Life on the road is notoriously grueling for musicians, and after playing roughly 100 shows annually since 2007, Josh Abbott—a Texas country artist whose band garners over a million Spotify streams monthly—has decided to ease his pace.
Well, relatively speaking. The Josh Abbott Band still plans to perform 70 shows in 2025. But for the first time in his career, Abbott feels he can truly slow down. He’s not rushing to release another studio album, a rarity for him.
With seven albums already to his name and a role as part of the West Texas supergroup, the Panhandlers, Abbott is embracing a new focus: fatherhood. The proud dad of a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old, he’s relishing the chance to spend more time with his kids.
Before playing at Billy Bob’s earlier this month, Abbott joined The Cowboy Channel to talk about his career, family, and more.
TCC: You’re coming off a pretty big tour from this Fall, how did that go?
JA: It’s been pretty good, it was a really long year for us. We really toured East Coast to West Coast for the first time since 2019. We finally broke away with a new album and and went from Florida to California and it was a lot of fun, a lot of miles, and what’s really funny about it, is it made me realize, I don’t want to do that a lot. I know that sounds crazy, but we’ve been doing this for 16, 17 years now and I’m at a point where I have two young children and I want to spend more time with my family. I have this window with my children to create this lifelong bond and create memories with them. I’m not going to be the guy that’s old and looks back and thinks I should’ve spent more time at home. So many older men tell me that.
TCC: We talk to a lot of rodeo cowboys, and that’s something they talk about all of the time.
JA: I think there’s a lot of correlation and similarities between the industries in terms of trying to hustle when you’re young to try to make it. There’s a lot of competition and somehow you have to be better than them. There’s a lot of miles, a lot of roadtrips and a lot of time away from home, and if you’re not grounded in the right way, you can definitely lose sight of things.
TCC: You said cutting back on shows, does that mean cutting back on music?
JA: What’s funny about that is for the first time ever in our career, I don’t feel a pressing urgency to put an album out. I know the keys these days, people say, is keep cranking them out. They probably know more than I do, so maybe they’re right, but we have seven full albums now, we’ve been putting out music for 15, 16 years. We have a pretty good setlist, every night we play, the fans are disappointed they didn’t hear certain songs of ours. We’ll definitely make another album, but I’m not in a huge hurry for it.
TCC: You have that down time coming up, what does that look like?
JA: Oh my gosh, it’s completely different than the day of being a country singer. I’m definitely sleeping in on the bus, I get up in the mornings with my kids, make them breakfast, get them ready for school, I take them to school and I pick them up from school. I try to be super hands on, because when I’m gone my wife has to do all of those things by herself. It’s literally what I do, I’m a stay at home dad during the week. A lot of the other dads, they have real jobs, they can’t go on these field trips, it’s like me and eight moms. I really enjoy getting to be a dad who spends a lot of time with his kids.
TCC: Being a Texas country artist, and coming from Lubbock like a lot of bands do, you didn’t waste much time getting on the mainstream country charts. How did you make that happen?
JA: Hustle. I’m not the most talented person ever, I’m not the most talented writer, singer, I’m not the best looking guy, I don’t have the best stage presence. I have what I do, and I do think I’m a good writer, good singer, good performer, and that’s where things add up. But at the end of the day, it’s about hustle and really getting out there. Especially in the early days, playing as many shows as you can, meeting as many fans as you can. When I first started, MySpace was the thing, so I would get on there and message people that added us as a friend. Or I’d go find people that follow bands similar to ours, I know it sounds kind of pathetic, but I would spend hours a day doing that. Getting people to discover who our band was. If it was just talent, there are so many other people you’d know of at this point in their career, unfortunately, it’s some sort of combination of talent, hustle, luck, and a good team.
TCC: So, the Josh Abbott Band isn’t the only team you’re a part of.
JA: Correct, so I have another band called the Pandhandlers. In 2019, at the Steamboat Music Fest, I was visiting with the owner of that festival and pitched the idea of a tribute to West Texas music. He asked who I would do it with and I told him William Clark Green, my best friend, Texas Tech guy, Cleto Cordero, he’s a really sweet individual and I’ve gotten to enjoy becoming friends with him and John Baumann, he just evokes that spirit of a songwriter. We decided if we’re going to do this one-time show, let’s record some songs. Then, we thought, if we’re gonna be a band, we need a name and Cleto came up with the Panhandlers. Then we started talking, and figured if we’re all songwriters, we should write our own songs. There was no grand scheme, it really just snowballed one thing into the next. This coming January, we’re doing our second tour.
TCC: How do you balance the Josh Abbott Band, the Panhandlers and your family?
JA: A long time ago, Wade (Bowen) and I have were talking about the duality of your personal family life and your career. I came back to this bible verse, robbing Peter to pay Paul, I think that’s a bible verse, it’s a saying anyway. Forgive me, my brother is a pastor and my dad is pastor so I should know this. Anyway, that’s the root of it. When you’re on the road, you feel like you’re taking away your family time and when you spend all of your time with your family and being a good dad and husband and doing normal things, you feel like you’re not spending time on your art.
Parts of this interview have been condensed for clarity. You can follow Josh on social media here and listen to his music here.