King Calaway's 'Tennessee's Waiting' add youthful energy to country's surging rock energy

Rock' n' roll is a timeless impulse best served by youthful indiscretions, while country music is a genre built upon century-long traditions.

Enter King Calaway, a Nashville-based rock now discovering how to use country music's traditions to inform bluesy and pop-aimed love songs to the strained edge of their considerable talents. The latest result of this evolution is their recently released album "Tennessee's Waiting."

While speaking with the Tennessean, Chris Deaton, Chad Jervis, Caleb Miller and Simon Dumas are nervously excited about their work.

Songs they've released in the past -- including 2022's "Feeling Good" and 2021's "Good Time To Me" have featured Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Steve Miller and 2023's Academy of Country Music Female Artist of the Year Lainey Wilson.

This time, the band enlisted country superstar Zac Brown -- though the "Chicken Fried" singer worked behind the production boards.

"Self-consciously, we were definitely in a position of trying to prove ourselves to him," says guitarist Dumas about working with the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter. "Looking up to Zac made the fact that he challenged us to bring our best performances to the studio daily worthwhile."

"We didn't know what to expect when we went into the studio," adds Jervis about the experience working in Brown's $10 million Music Row recording space at Southern Ground Studios.

"However, when Zac hit record, we just started having fun and beautiful music resulted."

Jervis and Miller are the seasoned rockers in the act. Five years removed from Berklee College of Music, the former is a vocalist, songwriter and former American Idol competitor. The latter is a guitar prodigy, bearing two decades of experience with the instrument, though also under age 30.

Gelling as a unit has involved the duo easing their rock-tinged backgrounds into the wheelhouse of Gibraltar-born pop-rocker Dumas and Chris Deaton, the son of renowned country music director and producer Robert Deaton.

The meeting point? Breezy-to-funky, radio-ready country-rock.

Songs like the Marcus King collaboration "Heathen" best exemplify where King Calaway's funkier edge presently exists.

"Marcus is so good," says drummer Deaton, still astonishingly impressed by the moments spent recording with the Americana and country-beloved artist.

"We're a young band, yes, but because we're inspired by the kind of music he makes, getting in there and being able to meet his level of work [was inspiring]," adds Miller.

Notable, too, is the inclusion of a cover of Vince Gill's quarter-century-old classic "When I Call Your Name," alongside songs written by a myriad of top-tier modern Nashville songwriters, including Brandy Clark and Jaren Johnston ("High Cost of Loving You"), plus excellent work from the band themselves, including the album's harmonica and steel guitar-aided title track.

The band's ability to evolve quickly can be credited to, in part, to COVID-19's quarantine.

"It's validating that we used quarantine to develop our brand and establish our performance and songwriting chemistry," says Dumas about spending time that was previously scheduled for them to be an opening act on Rascal Flatts' farewell tour instead over Zoom, playing the equivalent of live, bar-style gigs with other similarly interminably-seeming home-bound artists.

Now three years and high-profile gigs on CBS' New Year's Eve spectaculars, CMA Fest's Nissan Stadium stage, plus opening for Brown and King on tour, Dumas feels that King Calaway's confidence in their skills playing "live, old school rock' n' roll.".

"Exciting songs that we believe in are being received well. The energy feels good."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: King Calaway's 'Tennessee's Waiting' add youthful energy to country's surging rock energy