Benjamin Tod & Lost Dog Street Band

After dark country trio Lost Dog Street Band released its 2022 album Glory, bandleader Benjamin Tod decided it was time to retire the project. Tod, alongside his wife Ashley Mae (fiddle), had been working together as a band since 2011. “I came to terms with letting go of Lost Dog completely, which is how I evaluate a lot of things in general,” explains Tod. “Oftentimes when I’m trying to make a really hard decision, I go ahead and go through the process of mourning its death and accepting that I am going to lose it.” But just a month after recording a solo project in January of 2023, Tod felt an urge to revisit the project one more time.

“I thought I was done with Lost Dog, but after recording my solo album, I looked over all the songs that I had ready for a new record. These were songs for my band. I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t done with Lost Dog.” That energy is infectious throughout the album, beginning with opener “Brighter Shade.” Guitar melodies interlock with Ashley Mae’s fiddle line, providing plenty of room for a staggering mandolin part and shuffling drums. “Each day I love you more,” Tod croons, singing to his wife. “I could leave but some part of me would stay,” he adds, before concluding, “And only I can love you like I do, and you dare to trade it all for a brighter shade of blue.”

Though there was heartbreak at the prospect of the project coming to an end, its resurrection has meant all the more in this new context. “I definitely felt a good amount of grief and sadness that it was going to come to a close. I resisted, but then I accepted that it was going to come to a close,” explains Ashley Mae. “Seeing it reinvigorated in a completely different spirit and light is very exciting.”

That new direction began in the recording process, when Tod decided to swap out their traditional recording style of overdubbing parts in favor of recording everything live. It was an experience he was introduced to during his solo album, and found the process so successful that it, in part, led to his decision to revive Lost Dog. “We were able to finish the entire album in five days, and it has a remarkable energy to it,” Tod explains. Take the title track, which closes the album. Mournful fiddle and strummed mandolin chords provide an idyllic backdrop for Tod, who sings with an unbridled passion. “Lord, I have survived,” he reflects.

“Benjamin and I, both individually and together, have been through some professionally grinding and demoralizing personal times over the past five years,” Ashley Mae explains. “To take a step back from that over the past year and realize, ‘Wow, we held it down and withstood that, and we survived that,’ was a really good, bright, shining moment. It was the high point during a demoralizing time.” As such, Survived is a saving grace, a phoenix rising from the ashes. “This record means everything,” adds Tod. “It just feels like salvation.”

The backroads of America tell its truest stories.

The heartbreak and heartbeat of the country thumps the loudest in the cracks between its big cities. A 2021 census in Blanchester, OH registers the village’s population at around 4,230 people. Nolan Taylor isn’t quite sure of the exact number, but he knows it’s awfully small from growing up in this place with his dad and older brother. His father managed plants and factories, yet money was scarce and the winters were brutal. Mom battled addiction and mental struggles, eventually estranging her from the boys. When Nolan could finally afford a left-handed guitar, he started to write and record music of his own, grafting hard-earned wisdom, heart-wrenching memories, and hypnotic melodies to rustic and ruddy acoustic phrasing.

Achieving virality from obscurity and gathering millions of streams, he tells a true story all his own via a series of 2023 singles for Atlantic Records and his forthcoming debut project.

“We’re smalltown poor people,” he sighs. “My brother and my dad are my best friends. We spent much of our life together hopping around from place to place, getting jobs where we could and just surviving. The music is honest. I simply want listeners to feel what I’m feeling.”

As a kid, he found solace in music. He discovered The Grateful Dead through his dad and developed a deep appreciation for Pinegrove. Throughout junior high, he studied classic MTV Unplugged concerts by the likes of Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana. Other songwriters such as Joe Purdy and Zac McFadden left an imprint on Nolan. He initially received a banjo from his uncle, diving into bluegrass. Even though he primarily focused on wrestling, working out, football, and basketball, he finally picked up a left-handed guitar in high school. During 2016, he cut his teeth at countless open mic nights. He spent years gigging around West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky, playing anywhere and everywhere.

In 2023, a video of Nolan performing “68” in the woods went viral with 2.6 million YouTube views on the Radio WV YouTube Channel. His understated timbre cut deep with lyrics such as, “Lighting up cigarettes in the seventh grade, that’;s what my mother taught me as she was falling asleep driving down 68,” and “We were all constantly on the move. My whole life I’ve been running from you.”

“I like to be very direct with how I’m feeling,” he admits. “I write best with my major mood changes. If I’m very sad, I will come up with something extremely emotional. If I’m very happy, it’s also emotional. My favorite songs come out of that state.

Speaking of, the single “Wicked Ways” highlights the stark power of his voice. As he strums the guitar, he immediately confesses, “The sky is blue and so am I, I’ve been fighting these demons inside my mind.” It builds towards a proclamation of the kind of love you don’t see in movies—but is built to last.

“It’s a song I wrote about my lady,” he says. “It’s an open-ended story about dealing with depression and being apologetic to each other, but we’re working through it. It’s a love song of trying our best to get through this shit together.”

Ultimately, Nolan might just make you feel like you’ll get through as well. “At the end of the day, I hope you understand how I felt when I was writing these songs,” he leaves off. “It’s wild to me when somebody else feels the same way, but I know a lot of people do.”