Stephen Montoya
After trading in his rodeo spurs for a guitar in 2016, local neotraditional country artist Wynn Williams has been busy cranking out the tunes. To date, Williams has four projects under his rodeo-style belt buckle, one of which is a brand-new single prepping to hit streaming platforms in July titled “Country Therapy.” With two EPs in his back pocket and one full length album to boot, Williams is itching to get back out on the road to share his passion for country music one show at a time.
“I come from a musical family,” he explains. “My granddad actually used to have a band back in the sixties [and]seventies, and he used to play around Fort Worth. My whole family sings. I was in choir in high school for four years. I did a musical my senior year of high school, which I really enjoyed. Music has just been a huge part of my upbringing.”
But what really churns Williams’ engine is a great song, moreover a great country song. If you remember the glory days of Garth Brooks, George Strait, and Clint Black, then you can pretty much sum up in your head the sound Williams’ reaches for in his music. From his very first EP Words Fly, you can hear the influence of what Williams calls “golden era country,” which spans anywhere between the mid to late 90s to the early 2000s. Better yet, Williams’ style of music could be considered neotraditional country, a genre that emphasizes the instrumental background and traditional country vocal style, which he’s got in spades.
Stephen Montoya
But being a country artist wasn’t what put the hitch in Williams’ giddy up at first. During his teens Williams had a healthy passion for competitive steer wrestling, a team event that doesn’t require any ropes. Williams says he became aware of this rodeo event when he became a member of the Future Farmers of America (FFA) in high school. His stint as a steer wrestler would follow him to Weatherford College and then to Texas A&M, where he graduated with his bachelor’s degree in communication.
“I just found that I loved performing,” he says. “When we would go out to all these college rodeos, I'd take my guitar with me and we'd sit around the trailers before the rodeo or after the rodeo and just play the guitar and sing a little bit. And people would walk by and I would continue to perform.”
Already fond of his prospects as a country artist, Williams says he could make around $300 in three hours verses his day job where he made that same amount in 30 hours.
“That's when I really started focusing on music and taking it seriously and trying,” he says.
But this doesn’t mean Williams was playing his own music straight out of the gate. Like many musicians who start playing live shows in their infancy as artists, he says he would play all covers (already established songs made famous by other musicians).
“Then it got to where I had my own songs, and then so I would start to play those in between the covers,” he verifies.
Stephen Montoya
After putting out the aforementioned Words Fly EP, Williams says he continued to hit as many bars as he could to cut his teeth as a performer. His 14-song self-titled sophomore album garnered Williams a breakout song titled Tornado, which had the Fort Worth Native crossing state lines and time zones to back it up.
When he wasn’t touring, Williams spent his time writing new songs for his third EP titled Your Love, a release that earned him a mention in Billboard Magazine in July of 2023 with the single All Over Me. Building on this momentum, Williams also made a music video for his lead single from this project titled Like the Wind, appearing on CMT. This would help snowball this Fort Worthian into the global country music market. After amassing over 12 million global streams, Williams began to headline shows across the U.S. and Europe where his fan base continues to grow.
His latest single, Hear You Say It, was co-written by Nashville songwriting legend Tony Lane, in April, which according to Williams “was a dream come true.” In fact, songwriting with collaborators is something Williams is all for. His upcoming single titled Country Therapy, available for streaming on July 12, was co-written by Williams, Jeff Hyde, and Ryan Tyndell. Williams also boasts a five-piece band that consists of drums, bass, lead and steel guitars and himself on acoustic guitar and vocals.
“I've got a stage manager and a merch girl, and they're actually husband and wife, so it's kind of nice to have them out on the road with us,” he says. “We're probably going to add another piece at some point, maybe some type of auxiliary player that can play a number of different instruments."
With all these pieces in place, Williams says he’s already working on his second full-length album, a project that already has five strong songs including, Hear You Say It.
“You want to pick the song that people are going to connect with the best or the song that's going to be the anthem,” he says. “And you want to have those songs, absolutely, no doubt. But at the end of the day, as an artist, you gotta do what makes you happy and what you believe in. And if you believe in it, then hopefully your fans are also going to believe in it.”
Click here to listen to Wynn Williams' full playlist on Spotify.
