Today, the Kentucky-based band Wayne Graham releases their ninth studio album, Bastion, via Hickman Holler Records/Thirty Tigers. Rooted in the coal-mining region of eastern Kentucky, the indie rock band blends genres, using folk and country as a foundation for fearless explorations of jazz, punk, soul, noise, classic rock, and modern classical music, while exploring what it means to no longer feel at home in a small town.
Listen to Bastion [HERE]
Watch the video for “We Could’ve Been Friends” [HERE]
Watch the video for “I Had Plans” [HERE]
Watch “A Silent Prayer” live from First Presbyterian Church in Lexington, KY [HERE]
Bastion marks the ninth studio album from Wayne Graham—comprised of brothers Kenny and Hayden Miles (the band is named after both of their grandfathers, who were coal miners), as well as José Oreta and Germany-based instrumentalist Ludwig Bauer.
For this record, the band embraces a sense of looseness, unraveling, and a touch of the avant-garde as they continue to push the New Appalachian movement forward. This seminal work is shaped by tradition (hymns, high and lonesome), but it breaks boundaries in the sonic landscape by experimenting with synths, production techniques, and unexpected instruments like clarinets.
The opener, “We Could’ve Been Friends,” is the lead single released alongside the album today, premiering yesterday via Magnet Magazine, which praised the band’s “quirky Southern Boogie” and compared them to late-period Wilco. The track crawls along with the thrust of dance music—“we were trying to write an LCD Soundsystem song,” says Kenny Miles—but it’s punctuated with psychedelic guitars and violent percussion, as though soundtracking a nightmare of disconnection.
Kenny continues, “The track was born out of a bassline and drum groove. The song felt dark from the beginning, but not sinister—just ambivalent. At different points while recording and mixing, the refrain sounded like it could either be in response to a minor infraction, like not showing up to a party, or a terrible mistake, and that seemed funny to us.”
Other Bastion highlights include “The Patsy,” a jazz instrumental that sounds like Brubeck taking five deep in Appalachia; “Shoot Me,” a slow meditation opened with a discordant piano riff, which examines racial attitudes in small-town America; and “Swingin’ Round,” a track with the humble melody of a Protestant hymn, inspired by the drag ban.
“That song comes from a place of frustration,” says Kenny. “I started writing it around the time the drag ban was being talked about in Kentucky and Tennessee, and as I worked on it, it morphed into a song about trying to find a way to communicate with people you disagree with, even if it’s family.”
“Our music is the way it is because we’re from here,” says Hayden Miles. “It’s very specifically Kentucky.”
As adults, however, they find themselves increasingly alienated from the culture and values of their hometown, a small place like many others in America. “I feel very fortunate to say we’re from here, and it’s inspiring to watch other people from this region find success,” says Kenny, who lives two hours away in Lexington, Kentucky. “At the same time, it can be very isolating. It feels strange to play in our hometown because our music isn’t what people are looking for here. Sometimes Wayne Graham feels like a square peg in a round hole.”
Wayne Graham, named after brothers Kenny and Hayden Miles’ two grandfathers—each with storied histories as coal miners—has long been at the forefront of the new movement shaping the New Appalachian Sound. While shaped by tradition, the band is set on forging a new sonic landscape. Bastion was produced by brothers Hayden and Kenny Miles, the latter of whom has also done production work with Tyler Childers, 49 Winchester, Vincent Neil Emerson, Senora May, Laid Back Country Picker, Luna and the Mountain Jets, Sean Whiting, Tenure, Slut Pill, Grayson Jenkins, Pierceton Hobbs, Appalachiatari, Paul Handelman, Dennis & the Ponies, and many more.
Track Listing:
We Could've Been Friends
The Patsy
All The Way
I Had Plans
A Silent Prayer
Enemy's Camp
Shoot Me
Into Words
Swingin’ ‘Round
Tour Dates
Sep 13 - Effingham, IL - Summer Sundown Music Festival
Sep 21 - Nashville, TN - The Basement (Americanafest)
Sep 25 - Washington, DC - Pie Shop
Sep 26 - Thomas, WV - Purple Fiddle
Sep 28 - Elizabethton, TN - Thriving Through The Thicket Festival
Oct 2 - Raleigh, NC - Pour House Music Hall
Oct 3 - Richmond, VA - The Camel
Oct 4 - Wayne, PA - 118 North
Oct 6 - Gettysburg, PA - Ploughman Cider
Oct 11 - Louisville, KY - Zanzabar
Oct 12 - Pikeville, KY - Pikeville Pride
Oct 16 - Columbus, OH - Woodlands Tavern
Oct 17 - Newport, KY - Southgate House
Oct 19 - Campton, KY - The Kilns
Oct 20 - Huntington, WV - Mountain Stage
Oct 22 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
Oct 23 - Buffalo, NY - Buffalo Iron Works
Oct 24 - Pittsburgh, PA - Club Cafe
Oct 25 - Roanoke, VA - Martin's Downtown
Oct 30 - Berlin, DE - Kultuhaus Insel
Oct 31 - Drachten, NL - Iduna
Nov 2 - Hilversum, NL - Vorstin
Nov 3 - Haarlem, NL - Patronaat
Nov 5 - Nijmegen, NL - Merleyn (Doornroosje)
Nov 7 - Dordrecht, NL - Bibelot
Nov 8 - Pforzheim, DE - Horch!
Nov 9 - Amen, NL - DeAmer
Nov 11 - Nottingham, UK - The Grove
Nov 12 - Manchester, UK - The Lodge
Nov 13 - London, UK - The Slaughtered Lamb
Nov 16 - Hamburg, DE - Rolling Stone Beach Festival
Nov 19 - Dresden, DE - Ostpol
Nov 30 - Lexington, KY - The Burl
