“I’m burning down the interstate,” Rob Leines sings halfway through Headcase, an
album that finds the road warrior occupying the intersection of blue-collar rock &
roll and outlaw country. Pulling triple duty as a songwriter, southern storyteller, and
modern-day guitar hero, Leines fills his third album with tales from the fast lane,
punctuating each song with amplified riffs and a voice sharpened by a heavy
touring schedule. The result is a record for dive bars and dance halls, for highways
and honky-tonks, for wheels that spin and and horizons that linger just out of reach.
Before recording Headcase with co-producers Mike Harmeier (the longtime
frontman of Silverada, formerly known as Mike and the Moonpies) and Adam Odor,
Leines quit his longtime job as a welder and hit the road in support of 2021’s
Blood Sweat and Beers. That record became his breakthrough release, earning Leines a
year’s worth of gigs with marquee acts like Dwight Yoakam and The Mavericks.
Night after night, he hit the stage with his power trio, mixing rock & roll bang with
Telecaster twang. Recorded between shows, Headcase captures that live chemistry
with songs that dig beneath the blacktop for stories about love lost, chances taken,
and life lived between the mile markers.