Tyler Halverson

Tyler Halverson knows who he is, and sometimes he doesn’t like it. But all of the
mistakes he’s made and hearts he’s broken have led him to In Defense of Drinking, his
stone-cold honest country album that takes a stark look at a life lived on the road.
“It’s been a life spent falling in and out of love and finding something to write about, at
the expense of your heart and somebody’s else’s,” Halverson says. “I’m not proud of the
actions that that boy took to inspire these songs. But I’m very proud of how they turned
out. The Nashville scene today is all so pretty and polished, and some artists try to
come out looking a certain way, but how about you just show yourself exactly how you
are, the good and bad?”

Growing up in the tiny town of Canton, South Dakota, Halverson has never been afraid
to be himself. Before he answered the call of the road, playing bars and rodeo beer
gardens, he spent as much time on his skateboard as he did showing cattle at livestock
shows. “I grew up in sale barns and skate parks,” he says, and those two disparate
worlds inform the music he makes. There’s a decidedly alt-country edge to the songs on
In Defense of Drinking, including the thumping, unrepentant single “More Hearts Than
Horses.”

“If you come walking my way/I’ll send you running someday,” he sings over pedal steel
and acoustic guitar. It’s an admission as striking as that of Willie and Waylon, when they
sang “Take what you need from the ladies and leave them/with the words of a sad
country song” in “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.”

“That comes with the territory of being a troubadour,” Halverson says. “It’s a warning:
whatever you’ve heard about cowboys and cowboy singers is probably true, and
sometimes you best just leave it alone.”

Recorded at Amber Sound in Hermitage, Tennessee, and produced by Halverson, Ryan
Youmans, and Gary Stanton (of Muscadine Bloodline), In Defense of Drinking builds on
the foundation Halverson created with his 2024 Western Amerijuana project. There are
songs about self-induced heartbreak (the alt-rock/country stomper “Ft. Worth Losing”),
self-medication (the deceptively gentle title track), and the desperate search for
redemption (the hushed hymn “Son Brother Believer”), all of it shot through with a
decidedly Western vibe.

Halverson comes by that aesthetic naturally. He spent time not only in his native South
Dakota, but all throughout the American West, including playing cowboy on a Wyoming
ranch (which inspired the cult hit “Mac Miller”). “Beer Garden Baby,” his beloved fan
favorite, was born from those rodeo gigs, and he re-records it as a duet with Parker
McCollum for In Defense of Drinking. He’s also set to open a string of shows for the
Texas-turned-Nashville-star.

“Parker has always been good to us,” Halverson says. “The original version of that song
caught fire in Texas and to go back and put some Texas royalty on top of it isn’t a bad
recipe.”

Texas is in the DNA of the music Halverson writes and records. He’s been all over the
Lone Star state with his guitar and harmonica and came up with some of his best songs
there. In the tailgate jam “Like a Rodeo,” featuring Australian country star Wade Forster,
Halverson struggles to connect with another restless soul: an ambitious barrel racer.
“Could she ever love me like the rodeo?” he sings.

Halverson wrote the track after lighting out from Tennessee to Texas to find himself. “I
got pissed off with Nashville and ran away to Turkey, Texas,” he says. “I was crashing
with some buddies in a trailer, smoking it out, and writing songs. ‘Like a Rodeo’ is about
chasing somebody who is also chasing something, and wondering if those paths are
ever going to cross.”

More often than not, they don’t, Halverson has learned. But he’s still hoping that one
day he’ll find his settled down life. He even writes about having “Cowboy Babies” in one
of the album’s more sweet numbers and likes to imagine that’s in the cards for him. In
the gentle ballad “Son Brother Believer,” he all but prays for it.

“You can lose yourself in the troubadour lifestyle, where every night is a damn party and
you’re far from your family, your home, and your faith,” he says. “So, this album may be
a little bit of a personal battle: Who are you on the road vs. who are you at home. These
songs are often about me admitting that I can be reckless and impulsive, but that I’m
trying my best. Conflict isn’t always bad if you can make some good out of it.”
That’s one of Halverson’s goals for In Defense of Drinking. Does he have any others?

He shoots a shit-eating grin. “I hope I can buy some cows with this record.”