About Midland
Midland is an American country music group formed in 2014 in Dripping Springs, Texas. The group members are Mark Wystrach , Jess Carson , and Cameron Duddy . Through Big Machine Records, the band has released two EPs, their self-titled EP and The Last Resort. They have released four studio albums, On the Rocks, Let It Roll, The Last Resort: Greetings From and Barely Blue, which have accounted for seven charted singles on the Billboard country chart: "Drinkin' Problem", Burn Out", "Make a Little", "Mr. Lonely", "Cheatin' Songs", "Sunrise Tells the Story" and "Longneck Way to Go". Midland's musical style is known as neotraditional country.
The band Midland was formed in Dripping Springs, Texas. The trio met separately around Los Angeles, where Jess Carson and Cameron Duddy were in a number of bands through a number of years. After Carson left L.A., Duddy and Mark Wystrach met and formed a country-rock band called The Young Whiskey. The trio met up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for Cameron Duddy's wedding in August 2013; both Wystrach and Carson acted as groomsmen. As Duddy recalls the story, Carson and Wystrach arrived in Jackson Hole for the wedding a week early. After playing songs together on the front porch of Carson's cabin, they proposed starting a project together. Six months later, in January 2014, Duddy called Carson and Wystrach to suggest that they record some songs, and they went to the Sonic Ranch recording studio in El Paso, TX to record for 10 days. As stated by Mark Wystrach, "when we went to the Sonic Ranch, we became a band. We walked away believing in what had happened." Wystrach and Duddy then both moved with their families to Texas where Jess Carson lived. They named the band after a song by Dwight Yoakam that was called "Fair to Midland".
Mark Wystrach grew up surrounded by music as his parents were both fans of live music. His parents owned a country music venue. In addition to being a lead singer, frontman Wystrach is also an actor and model. Wystrach was signed to IMG Models.
Jess Carson grew up on a farm in Oregon where the main genre was country music. His sister and father were musicians, so he started playing guitar.
Cameron Duddy started playing music after a difficult situation in his family; he found that music helped to lessen the tension, saying, "Sometimes you don't get to talk about all the things that you maybe want to talk about and the ice breaker started to be music." Duddy got his first guitar from his father; it helped him to find his identity for becoming a musician.
Duddy is also a music video director; he won an MTV Video Music Award for "Locked Out of Heaven" by artist Bruno Mars. He has directed over 20 music videos in his career, working with several top artist.
Midland's first song, "Fourteen Gears", was around 2015. The song, according to Duddy, was "another one of the early moments that defined and solidified the band."
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