Based on true events.
It’s safe to say that Treaty Oak Revival captured lightning in a bottle once again with the release of their brand-new album, West Texas Degenerate, over the weekend. After a two-year gap between their 2023 breakout album, Have A Nice Day, the band proved once again why they’re not only one of the hottest bands in the ever-growing Texas country/southern rock scene, complete with their patented grunge-inspired sound, but also one of the hottest bands in all of music at the moment.
Currently sitting at #1 on Apple Music’s all-genre album chart, West Texas Degenerate has clearly connected with a lot of fans, all for good reason, of course. Simply put, the album is Treaty Oak firing on all cylinders. Once again leaning on their blend of country, grunge and punk elements, they delivered a project that truly felt like the band fully realizing all of their strengths.
Whether it’s the rowdy “Port A,” the stellar collaborations with William Clark Green and Muscadine Bloodline on the title track and “Misery,” the surprisingly tender love song that is “Sunflower” or the pop-punk ode to the Dallas Cowboys on “Blue Star,” West Texas Degenerate is one of those albums that simply feels primed to have an incredibly long shelf-life among fans and critics alike for the foreseeable future.
Beyond the stellar tracks that populate the album, Treaty Oak once again returned to opening and closing West Texas Degenerate with an intro and outro, much in the vein of their debut record, No Vacancy. While “Outro” is currently catching fire online due to its absurd premise/hook of “I’m gonna smoke some crack at the Radio Shack,” “Intro” is arguably just as interesting due to the hilarious fan interaction that inspired it.
In case you haven’t listened to it yet, “Intro” is simply a minute-long, spoken-word opener to the album which finds Edgar Viveros of the Midwest Emo band, Ben Quad, narrating a short monologue/conversation with Treaty Oak from the perspective of a fan being infatuated with their sound. A short excerpt reads as follows:
“I love me some Michael Schenker, some Neal Schon. The guys that are the guys that invented the sound, and you guys are there. Damn, I’m so passionate about it, I can’t help it. I’m tickled to death… I was getting my registration, and I heard that. And I said, ‘Sh*t, who the hell is that?'”
On its surface, it seems like nothing more than a short but sweet stage-setter for the album that simultaneously serves as a bit of a hype-up to Treaty Oak’s unique sound while also paying homage to the “twinkly guitars” and spoken-word tracks/skits found in many Midwest Emo projects.
With that being said, however, the story behind “Intro” and the dialogue present is much funnier than meets the eye.
In a recent interview with The Watering Hole, a podcast based out of Stillwater, Oklahoma, frontman, Sam Canty, recalled the hilarious, real-life story that inspired a bulk of “Intro’s” dialouge.
As Canty recalls, they had just got done playing a set. While he was finishing up going to the bathroom in a porta-potty, he heard a ton of commotion from someone talking to the rest of the band. Confused by all the screaming and cursing going on, he was met by a new fan of their music.
“I was at a porta-potty, and they were outside sitting on this bench. And I hear this commotion outside, like this guy coming up cussing and screaming stuff. And I was like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ So I came out of the porta-John, and there’s this dude there wearing an American flag ‘support the police’ shirt, bright yellow safety glasses, shaved bald.”
Canty would then reveal that most of the lines from “Intro” were directly quoted from the random conversation with the fan, from the man talking about getting his registration to noting that the name, “Treaty Oak Revival,” was too long and needed an acronym.
“He was saying stuff like, ‘Sh*t man, I was just coming out from getting my registration done, and I heard that sound and I said, Who the hell is that?’ And I was like, ‘Treaty Oak Revival.’ And he was like, ‘Treaty Oak Revival? Y’all are gonna need an acronym that or something, that’s too long of a name. And I was like, ‘Oh, okay.'”
Personally, I’m shocked that they remembered so much of this random encounter with the fan, so well, in fact, that they created the dialogue in “Intro” around the conversation. Nevertheless, it’s undoubtedly one of the most unique and memorable intros to an album that I’ve heard in quite some time.
Watch here:
@wateringholeofficial @Treaty Oak Revival tells the story behind the ‘Into’ track on their new album, West Texas Degenerate! #treatyoakrevival #westtexasdegenerate #newalbum #treatyoaknewmusic #thewateringholepodcast ♬ West Texas Degenerate – Treaty Oak Revival
“Intro”
