Country Superstar Bryan Martin To Play His First Australian Headline Shows
Bryan Martin returns to Australia for his first-ever headline tour and he’s coming in hot. After turning heads at CMC Rocks in 2024 and joining Chris Young for a run of powerhouse shows, Martin is stepping into the spotlight on his own terms. This April, he’ll bring his unmistakable, grit‑soaked anthems to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and will also appear at Meatstock (Toowoomba and Gippsland).
A Cherokee Indigenous American artist rewriting the rules of modern country, Martin has surged to global recognition with more than 1.4 billion Spotify streams and career-defining moments like We Ride, the Platinum-certified hit that climbed to No. 3 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart and dominated country radio. Martin’s music hits with the weight of lived experience. He blends outlaw edge with the soul of classic storytelling, carving songs from the hard roads he’s walked. His raw honesty, poetic grit and emotional punch have earned him a devoted audience and a nomination for MusicRow’s 2024 Breakthrough Artist-Writer of the Year.
He’s shared stages with heavyweights like Jason Aldean and even lit up stadiums alongside Morgan Wallen on the blockbuster One Night At A Time Tour. In 2025, he made his long-awaited debut at Stagecoach, further cementing his rise as one of country music’s most compelling new voices. With his latest album Years In The Making and the brand-new single Tug O’ War, Bryan Martin is operating the height of his powers and Australia is about to witness it first hand. Bryan talks to Hi Fi Way about his first ever Australian headline tour.
Are you super excited with your first headline tour of Australia this month?
Yes, sir. Super excited, man. Looking forward to it.
To get a better understanding of yourself, I’ve been reading back through the journey so far. It sounds like an incredible journey to get to this point. Do you believe things happen for a reason, that all your life experiences build up to shaping you as the artist you are now?
Oh yes, sir. Absolutely, man. I know just in the last year I’ve had more understanding of that than anything. Finding true love after all these years, and finding real purpose and a place of belonging has done wonders for me, man. Six months sober today.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
When you look at the streaming numbers, they’re insane. Do you wake up some days thinking, is this real? Is this actually happening?
Yeah, man, I do that all the time. It’s like… I went from working on a rig to doing this full‑time. It’s crazy. Sometimes I do miss swinging a hammer though.
When did you discover you had that untapped ability to sing and write songs? Where did that start?
Man, my mama used to make me sing when I was real young, like six years old, and she dragged me everywhere. She was the singer, she was the one who wanted to be the singer. I’ve always been more of an introvert. I like to get in a room and write a song. I never thought I’d be where I’m at. I’ve known from a young age I could sing, but that wasn’t my cup of tea, putting myself out there and being vulnerable to the world. I’ve always liked lyrics. I realised nobody was waiting in line to sing my songs, and a lot of people can’t sing what I write because they haven’t lived it.
A lot has to be said about lived experience. Do you think you would have had the songs without it?
No, there’s no way. No way.
Do you find song writing comes really easily to you?
It’s always just been speaking honestly through a rhyme. Pretty much like journaling, writing a journal of my life but making it rhyme. From a young age I’ve never been able to write something down without making it rhyme.
That moment things started to take off, where were you, and what were your thoughts? Could you believe what was happening?
No, man. I don’t know. For a moment I was like, wow. I’ll be honest with you, completely transparent, I thought all these things I was trying to prove or do or say for all them years… that was the goal, to get to where I was in that moment. Honestly, I think the downfall and everything that shifted was realising that wasn’t as fulfilling as I thought it was going to be. It felt good, really good, but at the same time, for the first time in my life, I had to realise this doesn’t fix all my problems. This doesn’t fix all the demons I’ve got to attend to that I’ve been running from for so long.
It was amazing hearing people sing a song back to you. But it was also a reality check, I had to dig deeper. I had to put something deeper into a song. That’s what I’ve been doing lately. Last year I wrote maybe thirteen or fourteen songs, when usually I’m writing five to ten songs a week. I did that for eighteen years. But last year I wrote maybe fourteen because I’m finally present in the moment with life.
I think about all the times I’d lock myself away trying to speak to the person in the other room, but those songs went straight over their heads and hit everybody else first and that’s why I got here. I’m just truly blessed to say I’m happy and in a place of belonging for the first time in my life and not only that, sober in every way. Not part‑time sober. Not “I’m still doing this and that but I’m not drinking.” No, man. I’m completely sober. It’s changed my perspective a lot.
Do you find that song writing is more than just song writing, that it’s a cleansing process, almost like purging the soul?
Yeah, it’s definitely purging, man. It’s putting what’s on the inside of you outside for the world to pick it apart.
How do you find singing those personal songs live? Is it part of the therapy, acknowledging the journey but letting go through performing them?
I’ve had to realise and I’m still fresh in the wound of sobriety, still learning how to process all this, learning how to process touring, finally being happy in your life, it’s almost like… when I’m out there on stage singing a song that used to cut me so deep I couldn’t get through it, I’m now able to sing it from a different place. From being on the other side of it and then I wonder to myself, being completely transparent, why am I still singing this song? I’m over it. I’m through it. But I realised that for me, being sober, it’s my job to get up there and sing these songs because some people who showed up to that show, to hear that song, they’re still going through it. They still need to hear it. But they also need to know there’s light on the other side of it and that’s what I’m here to bring them to.
A song like We Ride, when you saw how much it blew up, especially on TikTok, what does it mean to you when you look back on those moments from the beginning of your career?
Oh, man. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. I can’t imagine how to explain that to somebody that’s out there like me, that’s been pushing so hard and so long, no matter what it is in their career. To have that moment of, “Oh, shoot, somebody finally heard me. Somebody finally saw me.” Now how do I switch gears to keep this going? It’s tough, because that song casts such a shadow over me that I never felt in my life. I had a song way back, Oilfield Dead, because I was in the oilfield, and that song was pretty big in my book because I had no strings or anything. But that song is minuscule compared to We Ride. For seven years I thought I was in the shadow of that song and then here comes We Ride, and the fans are looking for another We Ride, the label’s looking for another We Ride. I had to finally take the pressure off myself and be like, look, you can’t recreate moments like that. If you could, somebody would be selling it out on the street.
I’m finally enjoying it and realising that God gave me that song to introduce people to my other songs and to show them my journey and my life. I’m so grateful for We Ride. Me and my old drummer Vern wrote that song in five minutes, literally the quickest song I’ve ever written. To this day, I hate to say this if it holds substance to somebody out there, but honestly, that was probably the most “escaped” I’ve ever been from my deep writing. I just threw out a song because I was like, “Everybody wants me to write a good‑time song — here’s your good‑time song.” Nobody wants to hear about the mental struggles I’m going through today. Everybody just wants to have a good time.
But even then, I didn’t realise what we were doing. I don’t know if I can ever go back to that place of “let me throw something in there and see if it sticks again.” I do realise commercial music often works that way. A lot of people are escaping from their mental struggles, and that song opened a gate for people to come in and go, “Oh, this is the only good‑feeling song he’s got, everything else is an internal battle.” I’d love to write songs like that every day for other people, but for me, I have to show people that these scars didn’t come overnight. This life didn’t come overnight. I’ve been known to write a few songs loving getting too stoned, it’s all true. But writing We Ride was such a fun, loving experience, and seeing the reaction it got… man, you can’t recreate those moments. That was a moment of peace.
Have you already started thinking about what the next album might be, what it might sound like?
Yeah, we’ve already got a new album done. It’s coming in the next month or so. It’s got Tug O’ War, the new release, on there. I’ll throw you some exclusive titles nobody knows, this will be for you. I got one called Home Sweet Living Hell, about my past, my relationship, fighting that toxic battle for fourteen, fifteen years, and realising sometimes you got to let go. Doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong, sometimes you just got to find a balance, and it’s hard to do that in a home that’s a living hell.
I got a song called Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks. It’s kind of like a We Ride thing — “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks… try taking my bone, you’ll get bit.” I got a song called Od’in On a Dream, it’s going to be the first song on the album. It’s pretty much like everybody was telling me, “Hey man, you’re going down the wrong road,” and I was like, “I know… but I wasn’t like this before the dream. Before all this overwhelming anxiety and shocks to the nervous system. Me reaching for something to get over that anxiety to take the stage.” People don’t see that behind the scenes. I was like, “I don’t think I’m Od’ing on the drugs — I think I’m Od’ing on a dream.” That’s where that song came from.
I’ve got so many great things coming up on this album. I got one my friend Ben Roberts wrote about me, the only song on the album I didn’t write. He wrote it because he couldn’t write it with me in the room because of everything I was going through. It’s called Last Train to Heaven. It’s pretty much talking about me being that guy trying to beat the devil and catch the last train to heaven. I always feel like there’s this visceral purpose for me to find the right words and make sure the people following me see that I have every intention of leading people the right way. I just sometimes have to remind myself I’m human and I think the spotlight dims that sometimes, people look at us like we’ve got it figured out, like we’re living a perfect life, but we’re all battling the same battles every day.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Bryan Martin on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…
