10 minutes backstage with Koe Wetzel at the Grammy Museum

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Koe Wetzel brought his brawny yet soulful new country-rock album, “The Night Champion,” to the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on Monday night.It’s the 33-year-old Texas native’s follow-up to 2024’s hit “9 Lives,” which spun off a chart-topping single in “High Road”; it’s also his first LP since the birth last year of his daughter, Woods.

After the show — in which he was accompanied by his producer Gabe Simon, who’s also known for his work with Noah Kahan — I spoke with Wetzel about the album’s inspirations and about the food-court staple that rhymes with his last name.My favorite song, you didn’t play it: “I’ll Lock Up.” That’s a song where your vocal is mournful, but you’re resigned — it’s an emotionally sophisticated song.How’d you write it?We kind of came into it to be as realistic as possible.

When people go through stuff like that — through breakups, whatever it is — no matter what it is, I’m probably still gonna take you back at the end of the day.And I think kind of being in that situation, kind of going back on past relationships, we just took a lot of past experiences from different folks and made it what it was.

The scornful sadness from it, that might have came from a couple bottles of wine that I had before I got in the vocal booth.You write about toxic relationships, but now you appear to be in a stable relationship with the mother of your child.Have you lost the juice?I don’t think so — I think it’s always gonna be there.

Those are the easiest songs to write.It’s really hard for me to write a love song.

And who knows, maybe this is the turning of the tide.I’ve got almost 12 years of toxic relationship songs, so maybe these next 10 years is the love, happy-go-lucky songs.You’ve talked about cleaning up your act a little bit: drinking less, eating better, working out.

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