Earl Brown, who played Dan Dority on the HBO show Deadwood invited me to join a band he was assembling, giving me a new platform to write and play with great musicians. We opened for Big and Rich, Gretchen Wilson, David Allan Coe among others. We played at Stagecoach in Coachella. We recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville working with Dave Ferguson, famed engineer to Johnny Cash and most recently Sturgill Simpson.
I produced our album “See Sacred Cowboys” which was released in 2022. Get it here!
Our album’s title and theme is inspired by a piece of classic Americana. Rock City was a vacation destination for entire generations of Southerners. The park’s owners devised an ingenious marketing campaign in which they volunteered to paint barns for free, as long as they were allowed to include their logo and slogan. Hence, from the 30s to the late-60s, SEE ROCK CITY barns were ubiquitous in the rural South. Sacred Cowboys draw much musical inspiration from that time period, but they marry it to the heavy sounds of subsequent decades. They put the ROCK in the country and the country into the CITY. They refuse to be fenced in by genre (though maybe by cowboy metaphors).
Live Shows
Sacred Cowboys Videos
Also in Sacred Cowboys is Academy Award nominated film producer, Peter Spirer, who has a musical background that spans supporting the Ramones to his slate of critically acclaimed hip hop documentaries.
It’s a Beautiful Day (writer/producer)
“Kick off your shoes, Kick off your blues, Life is whatever you choose”
I wrote this song with Earl. He had the idea of shooting a fanciful video in one take celebrating a beautiful day. Peter Spirer directed and our animator friend added the flying shoes and the whale.
We released “It’s a Beautiful Day” on January 19, 2021 coinciding with the inauguration.
Belly Full of Drinkin’
John Ed Ballentine
This song is roughly based on the back story of Earl’s character, Dan Dority, on HBO’s Deadwood. We also shot this video on the ranch in our coral. The graphic novel artwork was created by artist Blake Armstrong of Space Boy Comics among his many credits.
“Pools of vengeance on the wooded floor”