Midland Reflect on Success After Struggling For Years

Midland might be the reigning ACM Vocal Group of the Year, with a successful album and a few hits to their credit (including their No. 1 single, “Drinkin’ Problem”), but life wasn’t always so easy for the band members. The trio, made up of Mark Wystrach, Jess Carson and Cameron Duddy, had plenty of lean years while they struggled to find their place in country music, which makes their current success seem that much sweeter.

“It’s everything that you think it would be,” Wystrach says of their transition to a tour bus, and the larger crowds they attract. “We [were] playing small places, we’re playing out all across Texas, places sometimes we’ve never been before, usually people that have absolutely no clue who we are, so you’re coming in with people that are probably a little bit cynical. And also we’re doing six, seven, eight hours, nine hours in Cam’s F-250 with all of our equipment in the back without a U-Haul trailer.”

The threesome definitely had plenty of challenging times, but they wouldn’t trade the hard years for anything.

“When we started off,” he continues, “I mean, I’m talking about hauling off to play shows in Midland, in Marfa, in West Texas, praying that it doesn’t rain because we didn’t have the money to even rent a U-Haul. There’s a camaraderie when you’re crammin’ five, six guys in a truck. And I think that’s been a huge part of what’s been preparing us. And it’s the humility, but it’s also the ability to get along. And when you have nothing and you’re literally starting from the bottom and you’re having the time of your life, then I think you know you’re doing the right thing.”

The guys in Midland each left careers to do music, not because they wanted to take a big risk, but because they felt like they didn’t have another choice.

“It was just the calling,” Duddy explains. “It doesn’t happen for everybody when you get this, like overwhelming sense of duty to do something. And for all of us it was that, and it overrode any prior success or lifestyles that we had been living in California, which was pretty kick a–. But life’s a carnival, as The Band said – you don’t just hop on one ride and do it for four hours, you kind of want to experience everything. And that for us is this journey.”

Midland’s latest single, “Burn Out,” is available for download on iTunes.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Terry Wyatt