“There’s a band playing in my head all the time,” Ellis Bullard says. “The real magic is trying to capture what they’re playing and trying to emote it and get it out.”
Bullard hails from Austin, where fans in the city’s hardcore honky-tonks like Sam’s Town Point, Sagebrush and White Horse have been watching Bullard emote for the better part of a decade. Now, with two LPs under his belt, the latest being 2024’s Honky Tonk Ain’t Noise Pollution, the rest of country music is catching on. The wave of interest in older, traditional-sounds that Zach Top and Braxton Keith are riding has also opened doors for Bullard, whose baritone and flashy stage presence could have mistaken him for the second coming of Ernest Tubb — if his lyrics weren’t heavily influenced by the present day.
“It’s what I was raised on,” Bullard says of rockabilly honky-tonk. “I never really broke out with my other projects, trying to fit in the same box and sound like everybody else.”
Bullard wears that attitude on his sleeve when he plays, and in the past year it endeared him to fans at high-profile festivals like Jackalope Jamboree in Pendleton, Oregon, and Mile 0 Fest in Key West, Florida, where he played side-stage sets late at night or in the middle of the afternoon that drew crowd responses rivaling those on the main stages.
At Mile 0 in late January, when he told a mid-day crowd, “We’re a beer-drinking band, so we’re gonna drink some beer right quick,” he sent fans rushing to the beer tent to join in. At a time when authenticity is in such high demand that it has become a buzzword in country music, Bullard embodies it, to the point it’s hard to imagine him belonging anywhere besides the front of a booze-clouded dance hall.
He grew up in a musical family. His mother was a studio artist in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, often recording at FAME Studios throughout the 1970s. His father played in a handful of dance hall bands. Bullard grew up listening to metal but was drawn to country in his late teens. “Once you start going through some shit, you go back and listen to country,” Bullard recalls. “And it hits you differently.”
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While attending college at Texas State in San Marcos, Bullard strolled into a local bar to watch a friend perform and got called onstage during a set break. He played a few originals, and a fan tipped him $100 and asked when he would be playing again. Bullard never looked back. He put a band together and hit the Austin scene hard, landing an opening spot for Whiskey Myers for one of their 2017-18 tour dates and support from the group’s front man Cody Cannon.
Post-pandemic, Bullard shared what became his debut, Piss-Hot Freightlining Country Music, with Mitch Ballard at BMI, who encouraged him to release it. The record and its first single, “Roller Coaster,” hit streaming sites in 2022, and Joe Rogan happened upon a Bullard set at Austin’s White Horse, raving about it on his podcast. Bullard’s popularity soared, especially in Austin honky-tonks, where he saw an opportunity to turn passersby checking him out on Rogan’s recommendation into long-term fans.
“I’m trying to really get to know these people,” he says. “I want to try and make as many meaningful relationships with people wherever I go. I’ve seen a lot of artists being really guarded around fans. I don’t like that shit. I’ve had fans wanting pictures really fast, and I’ve pulled out my phone and taken it, then texted it to them. I want to give people a unique experience like that. If you’re genuine like that, it translates.”
It’s currently translating into his biggest, widest-reaching headline tour to date. Bullard hits the Southeast in April — including back-to-back nights at Nashville’s new Skinny Dennis outpost — followed by the Midwest in May. He’ll spend the summer on a West Coast run before an August 16 homecoming show at Antone’s in Austin.
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Bullard is drawn to artists who have built and sustained a following over years or even decades on the backs of such tours. He cites both the steady rise of Midnight River Choir — a breakout band in Austin and the Texas Hill Country since 2009 — and the fervor surrounding the pending comeback of Cross Canadian Ragweed as two different examples of the payoff of relentless dedication to songwriting and playing shows.
“As a performer, you really love connecting with the audience,” Bullard says. “It’s what keeps you on the stage. You’re putting your art out there, and you’re having it received. Every artist wants to get better, but it’s all about who is willing to put in the work. This whole scene is built on people who work their asses off. I want to be able to hold a candle to them, and match that kind of energy.”
For Bullard, his biggest stride so far happened when Honky Tonk Ain’t Noise Pollution caught on. It was the sign that the path he has put himself on is the right one.
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“Everybody always wants to know what that sophomore record is gonna sound like,” Bullard says. “They want to know if you still got the lightning in the bottle, or if you can keep up with your freshman project. But we’re still gaining speed. We’re still getting better after every gig. This record let people know that we’re still here, and we’re not just a flash in the pan.”
Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose third book, Red Dirt Unplugged, was released in December 2024 via Back Lounge Publishing.