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Midland Is Ready to Return to Tour Life as "[The] Country Grateful Dead"

There are people that will follow us on your...I think it's really important for them to have us back," says band member Mark Wystrach

“We pride ourselves on being a touring band. It almost feels like a country Grateful Dead, in a way. There are people that will follow us on tour, and they'll hit every single show, just tailgating. I think it's really important for them to have us back, and live music back." Midland's Mark Wystrach -- like many road travel-adoring country music favorites -- is ready to resume touring. As well, the country trio has just released The Last Resort EP, their first new music in two years.

Regarding the inspirations for their latest release, Wystrach continues, to Billboard, “We were writing with acoustic guitars and that one somehow started as a George Strait song and in the studio, with that 12-string intro, it immediately started feeling like some Tom Petty or some Don Henley. That’s the fun of it all, right? You can hear all of those influences, but it’s also the ability to make it our own sound.”

As well, band member Jess Carson offers notes derived from the band's March 2021 release of their initial 2014 work from Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Texas. The CMT-produced Midland: The Sonic Ranch Documentary featured an accompanying soundtrack compiled from the band's earliest material.

Regarding those listens, Carson says, “Unearthing that Sonic Ranch stuff, we weren't listening to that over the years, so it was very much a new discovery for us too. It is interesting how there is a through line, and a lot of the DNA of what we strive to accomplish was there in the Sonic Ranch recordings. It was more of a very loose version of a Rolling Stones harmony back then. We weren't really picking notes. Two of us would just go in there and yell a harmony along with what Mark [Wystrach] was singing.”

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