Midland on ‘Choosin’ Texas’: ‘Might Be the Best Thing to Ever Happen to Midland’

“It shined a light on the music that we’ve been playing, music that we set out to play," says the Grammy-nominated trio's Mark Wystrach

It’s impossible to listen to the year’s biggest charting song, Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” without hearing shades of traditional country songs that came before it. That includes Midland’s 2017 debut single, “Drinkin’ Problem.” The band themselves tell Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now that Langley’s success helps illuminate the traditional country music they were making during a time when bro country was still king.

“‘Choosin’ Texas’ coming out might be the best thing to ever happen to Midland,” the trio’s singer Mark Wystrach says, seated next to bassist Cameron Duddy and guitarist Jess Carson. “It shined a light on the music that we’ve been playing, music that we set out to play.”

The Texas group’s new album Stages builds on the sounds they were working in on their first album On the Rocks. But Wystrach says they couldn’t have made their latest without going through certain experiences. “Stages is the album we would have made 12 years ago if we had the chops… We evolved so much as musicians.”

“And writers,” Duddy adds. “The songs that came to us [for Stages] were not there.”

“You gotta go and live life,” Wystrach says. “Get a bunch of scars, some Ws, some Ls, fuck up and course correct.”

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During their Nashville Now interview, Midland also address the authenticity attacks they weathered early in their career, and take us further inside Stages, which includes the hits “Marlboro Man” and “Shooting Memories With Tequila.” Watch the full interview below.

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