Nashville country-rockers Teddy and the Rough Riders made their debut with The Congress of Teddy and the Rough Riders in 2019. Then, in 2022, they released their self-titled sophomore album. The genre-bending band will release their third full-length, Down Home later this year. Today, American Songwriter is proud to premiere the collection’s lead single “Catfish Summer.”
Jack Quiggins and Ryan Jennings make up Teddy and the Rough Riders. Both artists grew up in West Nashville, a stone’s throw from Music Row. Today, they’re veterans of the independent music scene. They’ve logged countless hours on the road as a headlining act and as the backing band for artists like Emily Nenni. Long before that, though, Quiggins and Jennings were childhood friends.
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The group has been working on Down Home for years. They started working on it in 2020, when their opportunities to play live started to dwindle and eventually dried up completely. “After our Orville Peck opening tour had been canceled, one day before playing Luck Reunion no lees, we got together, masked up and as responsibly as possible, started to woodshed songs for not only Teddy but, Emily Nenni and Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears,” Jennings said in a statement. “We demoed a bunch of songs and worked out the riffs with Sean. Then, in 2021, we went into our friend’s studio and actually cut the record at the same time as we cut Sean’s album Weird Ears. We would go back and forth recording one of our and one of his,” he added.
Teddy and the Rough Riders’ Jack Quiggins on “Catfish Summer”
Teddy and the Rough Riders’ sound can be compared to a combination of classic country and classic rock from the ‘70s. In short, their sound is steeped in nostalgia. That spirit carries over into the lead single from Down Home. Ryan Jennings wrote the song about a summer he spent in the backwoods of Georgia with his uncle.
“This one is about visiting my mom’s side of the family who live in Rockmart, GA,” Jennings shared. “I was 12 or so and didn’t really wanna visit my grandma Lou-Lou that summer. But instead, my mom dropped me and my cousin off at my uncle Bubba’s house for a few weeks. He lived in an amazing hillbilly shack on the side of a catfish pond with about 10 dogs deep in the woods,” he recalled. “Greatest summer ever! Fishing, riding 4wheelers, watching my great uncle’s bluegrass band, swimming at Coot’s Lake. From childhood bummer to high time.”
Featured Image by Mandi Fountain
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