{"id":223411,"date":"2026-03-27T18:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/223411\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T18:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:08:08","slug":"theres-buddy-theres-waylon-and-theres-flatland-cavalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/223411\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s Buddy, There\u2019s Waylon, and There\u2019s Flatland Cavalry"},"content":{"rendered":"

The band was getting antsy. It had been an hour and a half since Flatland Cavalry had received a spot on the West Texas Walk of Fame during an induction ceremony at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center. The members had had their fill of the buffet and the frosty bottles of Shiner served from an open bar at the reception that had followed. The night wasn\u2019t going to last forever, and the next day they were booked solid\u2014photo shoots, an afternoon sound check, and a headlining set at Texas Tech University\u2019s homecoming concert. This was their only chance to get to the Blue Light, the famed music venue<\/a> where the bandmates had played their first show, as undergrads, more than a decade ago, and they were eager to blow off steam at an old haunt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The only problem? Front man Cleto Cordero couldn\u2019t make it more than three steps across the reception hall without getting stopped by a local dignitary offering congratulations on being honored by the City of Lubbock<\/a>. It was quite an honor. The other inductees, a documentarian and two visual artists, were decades older than the thirtysomething members of the band. In their speeches, those honorees referenced the award, probably the biggest local honor a Lubbock resident can get, as a career-capping achievement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flatland Cavalry, on the other hand, is at a tipping point after more than a decade of recording, releasing, and performing nostalgia-infused country music. Its path began in this college town and wound through West Texas, where it played small venues in places like Midland, Big Spring, and Alpine before getting signed to Interscope Records and graduating to cross-country tours.<\/p>\n

The group has gained a passionate following of fans, who call themselves humble folks, a reference to their first full-length album. It\u2019s received two Academy of Country Music Award nominations. Flatland\u2019s music has appeared on Taylor Sheridan\u2019s hit shows Yellowstone<\/a> and Landman<\/a>. In 2025 it played 85 nights on tour. In other words, the band has momentum going into the release of its fifth album, Work of Heart, today. If Flatland is heading toward even more success and wider fame, it will come with more responsibility\u2014especially for the front man, who was still working the room almost two hours into the reception.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As his bandmates began to talk among themselves about getting to the Blue Light, Cordero\u2014who was wearing a brown, Western-style suit and a bolo tie\u2014was still speaking patiently to well-wisher after well-wisher. Half an hour later, the group was in a van and finally heading to the bar. Cordero was still gripping the manila folder that held the typewritten speech he\u2019d given at the event, thanking the \u201cmeek and mighty\u201d people of Lubbock for always supporting Flatland Cavalry over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must have talked to everyone in that room,\u201d I said to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s some sort of joke from God,\u201d Cordero responded. \u201cUsed to be I couldn\u2019t get anyone to talk to me at a party\u2014now everyone wants to talk.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Cordero\"Cordero Cordero onstage at the 2025 Texas Tech homecoming concert.Photograph by John Davidson<\/p>\n

Cordero wrote his first song, \u201cSlow Down, Life,\u201d when he was seventeen years old for a performance at an assembly at his high school in Midland, where he grew up. \u201cMy dad came home from work the way he always does and walked around every room in the house, closing the blinds,\u201d Cordero said. \u201cAs he\u2019s closing the blinds and I\u2019m playing it, he kind of stopped what he was doing and just listened. And he said, \u2018You wrote that?\u2019 I said, \u2018Yes, sir.\u2019 He goes, \u2018That\u2019s really good. You should keep doing that.\u2019 And he\u2019d never told me that about anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cordero followed that advice and began playing gigs at restaurants and bars around Midland, performing mostly covers while continuing to write. Rather than making plans to move to Nashville or Austin to pursue a career in country music, Cordero was drawn to Lubbock. \u201cThe dream was to move to this town to start a band and to do the whole thing because I heard about all the noise coming out of this place,\u201d Cordero said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He moved there at twenty, transferring to Tech as an accounting major and rooming with his childhood friend, Flatland drummer Jason Albers. Between classes, Cordero focused on rehearsing and writing music until he\u2019d written enough original songs to play his first hour-long set at the Blue Light, which has a no-covers policy.<\/p>\n

Flatland\u2019s lineup has evolved a little over the years, but for most of the group\u2019s time together, it\u2019s been Cordero on acoustic guitar and lead vocals, Albers on drums, Reid Dillon on electric guitar, Jonathan Saenz on bass, and Wesley Hall on fiddle. Tech grad Adam Gallegos heard some songs he thought could use banjo and mandolin and sent the band a video via social media of him playing on top of their songs. They liked it so much they invited him to join as a multi-instrumentalist in 2020. He\u2019s been part of the band ever since.<\/p>\n

\"Cordero\u2019s Cordero\u2019s Texas Tech boots for the show. Photograph by John Davidson \"A A sea of Flatland Cavalry fans at Urbanovsky Park on October 10, 2025. Photograph by John Davidson <\/p>\n

Less than a year after its first show, Flatland released an EP, Come May, in 2015. A debut album, Humble Folks, arrived the following year. \u201cThe EP led us to tour West Texas,\u201d Albers said. \u201cHumble Folks came out, and that brought us to all of Texas and a little of Oklahoma. Homeland Insecurity brought us coast-to-coast.\u201d<\/p>\n

These days, the bandmates travel with two tour buses and an eighteen-wheeler full of gear. And Flatland just got back from a swing through Australia and New Zealand, where it opened for Lainey Wilson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI lived ten lives in the last ten years because before that, my whole childhood and existence was in Midland,\u201d Cordero said. \u201cDidn\u2019t know it was any bigger than that, which is fine. It\u2019s a beautiful thing too, looking back at it. But now I\u2019ve seen and done so much.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0And I know there\u2019s still more world to discover, or what have you, but there\u2019s a part of me that does at times miss that simplicity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Flatland\"Flatland Flatland Cavalry at the Amusement Park Recording Studio.Photograph by John Davidson<\/p>\n

The stage at the homecoming show was set to look like a living room. It could have been a scene from \u201cThree Car Garage,\u201d a track on the album Flatland Forever(more) that recalls the Lubbock rental where the fledgling band used to party and rehearse. The song begins simply, with warm strumming from Cordero\u2019s guitar and his unaffected voice reflecting on the days when his buddies, a few beat-up chairs, and a cooler full of beer could solve any problem. As he journeys through his memories, the band joins in, harmonies come together, and the track becomes a full-throated reminiscence of the good old days.<\/p>\n

When Cordero\u2014in jet-black pants with tassels that fluttered in a dry High Plains breeze\u2014ripped into \u201cLubbock,\u201d an earnest love letter to the group\u2019s hometown, the crowd of 17,000 humble folks sang along. Flatland\u2019s biggest hit, the certified-gold single \u201cA Life Where We Work Out,\u201d got a similar reaction. Written by Cordero and recorded with his now-wife, Kaitlin Butts, the duet laments an unrealized future in which a great love didn\u2019t fall apart and the couple singing have created a life together. These songs demonstrate a nostalgia that\u2019s been present in Cordero\u2019s music since he wrote \u201cSlow Down, Life\u201d as a teenager in Midland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flatland also performed \u201cOn and On,\u201d a track from Work of Heart that offers a glimpse of where the band might be going. It\u2019s different from the tune of longing Cordero first sang with his wife-to-be. Instead, love is compared to a \u201cdon\u2019t-stop-playin\u2019 radio station\u201d and a litany of never-ending occurrences that, like his affection, go \u201con and on and on.\u201d It aspires to be the kind of tune that remains in steady rotation for a generation or more, in the tradition of Randy Travis\u2019s \u201cForever and Ever, Amen.\u201d The instrumentation and production are traditional, timeless, and simple. It looks ahead, rather than back, like an antidote to the ache of nostalgia.<\/p>\n

As the set continued, I was struck by the elaborate production and the army of people it takes to put on a Flatland show. Later, I asked whether Cordero felt the weight of responsibility for all those workers\u2014guitar techs, sound producers, roadies, drivers, managers, and art directors\u2014as Flatland prepared to hit the road for a 37-stop tour to promote its new record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s funny is people ask me that question, and I genuinely don\u2019t feel that,\u201d he said. \u201cI never did until people brought it to my attention.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0I\u2019m choosing to be here and chase this dream, and it\u2019s led to this other thing, and people are getting to follow their dream along with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A\"A A case of the band\u2019s guitars lined with personal photos backstage on October 10, 2025.Photograph by John Davidson<\/p>\n

At the Blue Light, the bouncer instantly recognized Cordero and waved the entourage through the door. The singer went straight to the ATM inside to withdraw enough cash to pay everyone\u2019s $10 cover. Blue Light management may not charge local talent to get in, but Cordero insisted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inside, Cole Phillips, a young Oklahoma artist, played while various members of Flatland jockeyed for who would buy the first round of \u201cBurn shots\u201d of the venue\u2019s famous habanero-infused vodka.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I asked Cordero about the dream he\u2019s chasing with Work of Heart. As he often does, he answered rather abstractly, about the value of art and what songs can mean to people. But I wanted to know about tangible goals and what it might take to reach them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even have my eyes or heart set on a Grammy or anything like that,\u201d he said. \u201cAll those things would be great and cool. I just hope it\u2019s bringing a lot of people together\u2014that\u2019s what I\u2019m really hoping for.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seemed like everyone at the Blue Light wanted to talk to Cordero\u2014more so there than at the reception. But this felt like a family reunion rather than an obligation. For Cordero and the rest of Flatland Cavalry, returning to Lubbock\u2019s famed venue seemed to be the most important homecoming of the week. Playing there, after all, had been the first big dream.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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