We had the privilege of chatting to the amazing Larry Fleet at The Long Road the other week. Check out below as we chat about his UK tour, his latest EP and his future album plans!

How’s the tour been so far?

It’s been great! People are showing up, filling up the rooms, literally packed every single night. Well, we’ve played two shows, but they’ve been packed! And tonight is gonna be great I think. Then Belfast in a couple of days is sold out, too! I think it’s good for these festivals and all this stuff going on. People are showing up, they’re singing the songs. We’ve already pretty much sold out of our merch and we doubled what we were told to buy! People are buying stuff, they’re having fun, singing songs, showing up, I couldn’t be happier!

Is this your first time out in Europe?

This is my first headlining thing. I came out and did London in ‘23 with Morgan [Wallen], at the 02 I was first of three, and then this year I was direct support for him touring. It went really well and I think it’s helping me sell a lot of tickets, too. Getting in front of his crowd, and there’s a lot of them, I think that’s helped us out. But this is my first headlining thing so I’m pumped about it. And I’m thrilled with how it’s turned out.

Are there any comparisons you can make from out here compared to back home?

There’s differences. I would say one thing I’ve noticed the last couple of nights is people listen to you when you’re talking. I tell stories, and when I’m doing that they’re silent and it’s like ‘wow, they’re actually paying attention!’. And then they sing every word you do, but that happens in the States too! But I think it can be more respectful and attentive here. Back home we’re coming out for a good time and they can get a little drunk and rowdy, while here they seem a little more respectful. I like it!

Yeah, I think even today we’ve been at a couple of the smaller stages and there’s been some learning almost from people coming out and being like ‘oh yeah, this is really quiet when I’m talking!’

Yeah! And some people don’t like it. They want people,to be rowdy all night because they’re playing rowdy kinda stuff, but I’m a singer/songwriter so I like when people listen. I wanna tell you the story of how it came about. It’s cool they wanna be a part of it.

As for similarities, when you go to a city it still feels similar to back home, you just have building that are 400 years older! The architecture is a little different but cities feels similar. All in all people have been super nice to us!

Somewhere in the South came out a month or so ago now, the response seems great so far!

Yeah! It’s funny because when it came out, we’ve only played it maybe once in the States; we didn’t play a lot in July. We came over here and were like ‘let’s try it out’ and Baylen started playing it on the radio, and just a few days ago we saw it’s like top 50 on a bunch of album charts over here! The songs been doing great and that whole EP, we’ve been playing pretty much everything on it and people are digging it!

It’s four different songs with four different styles. And that’s what I kinda wanted to do when I put it out. I’ve been sorta pigeonholed into what is just traditional country, but there’s a lot more than that. Here’s this blues, this soul, this rock. It gave me a chance to say here, this is what’s coming.

What made you choose an EP over another album?

Honestly, when I split with Big Loud at the end of last year, I wanted to go in the studio for a few days, see what I come up with, and show different songs with different styles. I just wanted something I could get out quick to show ‘hey, I’m here’. To show the record label has nothing to do with me being successful. I had a great relationship with the label but they can slow you up as they have a lot of artists, you can’t put out music when you want to. This allowed me to drop some songs to keep people with me.

You’re pretty active and successful on social media, do you have any advice for people on that front?

That’s something I have to work at! I’m not the greatest at it. One thing I can’t do is be fake. I know there’s a lot of people like me who want to see something real, so I try to give them something real. Whatever I’m doing, whether it’s something stupid or whatever, we have a fun sense of humour between us as a band so I try to let you in on what you do. When I’m hanging out with my kids, it’s just me being a dad! I try to make my music as honest as possible and I think that’s why things have worked out that way. I’m not trying to act like somebody else, so for advice just be yourself. Whatever you’re into, odds are someone else is gonna be into it too. Your demographic or crowd may not be millions, but it may be a couple hundred thousand! You can make a living!

You used to be in a bluegrass band as a kid with your family. Would you say it still influences your sound today?

For sure! That’s how I started. If you can play Bluegrass music you can play pretty much anything. Like sped-up jazz, almost! It’s a very hard thing to learn, so me learning that early on helped a lot. I still write songs so every now and then I have one that’s like ‘oh, this feels like a Bluegrass song’! I had someone ask me how I’d describe my music once and I said ‘it’s country Western bluegrass soul!’. I’m not always bluegrassin’, I like Southern rock and blues and all these other things too. But bluegrass is always still in my DNA, I love it. I played a bluegrass song in London last night!

Is there anything we can expect from the set?

I mean you can expect ‘Where I Find God’, that’s what kinda got me here. I’mma play a few new songs. Honestly I don’t even know what the set looks like. My drummer, I just kinda let him do his thing, and if we need to change it I’ll just call it out. We tend to play something different every night. If someone comes up and is like ‘hey, you didn’t play this song I wanted to hear’, well, come tomorrow night! Every night we try to make it a little different, that’s what keeps people coming back. It’s not just a rehearsal, you wanna be tight but you don’t want it to feel like a Chuck E. Cheese show, you want it to feel organic!