Wheeler Walker Jr. was pissed off. Walker is often pissed off, but this time he was pissed off for reasons fundamental to his status as the filthiest — and he believes misunderstood — man in contemporary country music. It was 2015, and Walker’s debut album, Redneck Sh*t, had just charted high in its first week. However, it was on the comedy chart, and Walker doesn’t consider what he does comedy, in spite of song titles such as “F**k You Bitch,” “Sit On My Face,” and “Better Off Beatin’ Off.”
“I started yelling at the person who was distributing the record,” recalls Walker, whose album also debuted at No. 9 on the country chart. “I was like, ‘It shouldn’t be on the comedy charts. Before I keep yelling, where is it on the comedy charts? It’s number one? Well, f*ck it.'”
For Walker, a Dylan fanatic who shares his idol’s penchant for self-invention, being classified as a clown is a source of constant frustration. It’s true that Walker is also known as Ben Hoffman, and once hosted a short-lived sketch show on Comedy Central, The Ben Show, in 2013. A fan of The Ben Show, Sturgill Simpson, had a personal connection to Walker — his wife grew up with Walker’s brother in Kentucky. Through Simpson, Walker met super producer Dave Cobb, who’s become one of the biggest names in insurgent country due to his association with Simpson, Chris Stapleton, and Jason Isbell. Cobb went on to produce Redneck Sh*t and Walker’s latest LP, Ol’ Wheeler.
In Walker’s view, while his songs are subversive, irreverent, and very sexually explicit, that doesn’t mean they’re not serious. Especially on his second album Ol’ Wheeler, Walker sees vulgarity as a form of truth-telling, giving the language in his songs verisimilitude.
“That was the breakthrough that I had between the first and the second album, which was I could be more honest by being more vulgar. It would free me up to do ‘Summers In Kentucky,’ which breaks me up every time I play it,” Walker says, referring to a wistful ballad on Ol’ Wheeler about an old high school flame who has fallen on hard times. Oh, and there’s also a digression about cunnilingus.
Is this guy for real? In conversation, Wheeler is steadfastly earnest about his songs and love of old-school country, and didn’t appear to be playing a character during our interview. It’s also worth noting that he’s good at what he does — Ol’ Wheeler is a highly enjoyable throwback country record, so long as you’re not bothered by the NSFW likes of “Poon” and “Pussy In Boots.”
With Ol’ Wheeler, Walker has fortified his position is the long, not-quite-storied tradition of dirty, disreputable country music. Iconic outlaw David Allan Coe’s 1978 album Nothing Sacred might very well be the Sgt. Pepper of this micro-genre, though more obscure follow-ups such as Underground Album and X-Rated Hits have gained even greater notoriety for shockingly offensive songs that veer into straight-up sexism and racism. Around the same time, Kinky Friedman rose to cult status due to more playful tunes such as “How Can I Tell You I Love You (When You’re Sitting On My Face)” and “Get Your Biscuits In The Oven And Your Buns in Bed.” And then there are the countless dirty country tapes that have been steady sellers at truck stops for decades by singers such as Larry Pierce, who has attained a measure of underground fame and even inspired a 2007 documentary.
But Walker, 40, resists those sorts of comparisons. While Redneck Sh*t was classified by some critics as “satire” and dismissed as “fake country,” Walker sees his music as an update of classic ’70s country infused with the attitude and language of the gangsta rap records he grew up with in the early ’90s.
“I would be in Kentucky in my buddy’s room, and we’d be listening to N.W.A. really low so we wouldn’t get in trouble. I would leave his room to go to the bathroom, and his parents would be listening to Waylon in the living room,” Walker explains. “I can still hear Ice Cube cursing in my buddy’s room, but I’m also hearing the pedal steel from Waylon in the living room. I’m kind of making music in that hallway back in Kentucky, where I’m hearing both sounds together.”
A lot of the media coverage of your first record, aside from the lyrics, concerned authenticity. You’ve been playful about making stuff up in your biography. But then people wonder, is this guy for real?
What’s authentic? What’s a real outlaw? Authenticity is the biggest argument in country, and it’s also the hardest one to figure out, like who’s the real deal and who’s not. I mean, a good song is a good song, and that’s all I really pay attention to. If you write a good song, I call you authentic. I don’t really care.
Well, you have this additional thing where you use humor in your songs. It’s hard enough as a songwriter to balance humor and music. But for an audience it can be very difficult to process. People think, “I’m laughing, so I can’t take this seriously.”
Yeah, well, that was the thing when I first started writing this dirty sh*t. I would sit down and play a song for someone and go, ‘I’m not going to censor myself, I’m going to just write it the way I want to sing it.’ The first time you sing it, it just gets a bunch of laughs. For whatever reason, in the country genre when you say bad words it gets a laugh.
Why were you mad about being on the comedy chart? Do you feel like it diminishes the music?
I’ve been out in LA doing lots of comedy podcasts and discussed this with people, and they’re just like, the truth is funny. And I guess when you’re that bluntly truthful, apparently it gets a laugh, because I’ve seen it in person. But I don’t know why my lyrics are any different than hip-hop lyrics, although I guess I laugh at some of those sometimes, too.
I just didn’t feel like there was anybody who really put country music in that context. There was no one making country music that was anything like what was going on in the world right now. If you were to take the biggest artists — like who is the biggest artist right now, probably Kendrick Lamar — [they’re] kind of angry and vulgar. There’s no one who’s really doing that in country music. I don’t want to say I did it because I saw an opening. It was just like, why can’t I do it?
I’ve seen your work described as parody, which isn’t accurate, because it’s not as if you’re taking an existing song and changing the words.
I do cringe when I hear that. These are original songs. These are country songs that I wrote. I had to go look up parody. That’s actually factually incorrect, what they’re saying.
The first time I heard your music, I immediately was reminded of Ween’s 12 Golden Country Greats. Because that record also combines vulgar lyrics with music that’s clearly respectful of the genre. Ween even went down to Nashville to record with a lot of original “Nashville cats,” studio veterans like Charlie McCoy and Hargus “Pig” Robbins, to get a proper country sound on songs like “Piss Up A Rope.”
I do love that record, and I’ve actually talked to the guys in Ween a couple of times. I love that band. It was probably something I subconsciously was listening to when I went into the studio because it’s an album I knew fairly well. I feel like my album as a whole, both of my albums as a whole, [are more country]. That album got a little off the map as far as pure country goes.
It’s like the way Dylan used to go down to Nashville and play with those great musicians but do his thing. It came out weird. Ween went down there with a respect for the music, but did not change who they were. So in that respect, yeah, I love it.
Would you agree there’s a subversive element to what you do, in terms of taking traditional country music and writing songs like “Finger Up My Butt”?
Yeah, that’s the part I don’t argue. It’s there. I mean, when I made the [first] record I was pissed, and I’m still pissed. The first album was kicking down the door and getting Music Row to pay a little bit of attention. Obviously, I was trying to be loud and annoying to get it. This one, I feel like I’m making fun of other artists less. Mainly just because I feel like I’ll be sitting next to them at the Grammys or the CMAs. This album is just as valid as anything that’s f*cking out there.
Speaking of making fun of other artists, you did call Blake Shelton a “dipsh*t” for breaking up with Miranda Lambert.
Yeah, because I really love Miranda Lambert. She is one of the few people out there having success with something that I think resembles country music. And I also think she’s f*cking pretty and looks like an actual woman from the south instead of some skinny whatever. I mean, I don’t know because I wasn’t there when it went down, but I was being honest. What would I listen to music written by a guy who f*cking dumped Miranda Lambert? I can’t imagine he’s making good decisions in the studio if that’s the sh*t he’s doing in real life.
Along with Ween, your music reminded me of early ’90s gangsta rap, like N.W.A. and Geto Boys. I can’t think of an artist today who is as sexually explicit as those records, except you, I guess.
I remember being a kid, I discovered my parents Beatles records. It’s a big part of my upbringing discovering my parents Beatles records because I still think that Beatles are the greatest band of all time. The first time I heard a Buck Owens’ song, Ringo was singing it, you know?
But then I started listening to louder rock & roll to piss my parents off. Then the Snoop Dogg album comes out, and Mom and Dad are just like, ‘It’s just a guy talking, that’s not music.’ So I was like, ‘Oh, this is the sh*t that pisses them off.’ In the suburbs in small-town Kentucky, you want that music that pisses people off, so it was 2 Live Crew, Run-D.M.C., Public Enemy, all that sh*t. That kind of stuff became almost the rock & roll for my generation, as far as the revolutionary stuff.
If you were to look down the iTunes reviews on my album, it’s just 5 stars, 1 star, 5 stars, 1 star. There’s nobody in between. It’s either the greatest thing ever, or it’s a f*cking abomination. One thing I see is, ‘Language like this should be in f*cking hip-hop.’ There’s implications of someone talking like that that I would rather not get into because it’s just too … I mean, it’s obvious what they’re trying to say.
What do you think accounts for your success? Because you’re obviously not getting radio airplay or mainstream media support.
When I did my taxes this year, which is not really good outlaw country talk, I almost had a f*cking heart attack. I don’t think I’m big enough where I can actually pay some of these f*cking bills, so I don’t think of myself as that big.
But, I mean, I do understand that there are people who would love to sell as many records as I have, and play the kind of shows I play. I think it’s just me being me. That was the breakthrough that I had between the first and the second album, which was I could be more honest by being more vulgar. It would free me up to do “Summers In Kentucky,” which breaks me up every time I play it. I don’t know that I could have done that song without that pussy part in it. It’s like at a funeral, [and] someone tells a joke and it lightens the mood for a little bit. I don’t think I could have written a song that serious without seeing people get a grin on their face, knowing that was coming.
Ol Wheeler is out now on Pepperhill Music. Get it here or stream it below.
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