Pug Johnson
Bio
Pug Johnson grew up on the outskirts of Beaumont, Texas, listening to the multicultural soundtrack of a city flanked by Louisiana, the Big Thicket, and the Gulf Coast. Those influences would resurface years later on his solo records, coloring Johnson's eclectic version of American roots music, turning him into a country artist whose songs reach far beyond the genre's borders.
"There's a lot of Cajun music, swamp pop, and New Orleans flair down there," he says of his hometown. "There's Mexican music, Texas swing, and honky tonk, too. It's a real vibe. Whenever I write songs, I try to dabble in all those different sounds that have influenced me."
With his second album, El Cabron, Johnson salutes his homeland's traditions while creating his own musical geography, too. Released on the heels of his acclaimed debut, 2022's Throwed Off and Glad, El Cabron is an album for roadhouses, dance halls, and the long drive from sin to redemption, anchored by timeless country twang, humor, and plenty of greased-up groove. Johnson doesn't just nod to his influences; he reshapes them into something new, finding room for Tejano, barroom boogie-woogie, and southern soul, too. Tying that diverse sound together is the sharp songwriting of an artist who's built his audience on the road, playing shows with headliners like Steve Earle, Eli Young Band, Midland, and Hayes Carll.
El Cabron was recorded between San Antonio and Austin, where Johnson and his wife relocated during the early 2020s. For a musician who has always taken cues from his surroundings, the Hill Country proved to be equally influential for Johnson, who found himself leaning into the area's Mexican influences. "I began working with a group of Austin musicians who could play any style, and we dipped into some Tex-Mex border music," he says. That inspiration helped fuel tracks like "Last Call (With Apologies to Terry Allen)," whose mariachi guitars provide the backdrop for a risqué, tongue-in-cheek narrative about a late-night hookup. Johnson doesn't deliver the song like a smooth-talking ladies' man; instead, he turns himself into a hapless and humorous narrator, a role he revisits throughout the record. "Would you like a beer for the road?" he asks as he exits the bar and stumbles toward his truck with a woman in town. Then, without missing a beat, he adds, "Before we get started, would you be a darlin' and give my breathalyzer a blow?"
Humor is one of the central characters of El Cabron. Like John Prine and Bobby Bare before him, Johnson blurs the dividing line between silliness and seriousness, writing songs that deliver punchlines one minute and earth-shaking truths the next. "I love writing songs where the narrator is a lovable fuck-up, like a mix between a Hunter S. Thompson-based character and Gus from Lonesome Dove," he explains. That character — El Cabron himself — reappears often, making appearances on the album's title track (where he gets drunk on Singapore Slings, runs up a bar tab that he can't pay, and escapes to Mexico in search of cheaper cervezas) as well as Johnson's fast-and-furious cover of Moon Mullican's "Pipeliner Blues."
Johnson admits that El Cabron — Spanish slang for "the bastard" — might not be an entirely fictional character. After falling in love with Waylon Jennings' music at 11 years old, launching his songwriting career two years later, and building an audience with his first band, Slow Rollin’ Lows, Johnson headed east to Nashville. His brief time in Tennessee was spent indulging in all the vices available to a young, 20-something songwriter. Throwed Off and Glad chronicled that turbulent era, with Johnson singing lighthearted songs about addiction, promiscuity, and depression. El Cabron, on the other hand, was written after he returned home to Texas, met his wife (whom Johnson serenades with "Believer," a soulful love song punctuated by horns and swirling organ), and began sanding down his rougher edges. Old habits die hard, though, and El Cabron finds its central character caught halfway between the righteous path and the highway to hell, writing songs about the haphazard journey toward some improved version of himself. If it's difficult to tell which parts are fictional and which are autobiographical… well, that's sort of the point.
Co-produced by Johnson, Ryan Len Johnson, and Paul Walker at Fischer Studios, El Cabron features a murderer's row of musicians who've played with some of the Lone Star State's biggest names, from Charley Crockett to Asleep At The Wheel. There's certainly no mistaking the album's Texas roots. Even so, Pug Johnson's songs tell a more universal story. This is an album about messing up, growing up, and striving for something better, no matter how distant that goal may seem. It's a story about the American everyman, set a soundtrack of borderland twang, honky-tonk muscle, and swamp-pop swagger.
