Michael Gomez
When you think about country music in the ’90s, few bands fit the bill better than Sawyer Brown, but these mullet-sporting pioneers are far from acid-washed up.
Scoring memorable number-one hits like “Some Girls,” their fusion of country tradition and wild-eyed rock energy shook crowds like no one else, helping ignite a fire that still burns in the genre today. But while the band eventually came to define the ’90s, Sawyer Brown actually emerged in 1983 as the first group to ever win Star Search. Their self-titled album debut came the very next year, and now, after parlaying that “15 minutes of fame into 40 years,” they’re celebrating their four-decade anniversary in style.
Working with super-fan superstar Blake Shelton as producer, the band will release Desperado Troubadours on March 8, matching their first album in over 10 years with a deep-dive documentary and the first-ever memoir from frontman Mark Miller. The anniversary arrives while ’90s nostalgia is at a fever pitch in country music—it’s what a lot of today’s stars and fans grew up listening to, after all—and according to Miller, there was really only one thing to do.
“To be honest, it was a little intimidating at first because you have this body of work that has been successful, so it’s like, ‘Well, what do I want fans to hear from us?’” he says. “So, I went out to Oklahoma and spent a couple days with Blake, and what we came up with was to just make the next ’90s Sawyer Brown record. That’s what we did, and it really does just sound like the next Sawyer Brown record.”
Miller admits that while the band has never stopped touring, getting back into the swing of songwriting was a challenge, especially with such an ambitious goal to aim for. Eventually, Miller broke the seal with the fun, flirty (and twangy) “Nashville Cat,” reviving the pre-internet world of small clubs and big dreams the band came up in as a true throwback in the best sense of the term. It’s the album’s first single, and surprise, surprise, fans are eating it up.
“The ’90s were a special time,” Miller says. “The music was fun. Country music at that time made you laugh, made you cry. It gave all the above, so it’s not a surprise to me that the ’90s [style] is really making a comeback.”
Working with collaborators like Cody Jinks and Tennessee Jet, Miller followed up with title track “Desperado Troubadours,” a hand-over- heart tribute to Sawyer Brown’s life on the road, and “Under This Old Hat,” a feel-good tribute to things that never change. Those three songs formed a thematic core right out of the gate, and by the time “I Wouldn’t Change a Thing” came in from longtime friend Mac McAnally (who also helped write and produce many of the band’s original favorites), the race was on, to call out the band’s much loved George Jones cover.
Soon enough, they were ready to record, and Shelton was all about it. The mega-star had done an interview naming Sawyer Brown as one of his all-time favorite bands, and said “The Race Is On” was the first record he ever bought. Miller had the band’s team reach out about producing, and the response was immediate.
“Literally I think Blake called me within ten minutes,” Miller says with a laugh. “He goes, ‘You guys are my heroes!’ And when I went out to spend a couple days with him, what was really cool was he’s almost a historian of the band. I started thinking he knows more about the band than I do. We just started talking about what the album was going to be, and I think he was excited we were going to stay in our comfort zone.”
With Shelton helping guide an “old school” three-day recording marathon in Nashville, the band quickly found their magic once more. Shelton even helped save a few tracks from otherwise falling flat, and the result is ten new songs that fit seamlessly into your existing beloved Sawyer Brown collection.
“It was instant because we brought Mac [McAnally] in to play on everything. Blake and Gwen [Stefani] flew in, and we literally camped out in the studio,” Miller recalls. “Blake was there before everybody every day. We joked that he had to get there to let the help in. And then he’d be the last one to leave.”
The result was pure musical magic.
“I will tell you this, and I think I could speak for Blake included,” Miller says. “At the end of the third day, when we were done, I don’t think anybody wanted to leave. It was such a cool vibe and such a special time. I’ll remember it the rest of my life.”
Add that high point to a rollercoaster ride that plays out in full detail on the band’s upcoming documentary, Get Me to The Stage on Time, which premieres at the Nashville Film Festival in October. The film helps outline both what made Sawyer Brown unique and their struggle to get Music Row on their side. Meanwhile, Miller’s The Boys and Me: My Life in The Country Music Supergroup Sawyer Brown memoir is already out, and that gave the acclaimed frontman space to thank the believers who helped the band survive despite their ups and downs.
“There were some definite times we really questioned whether we were going to make it or not,” he says. “But it’s also all those dips and valleys that make you come back stronger, and I think define who you are. I think it’s those kinds of things that made us tough enough to withstand the 40 years. The whole thing that I want everyone to take away from this is to go back and revisit what we’ve done, but most of all to know the band is still moving forward,” Miller says. “We end the documentary with making the new album, and it’s to say, ‘Yeah, the 40th anniversary is here, and we’re going to use this 40th to blow it up and get to 50.’ That’s really my goal.”