Everyone’s got their idols, those trailblazing rabble-rousers who leave such an indelible mark on us, we begin to radiate those same traits. A Lubbock, Texas native, Ross Cooper, a former professional horseback rider, draws upon a wealth of some of country’s finest. From Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark to Ryan Bingham, Hayes Carll and The Damnwells, his style is distinct but familiar, expansive but intimate, dusty but polished. As a result, he decided to curate a playlist for B-Sides & Badlands, dropping today, called Amalgam of Influence: Songs & Songwriters That I Love.
This hodgepodge of influences is in full vibrancy on his new record, titled I Rode the Wild Horses (out March 9), which curls his fingertips around his most personal songwriting to-date and presses down on traditional fair, pedal steel and guitar framed on top. The titular cut has a particularly striking backstory, too. “I wrote the song as an ode to the west Texas rodeo-cowboys that I grew up around. Truly the last of a dying breed. There are a lot of small towns around where I’m from, and a lot of them dry up, or the city grows around them. It’s sad to see,” he explains.
“But then you have these old cowboys who are basically the last of the hardasses. When everything else is changing around them, they don’t. They’re revered and respected, because they were something in their heyday, and unfortunately, the majority of people around them have no idea.”
