21-time nominated, multiple Grammy Award winner and country superstar Dwight Yoakam unveils new song ‘I’ll Pay The Price’.
On November 15, Yoakam will release his first new album in nine years, Brighter Days, on Via Records/Thirty Tigers. Pre-order/pre-save Brighter Days HERE.
Last month, Yoakam released the music video for his new track ‘I Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye (Bang Bang Boom Boom)’ with Post Malone. Watch/share the video HERE and listen to/share the single HERE.
Written and recorded over the last three years, Brighter Days features 12 brand-new songs written/co-written by Yoakam, as well as three seemingly disparate covers of ‘Keeping On The Sunny Side’ by the Carter Family, ‘Bound Away’ by Cake, and ‘Time Between’ by The Byrds artfully woven into the same body of work in the unmistakable style that could only be Dwight Yoakam.
At once timeless and timely, Yoakam self-produced Brighter Days, infusing a modern appreciation for country music’s history with the trailblazing rock and roll spirit of California. The result is an album that reflects a sense of craftsmanship and immediacy, capturing the quintessential Dwight Yoakam “cool” that has set him apart from his country contemporaries since the beginning of his legendary career. As always, Yoakam’s lyrics throughout the album are both deceptively effortless and profoundly poignant. The album was mixed by world-class engineer Chris Lord-Alge.
Dwight Yoakam has sold over 26 million albums worldwide, with five reaching the #1 spot on Billboard. He is a 21-time nominated, multiple Grammy Award winner. He has 12 Gold albums and nine Platinum or multi-Platinum albums. Yoakam is the recipient of the Artist of the Year Award from the Americana Music Association, the prestigious BMI Country Awards’ President’s Award, and has been inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He received a Lifetime Achievement Honor at the 2024 Americana Music Awards. He has collaborated with everyone from Beck to Kid Rock, ZZ Top, Hunter S. Thompson and Jack White. He has toured with the likes of Buck Owens, Johnny Cash and Hüsker Dü. Yoakam’s last album, Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars…, was released in 2016. Rolling Stone Country raves, “Yoakam sounds right at home on these new versions,” while NPR Music praises, “You can hear Yoakam making masterful choices on every phrase.”
In addition to his musical career, Yoakam has appeared in more than 40 feature films including Sling Blade, Panic Room and Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky with Channing Tatum and Daniel Craig, plus a role in the Amazon series Goliath. Over the course of his storied acting career he has worked with the likes of Jodie Foster, Tommy Lee Jones, Jared Leto, Matthew McConaughey and more.
In 1977, Yoakam left Kentucky for Nashville to embark on a music career but found that the Music City was moving away from traditional country roots to more pop-country. He found himself better suited to the post-Bakersfield movement and became one of the founding fathers of the “L.A. Cowpunk Scene” influenced by second-wave rockabilly and punk alongside X, Los Lobos, The Knitters, Rank & File and The Blasters.
Dwight Yoakam—Brighter Days
TRACKLIST
1. Wide Open Heart
2. I’ll Pay The Price
3. Bound Away (Cake cover)
4. California Sky
5. Can’t Be Wrong
6. I Spell Love
7. A Dream That Never Ends
8. Brighter Days
9. I Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye (Bang Bang Boom Boom) (with Post Malone)
10. If Only
11. Hand Me Down Heart
12. Time Between (The Byrds cover)
13. Keep On The Sunny Side (The Carter Family cover)
14. Every Night