Up-and-coming Red Dirt singer-songwriter Wyatt Flores comes home for two Oklahoma shows
You could call Wyatt Flores a lot of things: an old soul, a friend of death, the latest Red Dirt music star to shoot out of Stillwater.
Just make sure you put Oklahoman high up in the up-and-coming troubadour's bio.
"I miss Oklahoma more than folks even realize. I've been missing it more than ever just because I know I'm getting to come home. I've been all around this country, and it's beautiful. ... But there's no place like Oklahoma," Flores said by phone from the road outside St. Louis, Missouri.
"There really is a freedom that I have in Oklahoma that's just something that I long for. It's the folks there, 'cause there's some of the nicest people in Oklahoma. ... The rest of the world may wonder why we like it so much, but the state just has a power there that no other place has."
The Oklahoma native, 22, relocated almost two years ago to Nashville, Tennessee. But the Mexican-American singer-songwriter is coming back to his home state to play a sold-out concert Feb. 16 at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa and a nearly sold-out show Feb. 17 at 7 Clans Casino & Resort in Newkirk before he heads overseas in March on a stretch of European and U.K. dates in support of his 2023 EP "Life Lessons."
Named Amazon's Breakthrough Artist of the Year, included in Spotify's Hot Country Class of 2024 and listed on CMT's Listen Up programming, the fledgling Island Records artist chatted with The Oklahoman this week about his recent Grand Ole Opry debut, his upbringing in Stillwater and nearby Morrison and more.
What are your thoughts on playing the legendary Cain's Ballroom? Have you ever played Cain's before?
I have not played Cain's before. But I've been to plenty of shows there, and I'm still just not sure how to fully process what's going to happen. ... There's plenty of big venues all around the world. But being an Oklahoman, it's the one place you dream of playing because it's such a special spot. ... And to say that we're sold out when we're getting to play it is just wild.
Well, you're entire headlining tour is sold out or close to it. What is that like as a young artist?
My music career started off in the Tulsa area and northeast (Oklahoma). I played all those bars where no one listened, and you just kept on the grind. Then, all of a sudden you turn around, and now you've got a sold-out tour and you're all going across America. I'm not sure: It just feels like a dream. And I'm just waiting for someone to pinch me and wake me up, because this is all so crazy.
To be playing these these places that we haven't been before, and there's 1,000 people there that are as excited as all get out, it's unbelievable.
You grew up in and around Stillwater, the birthplace of Red Dirt music. How did that influence you as a singer-songwriter?
To have that as your back yard, you grow up understanding that Garth Brooks got his start there. I went to the same high school as All-American Rejects. I was very good friends with some of the band members in The Great Divide. They had a lot of influence on my music, as well as my dad and my uncle.
I was just surrounded by music. For that to be the home base for me, it's easy to look at all the Red Dirt heroes and go see them play and look up to them. ...
Then, to be a part of that scene with Trenton Fletcher and Wyatt Baker and J.R. Carroll ... Stillwater is still a place where music is coming out of. I'm proud of everyone that's come out of there. And I am proud to say that I'm from there and that I'm the next name that's making its way.
When and how did you decide to go to Nashville?
I went to OSUIT (Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology) down there in Okmulgee. And I say that I only went there for two weeks in my song 'Life Lessons,' but, really, I only showed up to class for two weeks. I went that full semester, and that did not work out. ...
When COVID happened, it was my senior year of high school. That first month and a half before May kicked the door in, I was just fishing and lighting fires pretty much that entire time, having the time of my life. Then, I started farming and ranching.
When I dropped out of school ... I tried some other jobs, I tried to get in at Ditch Witch, and then I just went back to farming and ranching. But I was playing music every single weekend, and one thing led to another. Next thing you know, I was heading out to Nashville to learn how to write songs and get better at that craft.
You recently made your debut at the Grand Ole Opry. How was it?
Two songs, and I was scared. Scared. Oh my gosh, that stage. Then, you look up into the balcony, and it just keeps going and going and going.
I told the Opry, 'This was never one of my goals, because I never thought that the Opry would invite me.' It's a place for legends, and it meant the absolute world to me to have my family there and to get to play there, because there's been a lot of people that have made a lot of sacrifices for me to keep going. I have a lot of people behind the curtain that have just pushed me on to the next level. And it meant the absolute world to see it all pay off. ...
It definitely was (emotional) to have my mom and dad and my sister there, to have my grandma there. Last year was a rough year.
Wasn't it also a big year for you since you signed to a label and broke through with some of your songs?
We're doing better now, but last year was the worst and best year of my life. ...
It's weird because I put my life on hold — obviously, since I moved to Nashville — and I didn't live that 21-year-old life that everyone else did. I stayed inside of an apartment, and I learned music from my guitar player. We sat there and we studied music and we studied songs. I took myself on an education, and I didn't do the college life. ... Every single weekend, my friends back home are having the time of their lives — and I am, too — but, to some extent, I'm working on the weekends. And I just miss being there with them and raising hell, having good times and making memories.
Last year was incredibly hard because I fired my management, and we had to go to California in one of those Chevy church vans with a U-Haul on the back, because I'd lost the van and the other trailer after firing management. So, we're all shoved inside there like sardines, and we're just trying to make it through.
I was struggling with the fact that the people that I thought could trust I couldn't trust anymore, while also trying to cope with the fact that my grandpa had committed suicide.
That's just a lot. How have you coped with all that?
People that are like me, that are creatives, they feel everything. So, every emotion comes storming in the door. ... But you work through them, and you've just got to be able process in a healthy way, learn from it and grow.
How does your Mexican-American heritage influence you?
I don't speak Spanish. I wasn't raised that way. But my Mexican side of my family means the world to me. ... My strumming patterns, for some reason, have that Hispanic twist on them. And I don't know why. It just comes out in my songwriting and my playing. ...
The Day of the Dead is something that I wish we'd actually take into consideration (in America), having that culture to celebrate the dead, because I think about death constantly. That's why the album art is the way that it is; it's why we have the skeleton.
And these next songs that I'm working on putting out, it all has that running theme of dying and to live.
I think that's where it comes out, is just understanding that it's OK to be friends with death.
It seems like you have an old soul's view of life: Is that from being in the music business or does it come naturally?
I think it's just always how I was. I think I just had a lot of great people to look up to that gave me a lot of advice. Like Scotte Lester from The Great Divide told me since I was a kid, 'Live carelessly.' There's little things like that have always just stuck in my head that I've sat there and pondered. ...
I'd never be on this journey if it wasn't for Stillwater. ... I've got a lot coming ... and it all started in Oklahoma. So, I appreciate all the support they've given us to keep on moving on.
WYATT FLORES OKLAHOMA IN CONCERT
When: 6:30 p.m. Feb. 16.
Where: Cain's Ballroom, 423 N Main, Tulsa.
Tickets: Sold out.
When: 7 p.m. Feb. 17.
Where: 7 Clans Casino & Resort, 12875 N U.S. 77, Newkirk.
Tickets: https://ticketstorm.com.
Information: https://www.wyattfloresmusic.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Songwriter Wyatt Flores returns to Oklahoma after Grand Ole Opry debut
