Koe Wetzel Is Singing With Ella Langley and Leaving His Hard-Partying Days Behind — Rolling Stone

RESOLVING THE LEDGER

Koe Wetzel took a spin through the final mix of "Jaded" and smiles. "Yeah, for sure," he says to his producer. The east Texas troubadour has been teasing the song almost from the moment he released The Night Champion in June, and for good reason: His favorite duet partner is back.

Ella Langley , whose twangy "Choosin' Texas" has been making history on the charts all summer long, collaborated with Wetzel on "Jaded," a funky disco two-step tale of two lovers both wanting to know how the other became so jaded. The single drops on Friday via Columbia Records. "Jaded" marks their second collab together, following "That's Why We Fight," off Langley's 2023 debut EP, Excuse the Mess .

In late May, Wetzel and that producer, Gabe Simon, invited me to listen to not only the 11 tracks on The Night Champion — Wetzel's sixth studio album — but to the seven additional songs that make up the album's deluxe version, including "Jaded."

Simon may be best known for his work with Lana Del Rey and Noah Kahan — he was nominated for a Grammy with the latter — but he and Wetzel have a bond that's almost familial. When I walk through the gold-rimmed door of Nashville's Gold Pacific Studios, I find the two men sitting at a console. This is their last chance to pick apart The Night Champion together, and they've both been fretting it. The album is Wetzel's first as a new dad, and he's been taking better care of himself than he has for most of his 10-plus-year career. If the uncharted territory in Wetzel's home life mellows out his music, he and Simon both want The Night Champion to bring out Wetzel's outsize personality and melodies one more time.

"I'm the kind of guy that's always gonna be brutally honest when it comes to lyrics. I don't think it's gonna be a drastic change," Wetzel tells Rolling Stone . "But I just feel like this record really embodied the wild, crazy, says-whatever type of guy I've been." Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

Simon cues up the record's opening track, "Sinner." By the time we finish, it becomes clear that The Night Champion has the most emotional range of any Wetzel record. The LP has been out long enough for listeners to hear this in tender songs like the Medium Build cowrite "The Man" or "When I Was," which showcases harmonies from Maggie Antone.

But "Sinner" gives little of this away. It's a room-filling song, heavy on reverb from a banjo, which Simon ran through a half-stack of Marshall amplifiers. When he hits the chorus of, "I told God I'd be a better man/and with a tear in his eye he said, 'Son don't lie you're probably going to do it again,'" Wetzel is joined in harmony by Sam Harris of X Ambassadors. Their voices echo over heavy kick drums and a bass guitar.

"I love the baritone," Simon shouts over the song. "It's like the big balls of the 'Wetzel Sound.'"

Just about everyone in country music heard "High Road," Wetzel's 2024 duet with Jessie Murph that ended 2025 as the top song on the Billboard Country Airplay chart and embodies the "Wetzel Sound": the singer's low vocals are set over bass and percussion to make it seem as if the instruments are harmonizing with him, while allowing Murph's voice to stand on its own.

"Usually, if we're doing a big song like this, it's gotta have [guitarist] Josh Serrato's really heavy tones," Simon says when "Sinner" finishes. "He brings the metal side of his sound. And then, we're trying to find the perfect balance between you being able to understand what he's saying, and him being fucked up. There is a sweet spot, though, and it's different on a song like 'I'll Lock Up,' where we want him to be really intelligible. But here, we're trying to find that thing where, you don't really care what he's saying, because you're just screaming at the top of your lungs." Related Content This Honky-Tonk Picker Is Running an Irreverent Long-Shot Bid for Tennessee Governor Country Songs Are Dominating the Hot 100. We Shouldn’t Be Surprised Right Wingers Claim Rap Music Is Dead Thanks to ... Elon’s USAID Cuts Buffalo Traffic Jam Were Just Two Dudes in Montana. Now They’re Headliners

That notion is easiest to grasp in big, in-your-face songs like "Sinner" or "Circus," but it's also what Simon and Wetzel say make the ballads unique. Simon points to "When I Was" as an example. In the opening verse, Wetzel laments, "I'll never be just as free as I was/When I was her man," over an acoustic guitar. Then, the drums and bass line kick in, as do Antone's haunting harmonies. The combination takes what otherwise could be a cry-in-your-beer song and adds the swagger that sets Wetzel apart. It's the same principle as the in-your-face tones of the screamer numbers.

"We talk a lot here about Koe-difying stuff," Simon continues. "That is, we take Koe, and if a song is sweeter, then we need to find a little bit of darkness. It doesn't have to be dramatic, just a little bit of fucked up."

Wetzel won't argue with "a little bit of fucked up" as a descriptor. His reputation was almost certainly cemented when he released Noise Complaint in 2016, and the tale of a drunken-driving arrest in "February 28, 2016" that featured on the album. It helped that it was a true story, and when it launched Wetzel out of Texas bars and into the larger consciences of both country and rock, he had no problem leaning into it.

When it came to write and record The Night Champion , the follow-up to his mainstream breakout 9 Lives , Wetzel hadn't outgrown his raging party days, but he recognized that he was older, had responsibilities, and a business to uphold. He's engaged now, too, and he and his fiancée recently welcomed their first child, a daughter. He wanted a record that reflected all that. "There was a lot of reckoning going on," Simon recalls of making the LP.

"There was a lot of push-and-pull," adds Wetzel. "Is this the last ti...

Koe Wetzel Is Singing With Ella Langley and Leaving His Hard-Partying Days Behind — Rolling Stone | AIPROPX