Ward Hayden & The Outliers – 4/18

Boston is one of America’s great music towns. But among the various styles the city is known for that have launched many musical acts to success and stardom, country music wasn’t a truly thriving genre there, that’s until singer, songwriter and guitarist Ward Hayden and his band The Outliers (formerly known as Girls Guns & Glory) sang and played their distinctive take on C&W with a rock’n’roll kick to the top of the Boston scene and a thriving, critically acclaimed, and highly awarded career across America and in Europe.

Now, with their ninth LP, South Shore, Ward Hayden & The Outliers bring their “amber-soaked melodies, tight musicianship, and casual elegance” (Boston Globe) all back home, literally and spiritually. Ward notes that the release is “the closest thing I’ve ever done to a concept album. I wanted to just recount my experience of growing up in a small town and what it meant and what it took to get out and leave that behind to try and pursue something, chase after something that was and is a dream. I used to joke that my greatest achievement was I got out of here because it was no easy feat. My family had moved 12 times by the time I was 12 years old, so once there was a place I could really call home and I’d developed friends and connections, it was tough to leave that behind. But, Scituate, Massachusetts isn’t Las Vegas, if you want to get your music to a wider audience you have to get out in the world and bring it to them.”

Throughout eight previous albums and playing some 200 shows a year for most of the last two decades, his band became leading lights for contemporary country that integrates the music’s finest traditions into a sound Cincinnati City Beat hails as “incredibly endearing.” They’ve won seven Boston Music Awards (including Act of the Year), the French Country Music Awards crowned them the Independent Artist of the Year, plus an Americana Music Awards nomination for Artist of the Year. As well, they are a regular presence on the Americana chart and SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country channel.

The name-change to Ward Hayden & The Outliers – currently Josh Kiggans on drums and percussion, Cody Nilsen on guitar and pedal steel, and Handsome Greg Hall on bass – nicely expresses the group’s left-field take on country music.

Hayden is proud to have developed his own brand of modern C&W and helped put Boston on the country music map. “As we tour, it’s funny how many people ask us how guys from the Northeast play country music,” Ward observes. “But when I started playing music, I didn’t even think about it. There was no other option.” Hayden and his band have also been central to cultivating a now-flourishing Boston country and roots scene that’s included such lauded talents as Sarah Borges (who guest sang on GGG’s Sweet Nothings album), Lake Street Dive, Molly Tuttle, and Aoife O‘Donovan.

Now with literally many hundreds of North American shows and more than a dozen tours in Europe under his belt, Hayden enjoys both the benefits and challenges of his outsider career.

“I had a hankering and a desire to have some adventure and to just get out there and see the country and hopefully see the world. I’ve just been traveling around almost non-stop for pretty much my entire adult life,” he concludes. “Once I made the decision to do this, I knew it would be a roller coaster. I was obviously hoping for good things to happen, but it’s been ups and downs. For me, it’s been about hanging in there through all aspects of the ride and whether things are going well or when things get tough, not giving up.”