Koe Wetzel is opening up about what his next chapter of music looks like.
Wetzel had a stellar 2024 with the release of his record 9 Lives, which featured his first radio number one single, “High Road,” featuring Jessie Murph. The project showed a side that many Koe fans had not seen from the East Texas native.
The man who is typically the life of the party showed a more vulnerable side through the tracklist, tapping into the hurt he’s experienced from past relationships, losing friends, becoming a rockstar and more. To kick off this year, Koe is about to go through a lot of change as he prepares to welcome a baby girl into the world, and so I am confident this means we will see yet another side of Koe through his music this year.
While Wetzel has already told fans that he’s releasing a live album, Live from the Damn Near Normal Tour, on Koe Wetzel Day AKA February 28th, but he also told fans during a recent private concert in Nashville that he’s in the studio working in his next project.
“We are back in Nashville this week recording a new record, so we are going to play y’all some new music tonight. Maybe one or two…”
He announced before performing one of those new songs, “Surrounded.”
@glock165gr #koewetzel #surrounded #cheers ♬ original sound – glock165gr
Outside of the show, though, Koe sat down with Audacy’s Katie Neal for an episode of Katie & Company to chat about what’s in the pipeline and how this new record is coming together. When Neal asked Wetzel what the next chapter looks like, Koe noted that he’s going to build off the sound established on 9 Lives.
“Just kind of growing off of ‘9 Lives.’ You know, I think the music that I’ve made for so long has just kind of instilled into me and just kind of soldered into me and with this new music out, with the new record, I just kind of wanted to get a little bit more of that rock ‘n’ roll side. Back to that Texas rock ‘n’ roll.
Working with Gabe Simon again, so it’s fun. You know, every time we go into the studio, it’s different. Every day is different. It’s just kind of go in there blind, having a little bit of an idea of what you’re going to write but not having a whole outlook on it. And kind of stepping back after the day of work and go like, ‘Holy sh*t that’s, you know, that’s pretty cool actually.’
And that’s bringing a lot more joy back to songwriting and being in the studio because we’re going straight from writing to recording right then. I feel like that’s how it should be, and we are having a lot of fun with it. So… I don’t know, we’ll see how it all comes out.”
Neal then asked if there had been any discussion about collaborations on this record, to which Koe noted they had not yet reached that point of conversation.
“We’re just kind of focused on getting the song on where we want them to be, and then I think we’ll maybe look later on here.”
Koe also noted that he likes to make a lot of songs and then cut back on them, later deciding what will make the record and what might be released as a single or later on down the road. Maybe this means we are in store for another “Casamigos” situation, where he thought it would be featured on 9 Lives, then removed it from the finalized tracklist and gave it to fans as a single after the record’s release.
Given the preview of “Surrounded,” it appears he is cooking up heaters in the studio. I can’t wait to hear more…
