Brandon Howard, lead singer of The Red Iron Push, was literally struck with inspiration for the title track from The Whole Mountain while attending a concert with a friend in law enforcement. A chance encounter with an unruly concert goer sent him down a rabbit hole of what people can get away with.

“The Old Crow Medicine Show was playing at Red Rocks with The Devil Makes Three. Two of my favorite bands. I have a police officer that is a good friend of mine. I got some beers for us since he bought the tickets,” he explains. “People were already drunk and blitzed out of their minds. I was coming up the stairs to our seats and a guy swinging his arms around hit me. He got beer on his Luccheses. I apologized but he said ‘you got to watch where you’re walking’. He was short. I thought I was getting punked. I could have murdered him. I thought he was joking. I was shocked at how bold he was.”

“Finally, I got back to my seat and gave my friend half a beer. After explaining to my friend, the police officer, he said I should have punched him in the face. I said ‘what if they call the cops’. He said ‘if you ain’t there when the cops get there, it ain’t getting solved’. It’s not that they don’t want to solve crimes, they just don’t have time or resources. I thought about that for a while. I figured if you could make a crime hard enough to solve, it probably wouldn’t get solved. So the Sheriff can’t search The Whole Mountain. Mountains are pretty big,” he says with a chuckle.

It was in Colorado that Brandon accidentally came across a lost wallet that sent him on a path to meet his producer. “I met [Dusty Boles] because I found his wallet on the side of the road. After looking him up I found out he was a musician.” Despite having played in major metal bands, it was Dusty’s respect for country music that drew him to The Red Iron Push. “He told me he wanted to take country music, polish it up, and make it dark. Boy, did I have the material for him.”

The Whole Mountain will be available 9/23.