Wyatt Flores' empathetic heart, soul shine during Grand Ole Opry debut, star-making rise
Buzzed about 22-year-old country performer Wyatt Flores is speaking to The Tennessean in a dressing room immediately after debuting at the Grand Ole Opry.
The moment he's living in finds him evolving from borrowing air mattresses to owning his stardom.
Jan. 20, 2024, finds the native of Morrison, Oklahoma -- a town of 700 people equidistant to Oklahoma City and Tulsa -- amid a three-date cycle that's seen him support Charles Wesley Godwin's Dec. 2023 headlining dates at the Ryman Auditorium, playing the Opry and headlining his sold-out show at Nashville's Brooklyn Bowl on Feb. 8.
"My fans believe that I'm one of their trusted peers in whom they can confide their deepest secrets -- so I am them and they are me."
Proof of the passion of their connection that informs his popularity includes moments like the one at The Ryman when the crowd's standing ovation was so loud that Flores couldn't hear himself speak.
Both the audience and vocalist were overcome with emotion and the awesomeness of the spectacle.
His announcement that he was debuting at the Opry was drowned out by the enormity of the moment.
It's the first of many times in the conversation that his humility takes the floor.
"I'm a 22-year-old kid figuring out death, heartbreak, life, money, struggles and everything else."
Evolving near, but not in, 'Red Dirt' country's storied roots
The singe-songwriter renowned for songs including "Break My Bones," "Holes," "Life Lessons" and "West of Tulsa" is both the son of a drummer and welder and a bittersweet pragmatist and Future Farmer of America.
In a recent Tulsa World Scene feature, he's noted that a decade of growing from capable of "squawking and squealing" his way through covers at fireside get-togethers of songs by Americana favorites like Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson and generational "Red Dirt" country icons Cross Canadian Ragweed to "carrying a tune in a bucket" as his musical bio-in-brief of the past decade.
Stillwater, Oklahoma, is a 20-minute drive from Flores' Morrison home.
For some singer-songwriters, Stillwater is the home of Oklahoma State University. For fans of bluegrass, country, honky-tonk and rock music, it is a town spoken about with high reverence and hushed tones.
In the 1980s, folk-styled singer-songwriter Bob Childers moved to Stillwater.
Like Willie Nelson's move to Austin, Texas, a decade prior, in Stillwater, Childers discovered players like Red Dirt Rangers members John Cooper, Ben Han, and Brad Piccolo, who "were interested in the natural and supernatural aspects of life and love."
What remains from the 149-acre stretch of land called "The Farm" that Childers and company inhabited is the Gypsy Cafe structure. Everyone from Garth Brooks and Robert Earl Keen to previously mentioned Cross Canadian Ragweed, plus current-era rising stars like Kaitlin Butts, all claim the space in their creative DNA.
Until quite recently, Flores fancied himself a scratching and warbling outlier needing to season himself in Tulsa's mainstream-aimed folk-driven bar and restaurant rock gigs an hour away rather than contend with the hip stylings of the vaunted scene a half-hour from his front door.
Flores' 'travelin' kid' journey
He cites learning his craft in far-flung places like J. Farley's Irish pub in Claremore, Oklahoma (where the "Cheeto Frilli Pie" and buying a round of beer for the kitchen staff are on the menu) before returning to Stillwater as key to his development.
Upon emerging in Stillwater as a freshman at Oklahoma State University in 2020, Scott Lester, lead singer of the 2023 Texas Country Music Association Band of the Year, The Great Divide -- and keepers of The Farm and Gypsy Cafe's Red Dirt flame -- advised Flores to write his own songs.
Even while writing his own songs to maintain popularity as a player of small bar and club gigs, Flores was still aimed at the potential of eventually moving to Nashville and becoming a live and session guitarist.
"Travelin' kid," the first song he wrote, hit the streets immediately following COVID-19's quarantine.
COVID-19's rise and being "too caught up in pursuing music to do well in school" caused Flores to drop out after one semester at Oklahoma State University.
Within the first year of COVID's quarantine, Flores' life dramatically changed.
He moved back home to Morrison. Then, numerous family members passed away while he was farming sorghum, soybeans, wheat and ranching cattle. Then, alongside his father and uncle, he pursued a welding excursion to Florida, which proved unsuccessful.
"My life was a s***show," says Flores.
Lyrically, "Travelin' kid" opens with Flores singing, "Well, the only thing I need to pack is a guitar on my back / With a suitcase filled with clothes only God knows where I'll go."
Nashville opened for Flores because he, akin to emerging country stars like Priscilla Block and Bailey Zimmerman, passed the time while struggling with bills by posting singer-songwriter dreams into TikTok's digital netherworld.
"Pop-aimed TikTok success was never the lane I wanted but the one that I awkwardly accepted," says Flores.
To wit, he's not both producing and writing his material -- with a keen desire to constantly learn and improve at both crafts.
By July 2023, he'd officially signed to Island Records. Four months later, a 7-track EP, "Life Lessons," had arrived. The day after Christmas saw the drop of an intimate cover of The Fray's 2005 rock hit "How To Save A Life." He's earnestly excited to engage in an elevated level of craftsmanship for forthcoming releases.
"Sleeping on couches" without his fans' support
Flores' work resembles fellow rural-based emerging stars of the moment like Charles Wesley Godwin. Importantly, their star-making moment follows those had by similarly rural-borne song crafters like Charley Crockett and Sierra Ferrell.
All four artists' success is borne of a blend of soulful empathy and the skillful ability to shoulder profound emotions.
"The love and support of the fans we care about [shows itself as them] buying merch and tickets. Without them, we'd be sleeping on couches without anything to call our own except the clothes on our backs. Mix that with remaining a person of high character as all of this is happening and we'll be successful for decades," Flores adds.
The performer then breaks down how two of his best-regarded songs developed:
"Break My Bones" ("I'd rather break my bones than break your heart") arrived to him as words meant to characterize not wanting to harm an innocent person's capability to love others, themselves and the world around them.
"Holes" ("Well, I'm a shadow between the streetlight, hiding with lost souls in plain sight") came from the intersection of hopelessness and wanderlust arriving in an East Nashville Air BnB. "I was chasing everything and not holding onto anything while time was moving on; my pockets remained dry as dust and grass was growing from concrete," recalls Flores.
A decade has elapsed since a times in country's mainstream that Flores jokes were primarily defined by songs played while "driving Ford F-150s into pastures for parties."
He's not against those stylings.
However, he feels strongly that introspective songs that explain why someone would behave in a manner that fulfills a stereotypical trope demand to exist.
"Why -- outside of obvious reasons -- is having a throwdown with your buddies and a bunch of girls in a pasture in Georgia important? Is it hanging out with your friends in a place where you feel free and safe? Is it the power of lighting a fire and having gratitude for being able to do something that most people around the world can't enjoy? [Even more], is it the fact that we live in the land of the free and are able to celebrate what that means culturally [to us, as Americans]?"
He's conscious and thankful that the stage of the Grand Ole Opry is a far cry from living "two miles past pavement" and playing Turnpike Troubadours covers with a bonfire and his friends as an audience.
"I don't think that I'm good -- at all. I don't think that I deserve any of this credibility at all. I'm lucky that people like my songs. I'm trying to achieve freedom by connecting with the emotions related to making it out of my situation and being somebody in this world."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Wyatt Flores' empathetic heart, soul shine during Grand Ole Opry debut, star-making rise
