The higher the Muscadine lineage, the more stable the Charlie Muncaster becomes.
“One of the biggest compliments that keeps me going,” says Moncaster. Rolling StoneWhen someone says, “I can’t believe how natural “You are you.” There’s something about that that motivates me, because you can really be who you are, and you don’t have to change for people to listen to your music.”
Mobile, Alabama-based duo Moncaster and Gary Stanton, who lead the band Muscadine Bloodline, have spent much of the past two years avoiding major label attention while building a huge fan base that labels crave. They’ve had a platinum single with “Porch Swing Angel” and another hit with “Me on You.” They’ve been favorite opening acts at the Turnpike Troubadours. And they’ve provided a steady stream of new music for their fans.
coastal plain The album was released on Friday and marks Muscadine's fourth studio album and second in 18 months following its 2023 release. Dixie TeenWith the band's longtime producer Ryan Youmans (Jelly Roll's Self-medicationAt the helm, the duo saw the 14-track album as a challenge to elevate their musicianship and songwriting, cementing their independence in the process.
“If there's a phrase to describe this record, it's 'proving ground,'” Stanton says.
It's not that the two have concerns about the future, it's that independence is a feather in their caps. They insisted on recording this album with the touring version of Muscadine Bloodline—Justin Rowton (bass), Weston Stewart (guitar), and Zoltan Toback (drums)—rather than in a studio. They were the primary songwriters.
“I want to give Charlie and I credit, being an independent band and not collaborating with a lot of people, and I think a lot of people who write about us in the industry try to hype up a song that we wrote with Brent Cobb, for example,” Stanton says. “They’ll say the standout song on the album is this one, and that’s because Brent wrote it. So, as songwriters, he and I were like, we I want to write the bulk of this record.
Stanton and Moncaster had similar upbringings. Both grew up in southern Alabama, and both were heavily influenced by church and gospel choirs. The result was a duo of hard-nosed Southern musicians who loved songwriting, hunting, and fishing. They respected each other even before they joined forces and formed Muscadine in early 2016.
During college, Muncaster invited Stanton to his home in Auburn, Alabama, for a weekend of songwriting. They wrote a few songs, including “Ginny,” which served as the lead single for their eponymous debut album in 2017. But more importantly, Muncaster played a show that weekend and invited Stanton to sit in with him.
“I thought we’d split the money and have a good time together, but there was instant chemistry,” Moncaster says. “We were singing cover songs, but there was this weird thing going on where we knew all the songs that everyone else knew, and we were swapping lead vocals and harmonies. There were people in the crowd saying, ‘You guys are cool! What’s your band name?’ Well, we didn’t have a name! We were just friends. Maybe we should do something about it.”
Muscadine first gained attention playing college towns in Alabama and Mississippi following their 2017 self-titled debut album. They built a loyal fan base, but in the process may have given fans the wrong impression of who the band was going to become. When Stanton and Moncaster were in college, they made music that appealed to college crowds. Stylistically, coastal plain This album will take them further than ever from their roots. This is not a college anthem album. It’s one of the strongest country albums of 2024, filled with introspection and deep songwriting. The duo knows it won’t appeal to some of their most diehard fans.
“Every once in a while, you’ll see a comment or something that says, ‘Man, I miss the old Muscadine,’ and that’s cool,” Moncaster says, “because every artist that I grew up loving and respecting has turned a page, and then another page, and another page. I’m okay with some fans falling over there, if we can gain more here, because that’s the truest form of what we’re doing right now.”
The current single is “Tickets to Turnpike,” a lyrical and musical tribute to the Turnpike Troubadours, another indie band—who have featured Muscadine frequently as an opening act in arenas and amphitheaters over the past two years.
“Growing up inspired by those cats and their records, we just wanted to pay homage to those guys,” says Moncaster. “It’s a love song. It’s asking a girl to go on a date that happens to be on the Turnpike. It’s not really a song about how much we love the Turnpike, but it’s actually a song about the true love of the Turnpike.” style “Turnpike. It's like The Bird Hunters. This song is about two guys hunting birds, but the song isn't about that. It's a sad song. This song is an ode to two turnpike guys, in that way.”
They also invited Kyle Nix of the band Turnpike to play fiddle on the song. “We could have asked anyone in town to play fiddle, but it wouldn't have happened.” Kyle “Play,” says Moncaster.
The songwriting challenge they set themselves on “Tickets to Turnpike”—pushing their comfort levels and emphasizing both storytelling and lyrical crafting—is a hallmark of coastal plainThe album's first single, “10-90”, was designed around the phrase: “When you only get 10, I'll be the 90 left.”
The album's final song, “Good in This World,” was the result of the duo challenging themselves to write in the style of one of the greatest artists of all time.
“It’s inspired by John Prine, even down to the guitar chord,” says Moncaster. “We’ve never done a song like that before. It was great to end an album with a song that had that, with Charlie singing. It’s a light song, about the simple, ordinary things that can happen to a person when they sit at a gas station getting gas, and what it can bring home.”
The desire to be a multi-talented band shouldn’t be seen as an escape from the work that got them here. They don’t shy away from the powerful energy that “Me on You” delivers in their electric live shows. The song will feature prominently at nearly every show on their Coastal Plain Tour this fall, which kicks off Sept. 7 in Minneapolis. It’s more that the group has aligned itself with the new wave of country artists who are putting lyrics, emotion and vulnerability at the forefront of their music. Stanton feels that’s where Muscadine’s future lies.
“genuinely, Dixie Teen “I felt like this was our first album,” he says. “It was an introduction to the world. We’ve been a band for eight years, but it was like, ‘We’re starting now.’ This album is a more mature version, sonically and contextually, and it’s kind of an ode to our upbringing in church and choir. There’s a lot of gospel and bluegrass influences on this album.”
The other side of Muscadine's story is also about their Alabama roots. They are determined to support other artists from the state.
Among those artists is Taylor Honeycutt, whose influences extend beyond country and Americana to blues and soul. Honeycutt, from Demopolis, Alabama, is enjoying her own rise, in part because of the platform Muscadine has provided her. Not only has she opened for Muscadine, she has brought in Moncaster and Stanton to work with her on an upcoming album.
“They were the first ones to give us a chance, when we were a lot younger than anyone else was opening for,” Hunnicutt says. “They reached out to us because they’re independent, and they’re from Alabama. They respected that we were really trying to do this, to get out there with our music, to spread it. I love them like brothers, and that’s why doing this record with them is going to be so important to me.”
With the glass ceiling mostly shattered for independent artists, Muscadine has the opportunity to carry the torch for the South Alabama music scene for years or decades to come, but they realize that getting to that point will require challenging themselves indefinitely. Which is why, despite being in more demand than ever, they have invested their creativity and time in coastal plainThey'll be back in another two years and try to top that album as well. But for now, the duo is thrilled with the album they're releasing.
“This album is 100% the best we've ever done,” says Moncaster. “It gives me the most confidence I've ever had. I can't pick a song I don't like. If you forced me to drop a song tomorrow, I wouldn't be able to do it.”
Josh Krutchmer is a journalist and author of his third book, Red Dirt UnpluggedThe book is scheduled to be released on December 13, 2024 via Back Lounge Publishing, and is available for pre-order.
