Just a couple of years ago, the members of six-member Kentucky band The Creekers were balancing gigs in tiny Kentucky clubs with day jobs, as the group’s Tanner Horton (vocals and lead guitar), Anna Blanton (fiddle), Scott Sutton (vocals and banjo), Allen Hacker (vocals and rhythm guitar), and brothers Ashton and Jagger Bowling (bass/vocals/cajon) held down jobs ranging from work at a distribution center and furniture factory, to forestry, music and shoeing horses.
But over the past year, thanks to their viral bluegrass-drenched hit “Tennessee,” they’ve checked off several bucket list performances, including performing at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium and Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and making their Grand Ole Opry debut.
“If you would’ve told us that when we were in Pat’s Snack Bar in Manchester, Kentucky, that we would play the Grand Ole Opry in two years, I’d probably say, ‘Give me what you’re drinking,’” quips Hacker.
“That was a special moment for us to be able to share that with people we love and play the holy grail of country stages,” adds Horton.
Blanton says, “I don’t know if any of us ever thought we would play that.”
On Friday (Oct. 30), The Creekers released their sophomore album Follow the Sound, which also marks another first— their initial Warner Records Nashville full-length release.
They began playing together in 2022, forming in Leslie County, Kentucky and taking the band’s name from their shared rural roots — and a bit of inspiration from a Tyler Childers tune.
“Tanner had said Tyler had a song called ‘Creeker.’ He had been listening to it, and it came to mind that we’re almost all from a creek area there in Eastern Kentucky. That was the first name that we thought of and it stuck,” Hacker says.
Their first show was at a tiny Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, bar called Caboose Saloon. “Tanner had a solo act and said, ‘I have some shows there if you want to play them.’ We were there as Tanner Horton and friends, and I think we dodged nine bar fights, but it was a fun time,” Hacker continues.
They released the 2024 album Pour It in the Creek, followed by the 2025 EP River Rat, but it was “Tennessee” introduced fans to what the band simply calls “creekergrass,” their hodgepodge brand of alt-bluegrass, encompassing elements of country, pop, blues and soulful Gospel.
“It’s kind of hard to put a label on it because there’s so many elements of different types of music in it–bluegrass, pop, we used to do a rap song. It’s just kind of a big mud of music,” Ashton Bowling says.
“Tennessee” put the group’s career into a surging trajectory, when a video clip they posted in 2025 earned hundreds of thousands of views overnight. “It was crazy,” Hacker says. “Tanner called [the band’s manager] Tim [Parks] and said, ‘We went viral,’ and I think Tim said something funny like, ‘They make medicine for that.’ But we had over like 300 emails from labels and industry people, booking agencies, just piling on. But it was just a sudden change because we were playing bars still, and when that video happened, we weren’t striving to do any of that. It happened organically, which I’m glad of, personally.”
Follow the Sound expands the group’s musical latticework, with the moving “Little Man” — co-written by Horton and inspired in part by his four-year-old son — touching on fatherhood and making memories.
“I was just honestly just sitting around one day at the house and just wrote it about my little boy,” Horton says. “And then I wound up writing the third verse, which is kind of more about me and my dad. I called up a buddy of mine, Rye Davis and his wife Brandy, and they related to it, too. They wrote on it and tweaked it a bit.”
The group delves also into rustic country with “Outlaw Song,” a track that highlights a muscular country groove and features singer-songwriter (and Warner Records Nashville labelmate) Jamey Johnson, whom they met at the CMA Awards last year. “Someone introduced us to him and we just stood there and talked. Tanner introduced himself and if you know Tanner, he has the thickest accent out of all of us. He speaks fluent cornbread, you could say,” Hacker says.
“Jamey was like, ‘What did you just say? I’m from South Alabama and can’t understand you,’” Horton recalls.
They may have gone viral with a hit named “Tennessee,” but this group from The Bluegrass State proudly touts their roots with a pair of songs on the new project, the banjo-driven “East Kentucky Sunrise” and “Kentucky.”
“Between me and Allen, we just kind of got redemption songs,” Horton said. “And not bashing Tennessee, but we got kind of tired of people thinking we were from Tennessee and wanted to rep our home state. It’s just about being from where we’re from and playing music, making a living on the road and missing home. It’s kind of what ‘Tennessee’ is about, but the Kentucky version.”
Most of the songs that fill the album are songs that didn’t make it on their previous outputs, River Rat and Pour Me In The Creek. “Outlaw Song” and “Pour Me in the Creek” were actually written in the same weekend, while another song from Follow the Sound wasn’t written with the aspiration of having it recorded.
“I wrote that and never intended to do anything with it, ever,” Horton said of “Desperate Man.” “I wrote it because I thought Allen would sound good singing it and it just never got around to him. Then we were in the studio during some of our first sessions [for the new album] and just pulling the guitar back and forth. I played that song and everyone was like, ‘You need to record it,’ and we wound up putting it on the album.”
They recently opened shows for Turnpike Troubadours and have been in an opening slot on Gavin Adcock’s The Day I Hang It Up tour. They’ve also played a sold-out, four-night residency at revered bluegrass and roots music Nashville venue The Station Inn.
Follow The Sound follows another newly-acquired accolade, when they were honored with the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards’ momentum award for band of the year.
“It was unexpected really,” Bowling says. “I mean, playing the music we have, we’d have a cajon and more contemporary bluegrass. It was kind of a surprise that we won that, but yeah, we’re grateful and it was very surprising.”
The accolades and momentum come for The Creekers at a time when genre-fluid, roots-oriented artists such as Billy Strings are selling out arenas, and bands such as East Nash Grass and Mountain Grass Unit are also gaining buzz and collecting awards.
“We’re a band, so I think it gives us hope that we can make a living at this, and that it’s here to stay,” said Horton.
