Wade Bowen Found the Answers He Needed in the Beauty of Simplicity

Now that it’s been a couple of years, stories continue to emerge of artists who turned the COVID-19 shutdown months into a fruitful period. He didn’t know it at the time, but singer-songwriter Wade Bowen needed the slowdown to begin his own renaissance.

For the better part of the last two decades, Bowen has been one of the most popular acts on the Texas country scene, with nearly constant touring to every corner of the U.S. and beyond. To any fan looking in from the outside, Bowen had no major reasons to doubt that his career was on the right track or that his music was hitting all the right notes. But he didn’t feel that way then. He had a hard time pinpointing where his discomfort was coming from, yet he felt a bit lost. It was a feeling that had been chipping at him before the world had stopped even.

He treasured the time at home in the Texas Hill Country with his wife and kids as venues closed and festivals canceled throughout 2020’s summer of uncertainty.  As Bowen settled into what was surely the most normal version of adult life he had ever known, one without sleeping on tour buses and playing in a different city every night of the week, he began to gain some clarity. He found that sometimes, the best route to a destination is by simply traveling the straightest path.

“I started asking myself simple questions,” Bowen says over the phone from his bus as it rolls to yet another concert. “‘What do I love? What kind of music do I love?’ I love country music, and I really love ’80s and ’90s country music. I love the lyrics from that era and what the artists were singing about, so I dove into that and found the direction I needed and the balance I wanted just by remembering what I love.”

Bowen is performing with Randy Rogers at Billy Bob’s Texas on Friday, July 22, and Saturday, July 23, in support of his upcoming album, Somewhere Between the Secret and the Truth. His latest is, without question, the most country album he’s released on his own. For the most part, Bowen’s excellent catalog consists of records packed with roots-rock gems that perhaps more closely align with Springsteen than Strait, yet his love of country songwriting greats such as Willie Nelson and Guy Clark is also more than apparent. And his Hold My Beer duet albums with longtime pal Randy Rogers are honky-tonk albums of the highest order, but of course, those aren’t representative of his own primary work.

It’s not accurate to suggest that Bowen has finally made at least a country-ish record, as his work has always leaned more into country-style storytelling than it does, say, modern hard-charging rock. But even he states that this new album is the most country-sounding one he’s recorded, and he hopes people notice that.

The album is populated with songs featuring quintessential “country characters,” sitting at a bar, nursing heartbreak and loneliness, sharing small town secrets or gearing up for some rowdy times, not to mention some downright gorgeous pedal steel work. Somewhere Between the Secret and the Truth succeeds in Bowen’s quest to make a record that would’ve fit securely in line with some of the seminal radio-ready country albums from the days when the likes of Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Clay Walker and Vince Gill ruled the scene. He co-wrote each of the tracks with an all-star group of songwriting greats including Eric Paslay, Heather Morgan, Randy Montana, Drew Kennedy and Lori McKenna.

Just as Bowen’s asking the question about what he loves guided him in this direction, keeping things simple led this project to become the best it could be, and that included the singer and songwriter taking on a new role as sole producer.

“I wasn’t really all in on that idea at first,” he says. “But I had brought on a new manager, and she brought this new confidence to me, and really pushed me out of my comfort zone. She’s believed in me at times more than I’ve believed in myself and having the reins in the studio started to sound fun. I’ve been doing this long enough to know what I want out of a song or a record, so I just said, ‘Screw it, let’s see what happens,’ and surrounded myself with good people, like Gary Strizek as an engineer, and we kept it simple.”

Simplicity would prove to be an important thread tying so much of Somewhere Between the Secret and the Truth together. The album still sounds very much like a Wade Bowen album, but Bowen the producer made some vital decisions on how Bowen the singer and musician would tackle these new songs in a new way.

“In country music, just like in blues, keeping things simple can sound complex when it’s done right,” he says. “I wanted to focus on the soul and passion of the singer. There’s nothing crazy or quirky about the chord progressions on the album, there’s hardly any minor chords. It’s just straight-ahead with lots of space for the band to breathe, the vocals to breathe and most importantly, for the lyrics to breathe. I feel like I’m writing the best songs of my life and this simplicity I’m talking about lets them shine.”

And speaking of shining, the latest single from the album, “A Guitar, a Singer and a Song,” is just the sort of brilliantly simple, yet stunning tune that best highlights this post-lockdown version of Bowen’s music. Vince Gill, the Country Music Hall of Famer with more Grammy Awards than any other male country artist in history, lent his iconic tenor and nimble acoustic guitar work to the gorgeous ballad that, as the title suggests, employs the clarity of simplicity to crystalize its point.

After all, Bowen says, part of what makes country music great is its focus on the purity of a song. He hopes his decision to strive for country music simplicity resonates with his listeners.

“I want people to hear this album and feel good, to feel like dancing, to think about their own life,” he says. “And I really want them to feel like they hear a guy singing that’s finally found himself, too.”