William Clark Green Says The New Panhandlers Album Is Finished

William Clark Green country music
William Clark Green

William Clark Green, a legend in the red dirt Texas music scene, was the latest artist to make an appearance on the Whiskey Riff Raff podcast.

The man talked about everything from Whiskey Myers’ epic performance at Soldier Field in Chicago years back, his new album Baker Hotel, the Larry Joe Taylor Music Fest, Garth Brooks, and more.

With that being said, Green had some exciting news about the upcoming album from the Panhandlers, a Texas country supergroup consisting of Green, Flatland Cavalry front man Cleto Cordero, Josh Abbott, and John Baumann.

He said:

“We just finished our record, Bruce Robison is still producing this record, and I’d say the biggest change from this record and the last record, is that we know what we’re doing.”

He also told the story about how the Panhandlers idea came about:

“Our last record, it started out like, well Steamboat is where it started, and Josh (Abbott) and John Dixon, John Dixon is the promotor of Steamboat, Josh wanted to do a west Texas show… just do a set of all four of us doing cover songs, and I was like ‘Cool, well next Steamboat, we should just make a record of these cover songs, and just come up with it.'”

And we were like ‘Well shit, we’re songwriters, why can’t we come up with our own songs,’ and I was like ‘Well shit, we need a name.’

So, we went into the record, we had some songs we had written, we did one songwriter retreat and had some songs that fellow west Texans that had written songs that we really liked, that didn’t get the respect they deserved or didn’t get the notoriety, like ‘West Texas In My Eye,’ it was written by Charlie Stout and had been out for years, and our song was on ‘Yellowstone.'”

But on the sophomore installment of The Panhandlers, they’re going a little more upbeat. A little more boot stomper, a little less heartbreaker:

“And so this next record we were in the studio, and you have four lead singers. We’re pretty low on the ego train but still… everybody was so fucking timid to speak. Nobody wanted to be that guy… nobody wanted to be the guy in control.

So for this record, we did more writing retreats, we wanted to do more up-tempo songs, I think everybody on the last record was trying to write the saddest, brilliant, west Texas song ever, so we have more tempo songs… it’s more fun.

That last record, I wouldn’t say it’s hard to listen to, but it’s emotionally hard to listen to. It’s a lot… it’s not something you turn on when you’re cooking.”

He also added that John is the star of the band so if you’re not familiar with John Baumann, you’re gonna want to fix that.

Either way, The Panhandlers 2 is coming SOON…

Get excited.

The podcast is available everywhere. Download the podcast on Apple Podcasts by searching “Whiskey Riff Raff” or click here.

We’re also available on Spotify and wherever else you can listen to podcasts.

Cheers, y’all.

Audio

Video

A beer bottle on a dock

STAY ENTERTAINED

A RIFF ON WHAT COUNTRY IS REALLY ABOUT

A beer bottle on a dock