BIO
The son of four generations of coal miners, Erik grew up along the banks of the Monongahela River in West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania. He came of age listening to The Clash, X and the Sex Pistols, but never truly escaped his Appalachian roots. From the cowpunk on-ramp of The Blasters, The Beat Farmers, Jason & the Scorchers, and Dwight Yoakam, he wandered upstream along the Hillbilly Highway until he rediscovered Johnny Cash and George Jones—artists he’d listened to as a kid in the cab of his Uncle Jack’s 18-wheeler.
​
THE BACKGROUND
​
Erik (under the nom de plume Cletus McCoy) is the longtime frontman of The Surreal McCoys a cowpunk “hipster doofus band” (as Mojo Nixon dubbed them) with two albums under their belt that—bolstered by airplay of the mashup single “Whole Lotta Folsom” on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country—enjoys 50K monthly listeners and has collected over 3.5 million spins on Spotify.
​
“After the introspective, geographic deep dive of Appalachian Gothic, I wanted to make a record that was simply a collection of songs, without a unifying narrative theme,” Huey notes. “This record is about achieving escape velocity out of Appalachia and into the larger world. Kinda like my own journey.”
Fort Defiance was produced by “The Godfather of Americana” Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, the legendary Rock ‘n’ Roll guitarist (Joan Jett, Del-Lords, Steve Earle & The Dukes) and producer (Bottle Rockets, Jimbo Mathus, Yayhoos, Sarah Borges). It features guest vocal appearances by Tommy Stinson (The Replacements, Guns & Roses), Sarah Borges, and musical backing Baltimore power pop phenoms Starbelly, who toured the US and internationally with Erik after his last album.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​​​​​
​
Fort Defiance was recorded at Ambel’s Cowboy Technical Services in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and is the follow up to 2023’s critically acclaimed solo debut Appalachian Gothic, hailed by Americana UK as “the Appalachian Tommy” and garnering a 4.5 / 5 star review by American Songwriter, who called the album a “mesmerizing, major work.”
In addition to Eric Ambel, Huey is backed on Fort Defiance by Starbelly’s Bryan Ewald on guitar and organ, Cliff Hillis on guitar, Dennis Schocket on bass, and Greg Schroeder on drums. Additional musicians include bassist Keith Christopher (Lynyrd Skynyrd), guitarist Tim Smith (The Surreal McCoys), and drummer Phil Cimino.
