The Outhouse Poets sat down with Country Roots Radio host Darla Hutchins for a long-form interview that aired last Saturday. The conversation covered two decades of songwriting, the unglamorous reality of van tours, and why the band still records live to tape.
Hutchins, whose syndicated show reaches over 200 stations across the country, spent nearly an hour with the full band in her Nashville studio. The interview opened with Jake Wilder talking about growing up hearing his grandfather’s Hank Williams records on a console stereo in East Texas, and wound its way through the band’s formation at an open-mic night in San Marcos to the writing sessions behind Dust & Glory.
On Songwriting
Bassist Ray Muñoz described the band’s writing process as “controlled chaos” — ideas start on napkins, voice memos, and the backs of gas station receipts before getting hashed out in a garage rehearsal space outside Austin. Most songs go through a dozen arrangements before anyone hits record.
If a song can’t survive being played at a truck stop diner with one guitar, it doesn’t belong on the record.
Ray Muñoz, upright bass
Drummer Hector Reyes talked about the decision to stay independent rather than sign with a major label — a choice that’s kept the band’s recording schedule on their own terms but meant longer stretches between releases. “We’d rather put out one honest record every couple years than churn out content on a schedule someone else wrote,” he said.
The full interview is available to stream on the Country Roots Radio podcast feed and on the show’s website. A condensed broadcast version aired on affiliate stations April 5–6. Hutchins called the Outhouse Poets “the best bar band in America that most people haven’t heard yet — but that’s about to change.”