Today, Mobile, Alabama natives Muscadine Bloodline released their long-awaited fourth studio album The Coastal Plain. Gary Stanton and Charlie Muncaster spent years trying to find their musical identity. They started to scratch the surface of that identity with Dispatch to 16th Ave. in 2022. Since then, they’ve continued to dig deeper into who they are as men and musicians. As a result, today’s new release marks the truest version of the band that fans have heard thus far.
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Ahead of the release of Coastal Plain, Muscadine Bloodline sat down with American Songwriter to discuss the new record, their ever-evolving sound, and more.
Muscadine Bloodline Continues to Evolve
Muscadine Bloodline has been leaning harder into traditional country since their 2022 sophomore release. When asked if that was a conscious choice or just natural evolution in play, Gary Stanton said, “I think it’s a little bit of both.”
“When we got pulled off the road in 2020 we had a little come to Jesus. We had just been shotgun approaching music like ‘Okay, this is what we’re feeling at the moment’ and go do some songs like that,” Stanton continued. Before the release of their sophomore album, they had recorded an entire rock album. That unreleased collection spurred a serious discussion within the group. “We were like ‘Man, is this just another thing we’re experimenting with?’” Stanton recalled. “And we kind of had this talk like, ‘Where’s your heart? What am I listening to when I’m in the car?’ I lean more Americana/songwriter and Charlie leans very ‘90s country. So, we were like that’s what we need to do,” he added.
The Early Days and a Big Change
“The first record was us kind of exiting the Nashville thing,” Stanton recalled. “We were going to town three days a week and writing and going on the road. And we were listening to a lot of people who were saying ‘This is what you should be doing’ or ‘This is what works here.’ Then, we kind of turned that off and got out of that world. So, basically we just took it back in-house,” he added.
“I don’t regret any of it. But in hindsight, it’s like what if we would have just stayed in Mobile and kept doing what we were doing? That’s pretty much the mentality we’ve taken—doing all the songwriting. These last few records have been pretty much just Charlie and I writing,” Stanton explained. “We’re producing the albums and our tour band is playing in the studio with us and we’re going back to the first person we did music with when we came to town with Ryan Youmans,” he added.
Now, Muscadine Bloodline isn’t trying to chase trends or find what “works.” These days, they have different goals when they enter the studio. “We’re just trying to world build, essentially in these records. So, it’s like, take the listener to a place,” Stanton said. “This record is a book. What does this book need with the songs being the chapters? It’s a literary approach to music and being able to turn off the outside noise. If Charlie and I like it, that’s what we’re going to do.”
Muscadine Bloodline Tells Stories in Songs
One of the things that sets country music apart from other genres of music is the storytelling aspect of the songs. While that has become less popular over the years, Muscadine Bloodline doesn’t shy away from it.
“I think ‘popular music’ has gotten away from storytelling which is one of the things we loved growing up,” Charlie Muncaster opined. “There’s a lot of songs out in the world right now that are very popular that are just catchy melodies about nothing. There’s a place for it in every genre, sure. But we wanted to make not just good songs about nothing but good songs about something. I think that’s how we try to approach it now,” he added.
Getting Kyle Nix on “Tickets to Turnpike”
“Tickets to Turnpike” features Turnpike Troubadours fiddle player Kyle Nix and is both an ode to his band and a highlight of The Coastal Plain. The boys in Muscadine Bloodline had no problem getting Nix to play on the song.
“We’ve been on the road with Turnpike quite a bit the last couple of years,” Stanton said. “We’ve been honored to be a part of the comeback. This is also a band we grew up going to see when I was in college playing for 50 people. Now we’re playing arenas with these guys,” he added.
“We just wanted to make an ode to a band that meant a lot to us. It was like how do we write a song that’s not just praising or dropping song lines from this band we grew up on,” Stanton said of the song. “We were like, ‘Man, what would be the icing on the cake?’ And it felt like a fiddle tune. We wrote it to be a fiddle tune. Then, just becoming friends with the guys and Kyle being so gracious with his time and hanging around and always watching our set,” he added.
After deciding they needed Nix’s fiddle on the song, Stanton said, “We approached him like, ‘Hey man, we’ve got the idea for this song. I know this might sound weird but it’s about your band and it’s a fiddle song and we’d love to have you play fiddle on it.’”
“To be honest, having him be so excited about it was a little bit shocking to us. We know Kyle well enough but it’s still hard to believe he said yes,” Muncaster said. “I wish I could say we went to the studio and did it together. But we just left the song bare and told him ‘Just do what you do.’ We didn’t want to coach him or anything. We just wanted him to go with his gut, that’s what was going to make it sound like Turnpike style fiddle playing. It brought a whole different energy to the song.”
Muscadine Bloodline’s Favorite Songs from the Album
“For me, ‘Low Hangin’ Fruit’ and ‘Weyerhaeuser Land’ were some of our favorites,” Stanton said. “They were some of the first songs we did for this record. ‘Low Hangin’ Fruit’ for me, was kind of like if you encapsulated the record into one song it would be that,” he explained. “It has the moments of gospelly haunting interlude and it has the energy of being really rockin’ and it has Charlie’s powerful vocals and our harmonies that we hang our hat on. It really set the tone for the whole record for me.”
“Another one for me is ‘Pay Me No Mind’ and ‘Airport & McGregor,” Muncaster said. “It’s kind of a different side of the spectrum but I love the simplicity of the songs and the emotional power that comes with the simplicity. It puts you in more of an emotional state. The songs don’t necessarily have brain-blowing lyrics but that’s what I love about them. I love that it puts you in a place that makes you think about that person that you used to miss or want to be with.”
The Coastal Plain is available to stream everywhere now.
Featured Image by Jay Siske
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