Tyler Braden: "Any Time You Chase A Dream, You Sacrifice Something"

Emily Wilson

The rising Country star discusses his first album - and his past as a firefighter - ahead of his debut headline tour of Australia.

Tyler Braden(Credit: Marisa Taylor)

Tyler Braden has come a long way from Slapout, Alabama - a town with a population of just under 5,000 that crowns the Western Bank of Jordan Lake.

The singer-songwriter now lives just outside the bustling country music hub that is Nashville - about thirty minutes from Music Row, he explains over a Zoom call in his warm Southern drawl - and has garnered a promising reputation.

His 2025 debut album Devil and a Prayer, released via Warner Music Nashville, is packed with earworms and has gifted us such successes as the songs God & Guns N’ Roses (which became his first song to place on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart) and Devil You Know (which achieved platinum certification from the RIAA). Suffice it to say, Braden’s star is on the rise.

Devil and a Prayer boasts nineteen tracks, narrowed down from hundreds of songs, Braden reveals - not an easy task. Whilst first starting to put together the album, Braden realised that the process felt a lot like putting together a live show.

“I leaned into the feel of that, how the journey from song to song builds different pillars of emotion, the same way I would do a live setlist,” Braden tells Countrytown. “Halfway through a live show, we tend to break down to stripped, acoustic versions of songs, and I did that on the album as well.”

The inclusion of the words ‘b-stage’ in some of the song titles is an homage to that, he explains. “If people have time to listen to it top to bottom on a road trip or something, we wanted it to feel like a live album.

“Every show we’re trying to set up these moments of feeling around certain songs, and for live shows that’s a little easier because you can tell what songs the crowd is wanting to hear the most. That’s harder on an album. But I hope it came across that way.”

Putting out his first full-length album was, Braden admits, daunting. “It’s scary when you’re putting out an album, because you don’t want songs to get buried. So they have to have a flow to them to ensure that people will want to listen to the whole thing.”

He continues, “We had never put out that many songs at one time.” Prioritising the album as a project is more old-school, he explains, but that is what he prefers. “The goal is to create a project, to be an artist, so that’s what we wanted to do.”

One song on the album that is particularly important to Braden - and is one of his favourites to play live - is Right On Track. “It definitely gets a little heavier and a little more emotional.”

He explains, “If you’re a certain age, you’re told that you’re supposed to hit these particular quote-unquote milestones - maybe you’re supposed to have a career, have bought a house, or have gotten married. And that song is just about the fact that we all have our own paths.

“I can’t have your path, and you can’t have mine. And you’re going to get there one way or the other, wherever you're trying to go. Everything doesn’t have to be this perfect storybook journey.”

Over Zoom, Braden’s manner is level, his presence comforting. It is no wonder that before he became a full-time musician, he worked as a trained firefighter.

“It definitely affected how my mind works emotionally,” he says of his firefighting stint. “I have a pretty calm demeanour, sometimes to a fault - I can sometimes be excited and still come across like that.”

Being a firefighter also taught him how to socially navigate the music industry. “Just little things like touring together and living with people 24 hours a day - that was a big one that I learned in the fire service. It’s hard to share your entire life with people. There’s a lot more that comes across than you would guess.”

Does he ever miss it?

“Yeah, I miss hanging out. I don’t know if I miss going to a fire anymore,” he says, laughing. “I’m not in the shape that I used to be. But I miss the camaraderie.”

He finds, however, that there is a similar camaraderie in music.

“Oh, no doubt about it. It becomes like a mini family. When you’re on the road, it’s like a second travelling home.”

Spending one’s life on the road, of course, isn’t always easy.

“I’m blessed that I’ve always enjoyed that aspect of being on the move and seeing new places. But it is hard; it’s hard to maintain hobbies and maintain being a local wherever your home base is because you’re gone so often,” he admits.

“Any time you’re chasing something that’s a dream, you sacrifice something, and I think that’s what you sacrifice with this life - the ability to have a home routine. That’s the hardest part.”

He is, in fact, gearing up for his debut headline tour of Australia, set to take place across September and October, stopping off in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane off the back of a winning CMC Rocks appearance in March.

He will also make appearances at the Deni Ute Muster and Savannah In The Round, and his national support has been announced to be singer-songwriter Clayton Mullen.

“The way that Australian Country does live shows, it feels a lot like Texas Country here,” he explains. “Just a smaller version of that. I’m definitely still learning how the Australian crowds expect a headlining show to be, having only played the festivals there, so I’m pretty excited to see how that works out.”

Given that his first Brisbane date sold out and another one had to be added due to demand, it seems that Australia is pretty excited too.

Tyler Braden will tour Australia in September and October. Tickets are now available.

Presented by Frontier Touring