Artist you should be listening to: The Dirt Drifters

This is the first post of what's going to be an ongoing series. There's so many fantastic artists out there that deserve to be listened to who you may or may not be familiar with. Maybe it'll be someone you have never heard of or maybe it'll be a person or group whose name you might know, but that's about it. And sometimes I might focus on a more well known artist and talk about why I believe they deserve their fame. Whatever the case may be, this is where I'll be sharing my thoughts on why you should listen to the person or people in question. All of the people I talk about are going to be current artists and is the first of what'll end up being multiple ongoing series of post. I'm also going to be doing one highlighting various artists from the past who aren't with us any longer - a series that is currently untitled, so if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

To kick off this series, I've decided to focus on a group of guys who call themselves The Dirt Drifters. 

The Dirt Drifters are lead vocalist/guitarist Matt Fleener, vocalist/guitarist Ryan Fleener, vocalist/guitarist Jeff Middleton with bassist Jeremy Little and drummer Nick Diamond. How I found out about them - I'm pretty sure I'd seen their name somewhere, though I can't remember where. I'd heard of them in some capacity, but had never heard any of their music. Well, my dad is a songwriter who has recently gotten back into writing and has created his own publishing company, Brickskeller Music, and has signed with BMI. One of the first things he did was get an entertainment lawyer in Nashville - a man who just so happens to represent The Dirt Drifters and believed that they and my dad would hit it off and maybe write some songs together.

At that point it only seemed logical to learn more about these guys and see what they were about musically, so I got their debut CD This Is My Blood and gave it a listen. And loved it. I had the chance to see them perform on November 2nd, 2011 at the Fillmore in Maryland opening for Chris Young and I think that their live show is fantastic! The CD is great and I'll get more into that momentarily. Musically speaking, they sound just as good live as they do on the CD, if not a little better. There's such a great energy in their set; a kind of energy I wish more artists had to be honest. It's the kind of energy that can't just come from one person - it's the kind of thing where each person is bringing their own energy to the show and that combines with everyone else's and that combination creates something bigger than the sum of their parts. It's always interesting to me to see how a crowd will respond to the opener since that's not who people come to see and it seemed like The Dirt Drifters had won that crowd over by the end of the first song. So yeah, if you have the chance to see them live, I highly recommend going. Money that'll be very well spent, I promise you.

And speaking of money that'd be well spent, I can promise the same for their CD. 11 songs covering a pretty good range of both tempo and feel, emotionally speaking. Songs you may have heard, AKA their singles to date: "Something Better" and "Always a Reason". Their third single, "There She Goes" was released to radio on February 13th and happens to be one of my favorite songs on the album. Expect a review of that soon. 

One of my favorite things about The Dirt Drifters in general: they're different. I honestly can't think of anyone they remind me of. There's elements of them that might remind me of other people, but ultimately, their sound is very much them. I've been trying to think of a way to describe them and this is what I've come up with. Take the energy and punch of Jason Aldean and mix it up with some Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, with a hint of Alabama or Diamond Rio or both and shake it up and add some additional flavor of rock and roll and whatnot in there and the end result is The Dirt Drifters. Or something along those lines. I said they were different. That's the best I could do and I don't know if that's a testament to their uniqueness or my inability to describe these things well. Which I think is cause enough to buy the CD so you can see what I'm talking about.

Matt Fleener is the lead vocalist and his voice has a little grit in it that I really like, especially when combined with the vocals of his brother Ryan and guitarist Jeff Middleton. Their harmonies are so solid and their voices compliment each other's very nicely. They did all the playing on the CD themselves which I love since that doesn't always happen. There's a definite energy to the CD that I imagine can be hard to do. One of my favorite things about them is that they feel like a breath of fresh air. I believe that country music has been in need of a group like them to come along for a while now. There's such an honesty about them and their music that's terrific. 

So yeah...great music, great live show and they seem like really cool guys. So what are you waiting for? Go and get yourself a copy of This Is My Blood and be sure to request "There She Goes" on your local stations while you're at it.