Kevin Fowler – “Beer Season”

Texas country rocker Kevin Fowler trades Bambi for Budweiser, hunting for Heineken and ammo for Amstel on his new single “Beer Season,” a catchy, silly song that is refreshingly fun for the sake of being fun.

Unlike current chart-topping “good time” songs that are so calculated and slickly produced (think Craig Morgan’s “Bonfire” or Brooks and Dunn’s “Honky Tonk Stomp”) that they lose all of their intended charm, “Beer Season” goes the unselfconscious route of George Jones and Garth Brooks on “Beer Run (B Double E Double Are You In?).” It’s frivolous, for sure, but some of the tune’s more interesting lines prove Fowler is in on the joke: “Well I killed a big 40-ounce just the other day/Didn’t even run, didn’t try to get away/Hung it on the wall for all my friends to see/…It ain’t against the law, you can kill ‘em all night/Ask the game warden he’s sitting right next to me.”

Although the Amarillo native and Texas music scene veteran cut his teeth in rock bands Dangerous Toys and Thunderfoot, the instrumentation of his latest offering is a nice mesh of fiddle and steel that’s strongly reminiscent of the early 90s’ country sound. It’s no surprise, then, that Sammy Kershaw and Mark Chesnutt have recorded his songs “Beer, Bait and Ammo” and “The Lord Loves a Drinking Man,” or that Clint Black signed Fowler to his now-defunct Equity Music.

The spot-on production sounds so good, in fact, that Fowler’s vocals are a bit off-putting. His unpolished delivery—which sounds like a rougher version of Dwight Yoakam’s phrasing, minus the yodel and sex appeal—sounds miles away from any other male vocalist on country radio, and makes some of the chorus’ lyrics undecipherable.

Perfect for the live shows Fowler is famous for, “Beer Season” will fit seamlessly into his live sets of Texas honky-tonk anthems such as “Hope Hell has a Honky Tonk,” “Cheaper To Keep Her” and “Loose, Loud and Crazy.” It’s no wonder he has such a devoted fan base, as he’s even offering up the single for free on his Web site.

Fowler must be enjoying his current taste of mainstream country radio success as Montgomery Gentry pushes his “Long Line of Losers” up the charts. Unfortunately, as a personal stab at national exposure, the rough-around-the-edges, party-hardy “Beer Season” will probably never make it onto those same airwaves.

Download: Kevin Fowler – “Beer Season”