Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band
Rocking Louisville singer-songwriter Ryan Davis has released just two albums with his relatively new project The Roadhouse Band: Dancing on the Edge (2023) and New Threats From the Soul (2025). But in their wake, Davis and company have attracted a slew of new fans, sold out a bunch of tour dates and garnered acclaim in numerous year-end list blurbs.
Davis, 40, has been making records and touring for nearly two decades. Some may know him from his work with grungy alt-country band State Champion, which dissolved during the pandemic. That led him to contemplate whether making art felt important to him. “What would I do for the next 40 years or whatever if I stopped being in bands?” Davis asked himself. With time to reflect, he decided to double down and commit to his craft.
“At a certain point, you stop asking yourself those questions and you just focus on the work,” says Davis, speaking with the Scene ahead of his first show of 2026. “I sensed myself finding more and more interest continuing the path I was on, but just making some changes and adjusting to the person I’ve become.”
In terms of songwriting, Davis doesn’t see a split between State Champion and his more recent tunes. He’s honing his powerful skill instead of going for a big reinvention, which is a good thing.
Davis’ songs come from the perspectives of well-meaning lovers and losers. He keeps binders full of “tidbits of chorus ideas, verse ideas, little couplets,” or simply words he likes, and when it’s time to pen a song he’ll try to “sew something together.” The cohesion of the patchwork in each song speaks to the strength of Davis’ poetic imagination.
He holds the weird and mundane up to the light, and with a plainspoken brilliance his lyrics lead you to ponder life’s bizarreness and tenderness. He never employs humor for the hell of it — it’s for the sake of the song. Blame his semi-adherence to the verse-chorus form on a love for country music: funny, sad and crowd-pleasing. In the single “Monte Carlo / No Limits,” he crafts one evocative image after another as he reflects on a relationship that’s faltering, but maybe still worth saving. He sings the final verse in an exaggerated drawl over propulsive country-rock slide guitar: “For lately love has made a business out of you and me / I’m skimming hundreds from the drawer just to spend them in the company store / A testament to the fact that I love you more and more.”
Catching up with the thoughtful rock trio about their approach to a new, strange year
Overall, the music is allergic to genre and norms. Tracks run between six and 12 minutes, and lyrics from one song make surprise appearances in another. With tinny Casio drum beats, gorgeous flute melodies and prominent background vocals, the band creates a delightful soundscape that’s all their own.
Touring is the “fun part” for Davis. His crisp annunciation of every line makes his live shows feel like rock ’n’ roll poetry readings. The Roadhouse Band gives Davis’ songs the legs to groove on. Core members of the touring outfit include Lou Turner and Trevor Nikrant of Nashville’s Styrofoam Winos, and while on the road the band stretches out to include a large network of collaborators, with friends popping in and out of shows depending on the city. On the last run, the whole ramshackle ensemble could barely fit on some of the tinier club stages. Davis fosters a communal ethos onstage and off. For years he has solely operated Sophomore Lounge, a DIY record label with more than 50 releases in its catalog (including the first two Winos albums).
During our interview, Davis chats with me from the porch of a cabin in Kentucky. At home, Sophomore Lounge has taken over significant space; boxes of LPs fill his kitchen, acting like the label’s warehouse. He decamped to the cabin for distraction-free downtime and writing time for the next album. For Davis, songwriting is something he has to “scrape the rust off every time” he comes back to it.
“There’s always something else that’s easier to do for me than writing a song,” he says. “When there are distractions available to me, I’ll take the opportunity to do anything other than writing.”
Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band
Davis’ experience with songwriting speaks to anyone who feels called to make art but struggles to do it all the same.
“I have been doing this my whole life … and it always feels impossible,” Davis says. “Every time I go to start writing songs again after a year off from doing it … it’s like, ‘Oh, I finally reached the moment where it’s not there anymore. The magic is gone.’”
Despite the self-doubt, there’s still “that moment where you grind through it” and find what works, he says. It may take weeks or months, but one after another, songs are finished. Then comes a record.
Fans don’t tend to hear about the frustration our favorite songwriters feel as they try to create. It’s affirming to know that Davis bumps up against the very normal doubts and fears in his pursuit to make art. If you’re a songwriter, you know that songs don’t fall from the sky. Songs are written and finished because the writer decides to see it through. It’s not glamorous. It’s difficult, but real.
Davis doesn’t bullshit me on this. It’s another testament to his grounded relationship to his art and a genuine motivation to keep moving forward.
“In the grand scheme of things, there’s still a lot of work left to do in terms of carving my path out. … So I’m out here now. We’ll see what happens.”
