Nashville, Tennessee, singer/songwriter Will Hoge has been playing shows in the Upstate for more than a decade, and he typically packs whatever venue he’s in. That’s largely because he’s a compelling frontman who was born to play live, and his passionate, bring-down-the-house style of performance has gained him a loyal audience, not just around here but nationwide.
Virtually all of his 11 albums are chock full of anthemic, incisive, and instantly memorable songs that mix rock muscle and country twang, and Hoge has long seemed on the brink of large-scale success. In fact, one of his songs, “Even If It Breaks Your Heart,” went to No. 1 on the Country Charts, though that hit was a version by the Eli Young Band.
In terms of his own album sales and radio play, Hoge’s mix of styles actually hasn’t gotten him the sales he deserves. There’s a line in the iTunes review of his 2015 album “Small Town Dreams” that sums up Hoge’s position: He’s “too much rock for country radio, and too much country for rock radio.”
So perhaps it’s fitting that Hoge’s new album, “My American Dream,” is the sound of a man who’s no longer concerned about making concessions for possible radio play or mainstream success after a couple of decades of making music. Instead, he seems fed up with the political and social chaos he sees around him, and he’s made an album full of loud, ragged, righteously indignant rock ‘n’ roll to talk about it all.
“Tell me again, mister, the one about/ How you and your generation got it figured out,” he snarls on “Stupid Kids,” a propulsive, raw-boned rocker. “From what I’ve seen now, it ain’t so grand/ You keep your pockets fat and starve away your fellow man.”
Taken as a whole, “My American Dream” comes off as an eight-song concept album about how screwed up our country has gotten.
“All albums are a concept album in some way, shape, or form,” Hoge says. “Every artist has an idea of what they want to do. Sometimes it can be an overused term, but all of the songs are political or social commentary, so without trying to sound like I’m looking down my nose at people, yeah, it has a concept angle to it.”
The musical ferocity on the album comes courtesy of Hoge’s new band, a group he gradually assembled after the release of his 2017 album, “Anchors.”
“There’s a real fearlessness to this outfit,” he says. “In the past, there’d been this trepidation to let things get too loud or too guitar-oriented, and I think we have a crew together now that likes things that are loud and fierce. When we recorded ‘My American Dream,’ we’d just come off the road. We’d done something like 17 shows in 18 days, and we were cookin’ and greasy and loud. It felt right, so we jumped in with both feet.”
And luckily, Hoge had a set of songs that were perfect for a raw and revved-up rock band.
“I do think that the frustration is expressed in the heaviness and the volume of the songs,” he says. “All of them benefit from that angst.”
Hoge isn’t especially concerned that the fiercely political, left-leaning nature of his new album might alienate some of his fanbase, both because he’s got two decades worth of connection with his fans and because he still plays a scorching live show.
“I think over 20 years of doing this, you start to build a fan-artist relationship,” he says. “It’s no different than having a friend relationship in a lot of ways. There’s got to be trust. And my shows aren’t political rallies; they’re rock ‘n’ roll shows.”
Whatever the potential consequences, Hoge, who will play at the Radio Room in Greenville on Friday, seems to have been reborn as an artist thanks to “My American Dream.”
“When we put this band together, I felt myself getting back to a place where I wanted to make Will Hoge records,” he says. “I don’t want to make country records or Americana records or rock records. I just want to do what it is I do, and it’s other people’s jobs to figure out what bin it goes in or what playlist it goes on.”
What: Will Hoge, w/ Mourning Dove
Where: Radio Room, 110 Poinsett Highway, Greenville
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2
Tickets: $16 advance, $20 door
Info: 864-609-4441, http://www.radioroomgreenville.com/