, you know, cast a reel, and maybe you’re sitting on a front porch and playing a little guitar or something, that’s a therapy session in its own right. So ‘Country Therapy’ was very much kind of an homage to the things that people like to do on the weekends just to get away from the stuff that is going on in our crazy world right now.

As a singer-songwriter, where do you usually find inspiration for your lyrics and melodies?

A lot of times it’s just, I’ll be doing something and then I’ll just have this idea pop into my head, and I’ll be like, ‘oh, that could be cool for a hook or a line.’ A lot of it comes from real life, just stuff that I do on the daily. And then sometimes, as a storyteller, as a songwriter, you pull from other people’s experiences, so some songs are born from other people’s stories. But if I can take that, actually get it done on paper, then I’ve done my job as a songwriter or a storyteller. And I would like to add, going back to the ‘Country Therapy’ question, this particular song, ‘Country Therapy,’ is one that we’ve been playing live for a little while and it’s always like it’s getting such a great reaction live. You know, people are dancing, they’re having a great time. It’s such a fun up-tempo song that just kind of appeals to our concert crowd. So we decided we wanted to come with this song this summer because it is like the perfect summer song for people to go out there and do the things that they love. 

What do you want fans to take away from your music?

I think going back to how I was raised, all the music that I listened to as a young man, it was just great lyrically and it always had either a message that you can take away from it, or it was just a great story. If I can do that as a songwriter, lyrically, then that’s something that I would really want to achieve. And then also I want my music, melodically, to be reminiscent of that late 90s, early 2000s music that I grew up listening to and that so many other people know and love as country music. 

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You’ve recently been touring out West with artists such as Randall King and Josh Ward. What has been your most memorable experience while on the road?

I do get to play with a lot of great artists, like Randall and Josh, among many others, but we’re actually going back to Europe to play some shows later this year that we’re really excited about. It’s kind of crazy to me sometimes that I get to do this for a living and I get to travel the world, play music, see amazing places, eat amazing food. So I think probably going back to Europe, or just going to Europe in general, and playing country music for those fans internationally is something that I will always remember throughout my lifetime. It’s just such an amazing experience over there to get to do that. 

Are there any artists you dream of collaborating with in the future?

I would love to do a song with Randall. We’ve written a couple things in the past and I just got pitched one of his songs that he’s singing a demo on, and I’m listening to it thinking maybe we could do that together. I’d love to collab with Randall. Zach Top would be another one that I would like to do a song with. There are so many great artists right now that are just killing it. Drake Milligan’s another one that I’m a big fan of. We’re going to be playing with him in September. I think he’s got great songs, he’s got a great sound, and he’s a super nice guy. So, yeah, let’s see if we can manifest this into happening: Randall King we’ll do a song together. 

What’s next for you?

We have a lot of tour dates coming up, which is exciting. We’re going to Colorado, we’re going to Europe again in October. We’ve got a bunch of stuff lined up, really, from now throughout the rest of the year. And then in 2025, we’ll have a bunch of great dates as well, that I can’t really speak to right now. But we’re excited about the second half of 2024 on the touring front, as we’re getting out of Texas a lot. I love Texas. I’m from Texas, but, you know, it’s great to get out and visit some new venues and get some new fans that maybe have never heard of us before. There’s so many places we’ve been that I’ll ask the question, ‘Is this your first time seeing us today?’ Like, half the place raises their hands. So it’s always such a fun time to just go out on tour and just meet new people. And I always go hang out at the merch table after every show so I get to meet people face-to-face, and kind of, you know, create this, almost little family, if you will. But lots of touring, lots of brand new music that we have in the can ready to go. And then, as we put together more songs right now, we’re hoping to get the studio a little bit later this year and have a full-length record for 2025.

Fans can keep up with Wynn Williams on Instagram.