Bio

“Eventually, life starts to knock you around. You have to be ready to fight with a smile.” Tony Kamel’s grandmother Dolores gave him that advice a few years ago during a rocky period for their family, and its wisdom suffuses his sophomore release, We’re All Gonna Live, out on Blue Corn Music on April 18th, 2025.

“When my grandmother told me that, it occurred to me that life is a big beautiful fight to the death. Not a single one of us is left unscathed along the way.” Kamel (formerly the front man of acclaimed bluegrass band Wood & Wire) wrote and recorded the album with some heavy subjects on his mind, especially the big one.

Variations of the lyric “we’re all gonna die” appear in many of its 10 tracks. But make no mistake: this is not a bummer of a listen - quite the opposite actually. Kamel may be looking mortality in the eye, but that’s not about to stop him, or us, from having a good time and making it count while we’re here.

“That’s why you see me on the cover of the record looking beat up with that silly grin on my face,” Kamel explains. “Each tune on We’re All Gonna Live is essentially a story about an inevitable struggle of one kind or another, but I tried to focus on the positive parts of those struggles. Her wisdom taught me to go through the darkness and feel it head on until a light appears, then go towards that light no matter how dim it may seem. Finding that light is how I fight, how I grow. That’s why these songs are optimistic, hopeful, and even celebratory in the face of difficulties. It’s a lesson I hope to pass on to my daughter.”

Since his debut solo record, Back Down Home (2021), a lot has changed in the GRAMMY nominee’s life—most notably becoming a father. “I think your sense of place and self becomes even stronger once that happens. Things I used to stress about seem tiny now.” His 3-year-old daughter inspired the ballad “Some Old Day,” one of several songs about domestic life and the pull of home after stretches out on the road as a working musician.

Like his previous record, We’re All Gonna Live was recorded live in one room in a few sessions at The Bunker, Bruce Robison’s all-analog studio in Lockhart, Texas, and produced jointly by Kamel and Robison.

“For this record I wanted a more consistent sound, fewer instruments, and a smaller band. I wanted to have a setup that we stuck with and that could be easily replicated on stage.”

There’s one thing notably present on this record that wasn’t on his last one: clawhammer banjo.

“On my debut solo record Back Down Home, I think I was really trying to separate myself from the bluegrass world and carve my own path so I had a “no banjo” rule for it,” Kamel said. “Well, playing the clawhammer banjo is a huge part of my musical world, and a big part of my solo shows. I wanted to re-incorporate it into the ensemble work and I’m glad I did.”

Throughout the record, the stripped-down approach allows the individual players in the band to shine. Grammy-nominated mandolinist Kym Warner (The Greencards, Robert Earl Keen) plays both acoustic mandolin and the less common electric mandolin, adding unique touches to the sonic palette. Noah Jeffries weaves his fiddle throughout the record, beautifully balancing classy accents and ripping solos all while singing baritone harmonies. Cameron Owens gifted his massive upright bass tone and distinctive tenor harmonies to provide that high lonesome sound. Josh Blue is back on drums holding down the laid-back beat.

The album opens with the bouncing country-rock of “Makin’ It Work,” about pulling things together amidst chaos and uncertainty. “Making it work, making it work/ain’t that the way ‘til you’re deep in the dirt.” Noah Jeffries’ fiddle swings through the tune and Kym Warner contributes a stinging electric mandolin solo, setting the tone for the rest of the album.

On the second track, Kamel slows the pace down for the banjo-based “Damn Good Ride,” a song he wrote for his grandmother after her passing reflecting on a life well lived. “Saddled up this big ole world/And took it for a spin/It’s been a damn good ride.” Kamel, Warner, and Owens send the song off with a positively celestial three-part harmony and a bridge reaching toward the heavens.

Kamel continues to populate the world of his songs with vividly drawn characters. “Sue” was written for a late friend of Kamel’s who used to open up her home in Monroe, La., to traveling bands and welcome them with a big pot of gumbo no matter what time they’d show up. The song is a driving cajun waltz accentuated with triangle. Listen closely and you’ll hear something like the thematic skeleton key for the album.

If you're living and breathing

And you're doing that right

Then you ought to be

Loving with all of your might

The living is easy

But it don't come for free

Yeah if you're gonna love

Boy you better believe

That loving and grieving

They go hand in hand

That's the thing about living

That's the deal, that's the plan

So eat up, toke up, drink up that wine

We're all gonna die, boys

We're all gonna die

On “Some Old Day,” Kamel’s contemplative tenor and sensitive guitar and harmonica give this ode to his daughter an intimacy that grows even deeper when Jenn Miori (Jenny and the Corn Ponies, The Carper Family) adds her soft, perfectly placed harmonies. Kamel sings of the fleeting time you have with your children “Some ole day, little one/you gonna up and fly/higher than the highest birds/faster than the summertime.”

The pace picks back up with “All Around This World” - a banjo-driven love song with an old-timey blast of an instrumental breakdown in the middle where Kamel laments the weeks he has to leave his family behind and tour. Fans of Back Down Home will catch the lyrical nod to the Gulf Coast that Kamel so keenly explored in his previous album: “kiss me dear, I swear to everything I’ve ever known/I’ll love you till the water drains from the Gulf of Mexico/I’ve been all around this world.”

Between these two Kamel originals about domestic life, he adds a cover of “Little Bitty Town” by Danny Barnes (Bad Livers). “I wanted a tune to represent the initial hopelessness one can feel when things are hard. The lyrical imagery of this town is so beautifully depicted in that way. I just love this song.” Kamel says. “Danny is one of my favorite musical minds and has been really kind to me over the years.”

Prepare to be stopped in your tracks by “A Father and a Daughter”, a three-part a capella piece meant as a letter to Kamel’s daughter contemplating the bond between a father and a daughter that even death itself cannot break. Jeffries and Owens’ stacked harmonies would make Bill Monroe himself proud.

Speaking of Bill Monroe, Kamel puts a new spin on the classic Monroe instrumental “Old Dangerfield,” fusing his love of bluegrass with his electrified country-funk solo work. That said, it might scare the bluegrass purists. “It’s a wild version--and it was somewhat unplanned,” Kamel says. “A photographer came to the studio and we needed to look like we were playing so we rolled the tape and just jammed this song with no explicit intention of using it - it turned out loose and fun. I think it adds a nice lift to the record as a whole and really showcases the band.”

“Lyin’ Through My Teeth” is a particularly personal song for Kamel, who, like most of us, has people in his life struggling with addiction. “It’s about meeting people where they are and with no expectations, which isn’t always easy, but can be beautiful.” The acoustic lament features a weeping Noah Jeffries fiddle solo as the narrator describes his failing efforts to clean up.

We’re All Gonna Live closes out with the title track, an unaccompanied banjo tune inspired by a real event, in which Kamel recounts handing a homeless man who had asked for $2 for a bus fare. Kamel gave him a $10 bill, making the guy’s day…only to see him enter a liquor store with the money. But then the man re-emerged, having broken the $10 to give to his friends, keeping only the $2 he said he needed to catch that bus to better luck. Before he boards the bus, he snatches a sign from an apocalyptic preacher and tells him “You’ve got it wrong, my brother/We’re all gonna live.”

“We’re All Gonna Live” is both a summary and a life-affirming counterpoint to the mortality-weighted material on the rest of the album. We’ve all got a fight on our hands, and while we know what awaits all of us in the end, in the meantime, maybe with a little love, a little light, and a smile, we’ll get through with bumps and bruises - and might even enjoy ourselves along the way.