Trey Pendley Wants to Invite You to His Country Boy Friday Night

The native of Toad Suck, Arkansas, who's had his songs recorded by Luke Combs, offers one of the most honest depictions yet of a rural upbringing on new album Signs of Life

Trey Pendley had a range of experiences and influences to draw upon when he set out to make his debut record. He’s a parent, a road dog who has toured with Ashley McBryde, Brothers Osborne, and Blackberry Smoke, and he’s a product of a small town in Arkansas with a name that’s a frequent novelty for travelers along Interstate 40. That last part is what won out for Pendley.

“I’m a redneck through and through,” he says. “There’s nothing I can do to help but be a redneck, and I want to feel that.”

The native of Toad Suck, Arkansas, dropped Signs of Life last month on Leo33 Records. Pendley co-wrote all 13 tracks — including two with the late Ronnie Bowman, marking some of the legendary songwriter’s final contributions to country music — and laced them all with his rural upbringing 40 miles northwest of Little Rock.

“These songs represent leaving home until, I guess, today,” Pendley tells Rolling Stone. “I think we wrote about where I’m from, where I was, and where I’m hoping to go.”

The 26-year-old had already scored a major feather in his cap this year when Luke Combs included the Pendley co-write “15 Minutes” on his The Way I Am album. That his music will be intertwined with the legacy of Bowman marks another. Pendley and Bowman, along with Kendell Marvel, wrote Signs of Life’s leadoff track “Small Potatoes,” as well as “Spend My Time Lovin.’”

The former is essentially Pendley’s advice to himself that getting every detail right as a parent of three children (with a fourth on the way) should never overshadow the big-picture joy that children can bring. Like most of the album, writing with Bowman — who died in March in a motorcyle accident at 64 — reminded Pendley of his own upbringing.

“I grew up in a really small town, with not many kids my age,” Pendley recalls. “The ones my age probably weren’t the best ones to be around, either. So, I spent the majority of my time with older fellows. My dad always says I never wanted toys and that I just played with, like, my grandpa’s wheelchairs and stuff, because I thought they were cool.

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“Coming to Nashville was a very big change in my life,” he continues. “A lot of people my age want to party and go to bars and stuff, and I kind of felt alone for a while until I met Ronnie and Kendell, and I started kind of clinging to them. The perspective they brought to those two songs was really cool to me.”

Pendley lives in Nashville now, but he first moved from Toad Suck in 2019 to St. Francisville, Louisiana, a transition that had a far bigger impact on his life and career. He had been planning to move to Alaska, and his mother agreed to pay for it, on the condition that he first attend a songwriting camp hosted by Verlon Thompson in St. Francisville. At the camp, Pendley met and fell in love with one of the songwriters. He moved to St. Francisville and got married.

It was that experience — leaving home for Louisiana — that gave root to “Country Boy Friday Night” on Signs of Life.

“One thing that Ronnie and Kendell helped me with was learning about myself and how unique my raising was,” Pendley says. “I have a hard time finding people that understand me, and I think they did. That song talks about a really dysfunctional family that loves each other than I think a lot of families do — even though from the outside, you may think, ‘Do y’all hate each other?’”

Pendley delivers “Country Boy Friday Night” with an Arkansas drawl over a two-four beat that would not have been out of place in the Ninetiesw country heyday. That sound is another constant across the record, co-produced by John Davidson and Jacob Bryant.

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Pendley’s music combines his autobiographical tales with a danceable, simple melody more often than not, and it has been winning over fans since 2021 when his tune “Daddy’s Son” and its music video — which Pendley and a friend made for 50 bucks — accumulated 10 million-plus views on YouTube.

It’s also what appealed to Combs when the megastar cut “15 Minutes” and released it earlier this year. The song came from Pendley’s time in Louisiana. His parents followed him to the state after his 2019 move, and Pendley’s father became a higher-up at a prison, eventually persuading Pendley to visit and meet some of the inmates. One stuck out, an inmate around Pendley’s age who had accidentally killed a man in a bar fight while defending his wife.

“He only gets to talk to his mom for 15 minutes now,” Pendley recalls. “He was telling this story, and I don’t even consider myself an empathetic person, but I couldn’t just go home and forget that happened.”

Combs cutting the song, he says, helped him land a sense of belonging in Nashville and overcome the imposter syndrome that can overwhelm newcomers to Music City.

Pendley has had plenty of other help in that department. He spent most of August opening for Dierks Bentley and Brothers Osborne, and his fall tour includes dates opening for McBryde. From a business perspective, it’s a natural move for a rising artist that gains exposure and stands to grow Pendley’s fan base. But, he says, making connections with crowds is his primary motivation. It’s an important juxtaposition with the success of “Daddy’s Son” and its viral moment. If he gets his way, he says, his relationship with fans will feel genuine forever.

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“When it comes to my job and the way I should think about it,” he says, “it’s organic. I don’t want to be overly calculated with humans. We’re not machines. I want them to be there because they want to be there, and not because they were tricked into being there.”

Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose upcoming book, Sonoran Sounds, is set for release in March 2027 via Back Lounge Publishing.