FIRST LISTEN: The Shootouts’ ‘Here Come the Blues’

The Shootouts are having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day in their new song “Here Come the Blues.” The honky-tonk group is premiering the song exclusively with The Boot; press play below to listen.

While the song’s melody is upbeat, steady and twangy, the protagonist of “Here Come the Blues” is having a tough time. His love has left him, and he’s facing down a pity party with an unwanted guest: his emotions. And, oh, by the way, “her chair just stubbed my toe.”

The Shootouts’ lead singer Ryan Humbert calls the song “a special delivery from Bakersfield, and the reckoning of loneliness and longing arrive with a California country feel.” Al Moss, the band’s longtime pedal steel sideman, wrote “Here Come the Blues,” while BR549 founder Chuck Mead sings harmony on the track, which could have sounded entirely different.

“When we were working up the song in rehearsals, we actually came up with two arrangements: a Western swing one and this Bakersfield-inspired one,” Humbert says. “We all knew this version was the way to go, and Chuck agreed. I was thrilled when he agreed to be the Don Rich to my Buck Owens on this one.”

“Here Come the Blues” comes from the Shootouts’ sophomore album, Bullseye, due out on April 30 via Soundly Music and available to pre-order now. Mead also produced the project, after meeting Humbert in 2019; they hit the studio together in March of 2020, around the time a tornado ripped through Nashville and the COVID-19 pandemic began shutting down much of the United States.

“In the face of all that, these folks came into the studio with good humor and tenacity, and proceeded to kick major ass,” says Mead, calling the resulting record “a collection of top-notch, modern honky-tonk music that is rooted not only in great tradition, but in the here and now.

“Great songs. Great picking. Great singing. Bullseye gives it all to you,” he adds.

Vocalist Emily Bates, drummer Dylan Gomez, bassist Ryan McDermott and guitarist Brian Poston round out the Shootouts’ lineup. Their 2019 debut album, Quick Draw, helped the band — which first got together in late 2015 — earn a 2020 Ameripolitan Music Awards Best Honky-Tonky Group nomination.