Tobacco Road, with Caroline Hale

Take your art seriously, not yourself.
That’s the motto emerging blues-rock band Tobacco Road lives by - whether they’re on the road, in the studio, or in practicing their East Nashville garage. Playful, energetic, and equal parts modern and soulful, the band’s spirited personality turns a room full of strangers into a group of friends in minutes.
With a little central Texas spunk, old-school Louisiana blues, and roots in North Carolina’s Piedmont, the past lives of Tobacco Road’s members blend into a sound that moves seamlessly between beltable diary entries, Southern-rock storytelling, and indie-rock groove. They draw from the nostalgia of Creedence Clearwater Revival, the soul of Susan Tedeschi, and the dynamics of Fleetwood Mac, while taking cues from modern role models like Maggie Rogers and Marcus King Band.
In their first year as a band, Tobacco Road released their six-song debut EP All in Time and shared the stage with rising contemporaries and role models alike including Flatland Cavalry, Winyah, Penelope Road, and Marlon Funaki. Tobacco Road’s quick development stems from a live show that’s both high-energy and disarmingly intimate - despite the sweeping vocals and wailing solos, they make you feel like part of the band, whether it’s your first or fiftieth show.
The shifting moods of the band’s sound reflect the uniqueness of its members as five twenty-somethings learning to navigate love, loss, joy, confusion, and identity. Tobacco Road captures the chaos of growing up and the peace that comes with finding your people.

With no disrespect intended, maturity is not a quality a music fan might expect from a debut album - let alone one made by an artist who’s only twenty-one years old. But for BFF, the first album by Austin-based singer/songwriter Caroline Hale, maturity is exactly what you get. With its emotional sophistication, textured production, and impressive degree of pure craft, BFF sounds more like an album made by a veteran with decades of experience, rather than a young person venturing into the music marketplace for the first time.With its mature outlook, keen songcraft, and artistic self-confidence, Caroline Hale’s BFF heralds the arrival of a major young talent, one who intends to be around for a long time. “Music is the only thing in my life that I’ve known I wanted to do,” she notes with conviction. “I was so determined and headstrong about it, that there was never a single doubt in my mind. Regardless of success, I knew I wanted to do music, whatever that meant.”