It’s been a wild ride in the life of Red Leather, the anonymous sensation driving a revelation in country-rock fusion. With his sophomore album TAHOE, the cowboy is letting us in to see something deeper than the mask.
Red Leather may be one to keep his appearance under lock and key, behind a rail of scarlet tassels, but that hasn’t stopped the Americana star from allowing us into his soul. It makes sense for the artist to relish in his anonymity; his music, which is situated somewhere between the worlds of country and rock, often reckons with the darkest times in his life. It’s a darkness many of us will never fully understand.
At one time not too long ago, the Reno-born artist was deep in the cycle of addiction. Moving in and out of narcotic obsession, Red Leather has found himself on the brink of death multiple times: once on the roof of a building in downtown LA, only to be called down after a last-minute, 1% battery phone call to a friend; again after a drug-induced heart attack; another after a Las Vegas relapse led him to overdose, inspiring the 2022 track ‘Bury Me In Vegas’. After trauma of this kind, one can understand the desire to escape the trappings of fame.
The mystery around Red Leather isn’t just a protective facade, however. It’s also a vehicle for transparency. “From a creative perspective it has allowed me to be completely honest,” he explains, “about my darkest times, fears, hopes, the addiction, the recovery, all of it.” It’s through this pain that the mysterio has come to produce his new album, TAHOE, the first to come from his sobriety.
Just like his debut album, RENO, TAHOE is takes a conceptual tact. Much of the release was, naturally, recorded in the Lake Tahoe area but he would also dot around to Airbnb after Airbnb – in Nashville, Big Bear, Joshua Tree – to strive for the inspiration he once found in the sightly deserts and mountains of his hometown. In many ways, TAHOE is a cartography charting the weathered cowboy’s search for beauty and peace in a world that has so often denied him such. Los Angeles may be the newfound home that both broke and made him, but his heart will always lay in the country that birthed him.
Here, we chat to Red Leather about his path to recovery, the relationship between his music and place, the audience he most hopes finds his music and more.
