Bryan Andrews Unfiltered: ‘Yeehaw’ Singer Has Grand Ole Opry Dreams [INTERVIEW]

Bryan Andrews is an optimist. There's little doubt that social media response to this interview will be sharp and tilted, but he's focused on glimpses of common ground.

Once our Facebook graphic goes live, the Missouri native will be compared to the Dixie Chicks and Maren Morris and dragged for how he looks.

Residents of country music's right-leaning majority will promise to never listen to his music and to unfollow Taste of Country because Andrews is critical of Donald Trump, immigration enforcement policy and several more conservative tenants.

Several months ago, he was called "Temu Tracy Lawrence" amid a serious hate storm and in fairness, songs like "Are We Great Yet?" "Not See" (say it out loud) and "Home of the Chained" are triggering. But still ...

When Taste of Country asked if he hopes a day comes when country radio plays his most activist song, he wasn't defeatist about his answer.

"It's going to take some time ... but I think we're on the right track," he told us. "And I do think there's a world that exists where that kind of music is played on country radio ... I'm hoping by 2030."

For those with only a crass understanding of what Andrews represents, it's unimaginable to think a song that goes "Yeehaw, f--k the law" will ever play between Carrie Underwood and Luke Bryan, even if an edit drops the curse word.

He's not going to change (activism will always define Andrews, he says) so the insinuation is that America will grow more comfortable with competing points of view. In his mind, a world exists where someone can shout "[INSERT POLITICIAN] sucks!" and nobody wants to punch that person in the throat.

Sit with that idea for a second. A return to civility? Disagreements without insults? A political world where the topics matter?

Modern artists such as Luke Combs helped shape Andrews' songwriting, but singers like Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie are responsible for his boldest assertions.

"Huge f---ing Guthrie fan, man," he tells Taste of Country Nights' host Evan Paul. "That guy— you want to talk about an outlaw? Guthrie was an outlaw."

Earlier this year, Andrews released the Independence Day EP and played CMA Fest, a typical new-artist thing to do. At the end of his set, he brought Tennessee's Justin J. Pearson (House of Representatives, Memphis) on stage against the committee's wishes.

"I brought him up there because he just got gerrymandered out of his seat, which is the only majority Black district in the state of Tennessee," he says. "So I wanted to make damn sure that Justin J. Pearson got on that stage right here in f---ing Dixie with me."

The Country Music Association is notoriously adverse to controversy but still, Andrews remains hopeful he'll be invited back in 2027. Also on his bucket list, the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman Auditorium and it's here you get to the heart of what he's trying to do.

By forcing difficult conversations he's aiming to normalize them in hopes that —once normalized — progress can be made. For now, he'll take the arrows in hopes a trickle of haters read quotes like the one above and agree.

Taste of Country: Define outlaw country in 2026. 

Andrews: I think it's anti-government. People want to talk all that stuff about tossing beer cans and partying and everything, and that makes you an outlaw. But in my book, that don't make you no outlaw.

Yeah, but I feel like that was the old school outlaws. You gotta break the law and break beer bottles and all that. And you think nowadays it's going anti -

Yeah, I think it's straight up anti-government. I mean, like that old school country music, it wasn't outlaw because they was waving an American flag and talking a bunch of s--t on stage. It was outlaw because they were talking about the man stepping on the working man. And that's like, I mean, that tagline, I don't know if I can cuss on here.

Yeah, go ahead.

Okay, well, that "Yeehaw, f--k the law." I got that from my small town. You know what I mean? People in the country say that s--t all the time. So I didn't get that s--t from some leftist chat room that I'm in. I got that s--t growing up in Carroll County, f---ing Missouri.

Why do you think it's important for country music that sounds mainstream but has a radical message to exist?

I think it's just being accepted in those spaces. That's why I want to play the Opry so bad or why I want to play the Ryman and stuff like that, because I think it needs to be accepted in those spaces. And doing interviews like this, I think, is really important. Being able to talk to people that may not think the exact same as I do, but at least hold space for this kind of conversation in country music. You know what I'm saying?

I think part of it for me is just being able to normalize it some. And I think that's the most important aspect of country music as a whole. Because like I said, when you look back at Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson and the Highwaymen and stuff like that, it wasn't this bootlicking country. It was f--k the man. Workers should own the means of productions. Workers should have rights. You shouldn't have to be broke because you can't afford health insurance or pay for healthcare or whatever. S--t that real country folks go through every damn day.

Are there people that don't give your music a chance just because you're—

Oh, for sure, dude. Yeah, I mean, you think about like even my hometown, like I'm still really good friends with all my hometown buddies and stuff like that. I still live in Carrollton, Missouri, you know what I'm saying? So I didn't pack my s--t and move to L.A. or Nash or New York City. I still live in my hometown, and I bought a house there and I set up roots there and I get to watch my family and my friends grow up and stuff. So having friends that are on kind of the opposite side of the spectrum, and they always have been, we've always thought differently about a lot of things.

Related: What Is Outlaw Country In 2026? Three Outlaws Weigh In

But having friends like that, I think, gives me the chance to be able to know how to talk to people on the other side in different ways. You know what I'm saying? ... But there is definitely a group of people that are just never going to see it. The ultra-patriotic you know, like, don't want to educate themselves about any issues or anything like that. That group of people, they're never going to change. So I ain't talking to those f---ing people.

As your fan base has grown, have you noticed that the left and the right agree more than you expected?

I would say it's more like leftists and libertarians circle back, especially in small rural areas, because I think most people in small towns know what it's like to be taken advantage of by big corporations or when they run businesses out of town.

Like when Walmart comes to town and your local mom-and-pop grocery store can't survive anymore or some s--t like that, they know what that's like and they know what it's like to be taken advantage of whether you're a libertarian or whether you're a leftist. I just think that workers should own the means of production. So people call me a communist. But I'm not. I just think that workers should have f---ing rights.

Have any mainstream country stars reached out with comments about your music or even advice?

Yes, there have been a few. I won't say their name publicly just because, you know, they haven't publicly said anything.

But there's you know, there's some that definitely don't agree with what I'm doing, and ... whether they publicly say my name or not, it's kind of easy to tell who they're talking about. I watched some f---ing podcast with the guys who wrote "Try That in a Small Town," and they was just dogging on me for f---king 10 minutes.

What'd they say?

It was just some s--t like, oh, that he ain't no f---king country boy, it's all a f---king act, all this blah blah. I'm like, dude, not to f---king brag or nothing, but I bet my town's smaller than yours.

Do you think there's ever fans that buy tickets to your show that don't know your deal, and then they get there and they're like s--t?

Honestly, now I doubt it. Like, when I first was starting to do this, yeah, probably. But now most people know.