Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, McKinley first began singing at age eight in the choir at his family's Baptist church. Growing up, he imbibed his Kentucky-born father's LPs, listening to artists like Hank Williams and George Jones, as well as Bob Dylan, Otis Redding, and Van Morrison. By his teens, he was playing guitar and singing in punk bands. However, in his twenties he began writing his own songs, gravitating toward rootsy country and soul sounds, mixing it with his varied rock influences. A troubled period involving drugs waylaid his career and found him moving away from music.

Arlo McKinley releases This Mess We’re In via Oh Boy Records. Offering "consolation in the midst of darkness" (NPR Music), the album is a collection of the Cincinnati songwriter’s best and most unabashed, unflinchingly honest music to date.

On July 15th, Arlo McKinley will release new album This Mess We're In via Oh Boy Records, and today he shares its latest preview with the tender, troubled and turbulent "Back Home." As one of the first songs he wrote for his most meditative and cinematic collection of music to date, "Back Home" features Logan Halstead on accompanying vocals, and finds the Cincinnati-based McKinley reckoning with a life in limbo.

Today, with the release of rousing new single “To Die For,” Arlo McKinley delivers another brazen taste of rust belt rock and roll. On the latest preview of his forthcoming album This Mess We’re In, out July 15th on Oh Boy Records, he paints a vivid scene full of his signature “heart-on-your-sleeve songwriting” (Billboard), digging his heels into defiance over raucous layers of gritty guitar and raging organ.