Last January, Luke Grimes told Rolling Stone that he was plotting a solo music career. Today, the Yellowstone star makes good on that goal, dropping “No Horse to Ride,” his debut country single.
A bit of campfire country, it’s a gently strummed acoustic number with notes of pedal steel and Grimes’ easygoing voice high in the mix. Turns out Kayce Dutton can really sing, without any hint of put-on twang. “I’d be spinning my wheels going nowhere fast, pocket full of sorries and an empty glass,” he croons, imagining all the things he’d be lacking without his lover. He’d be “all hat and no cattle…a cowboy with no horse to ride.”
Grimes recently signed a record deal with Universal Music Group Nashville, in association with Range Music, to release a full-length album. Producer Dave Cobb is onboard and oversaw the production of “No Horse to Ride,” written by Grimes with Jonathan Singleton and Tony Lane.
Grimes is no stranger to the music stage. Prior to becoming a full-time working actor, he played drums in an L.A. alt-country band and was introduced to Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard while growing up the son of a pastor in Dayton, Ohio. “I hate this word, but the ‘secular’ music that I was allowed to listen to as a kid was Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash,” Grimes told RS earlier this year. “That’s the stuff my dad grew up on in the Appalachian Mountains. When he didn’t have to be a pastor, he was playing that sort of folk and country-rock.”
Expect to hear “No Horse to Ride” when Grimes performs at this summer’s Under the Big Sky Festival. Set for July 14th through 16th at Big Mountain Ranch in Whitefish, Montana — a mountain town and festival praised by Rolling Stone for having a hot music scene — Under the Big Sky features headliners Zach Bryan, Hank Williams Jr., and Caamp, along with Whiskey Myers, Ryan Bingham, Colter Wall, Elle King, Marcus King, Charley Crockett, and LeAnn Rimes, among others. Under the Big Sky, presented by Outriders, is already sold out.