Who Are the Cowgays? Meet Country's New Supergroup

Carving a path in country music as a queer person isn't always a joyful experience, but speaking to The Cowgays — a newly-formed super group made up of Brooke Eden, Adam Mac and Chris Housman — it's the first word that comes to mind: Joy.

They showed up color-coordinated ("a beige moment," Mac deadpanned) and cracking jokes during a recent Zoom call with Taste of Country.

That's been the vibe they bring to the table ever since they first became friends — eight years ago, for Mac and Housman, and Eden joined their gang about four years later.

"When we get together, we're just hootin' and hollerin'," Eden confirms. "There's nothing serious about our friendship hangs."

That's how the band formed, too. They took a vacation to Mexico together a couple years ago, and after a day out drinking margaritas, they buzzed back to their AirBnb. In an acoustics-friendly stairwell, they started belting out three-part harmony: First on Tyla's then-ubiquitous pop hit "Water," then "When Will I Be Loved."

"And I'm like, 'Wait, are we a band?!' And Adam's like, 'A family band!!!'," Eden remembers. "My wife's upstairs and she's like, 'If Miranda Lambert can have the Pistol Annies, y'all can have the Cowgays.'"

"And the Cowgays were born right there in a stairwell in Mexico," Mac adds, before Housman chimes in, "Shout out to Tyla."

Listen to The Cowgays' First Single, "Wish I Wasn't Gay"

All three of the Cowgays are quick to confirm that most of the music they write and record together favors the '90s country that raised them.

But their lead single, "Wish I Wasn't Gay," is a bit of an outlier. It's a banjo-led, bluegrass-tinged gospel anthem about the trio's "shared experience" of growing up in religious households, each knowing they were gay but feeling condemned by their church's messaging.

"That song was, I think, healing for all of us to write," Mac says. "And it just felt like the perfect debut...a gospel bluegrass hymn for the queers."

"Also, when we all met, we were very deconstructed and healed from that. And we were like, 'We need to bring this message to the masses,'" Eden adds.

The Backstory Behind the Members of the Cowgays

All three singers have been solo country acts for well over a decade, and when they arrived in Nashville's music scene, the landscape was pretty barren for queer performers.

"We all moved here at a time when there was no queer representation," Mac explains. "And so we all moved here with a dream that we could not see a reality for."

They've each fought to broaden country music's horizons, both for queer acceptance specifically and also against other forms of discrimination.

Eden publicly came out in 2021, at the same time as she introduced her now-wife Hillary Hoover to her fans.

Hoover and Eden had already been in a relationship for three-and-a-half years, and she says now that being closeted was never her choice, but rather something she felt "threatened into" doing, knowing that being out could jeopardize her country music career as well as the safety of her family.

"Once I did come out it gave me my power back," she explains.

Mac had a similar experience with turning repression and threats into empowerment.

A native of Russellville, Ky., he was booked to headline a festival in his hometown in 2023, but decided to cancel after learning that some objected to his performing there as a gay person, and were even planning to protest the event.

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"It was honestly the best thing that's ever happened to me. In the moment, it was such a f--ked up feeling of being disappointed," he says.

But other country stars — Maren Morris, Kelsea Ballerini and Brandy Clark — spoke out to support him, and Mac's response to the situation went viral. It elevated his career, as well as awareness of the discrimination LGBTQ+ performers face.

"It really just changed my life and showed me the power of standing up for myself," Mac continues.

"And I also love that you've since gone back and done extremely successful shows in your hometown and had this amazing support system there," Housman interjects.

Housman and Mac have collaborated on and off since back before the Cowgays formed. Mac co-wrote Housman's TikTok-viral hit "Up and Down," a song that pulls from Housman's love of class consciousness-focused country standards like Johnny Cash's "The Man in Black" and Kris Kristofferson's "The Law Is For the Protection of the People."

I admitted to Housman that I'm fascinated by outlaw country, especially in its more non-traditional modern forms: The artists who don't necessarily look and sound like the outlaw hitmakers of the '70s but continue to push back against the genre's systemic injustices in sharp, true-to-the-times ways.

"I share that obsession, especially around the word 'outlaw,'" he says with a nod. "Like, sorry, sirs, but there's nothing outlaw about being a cis-gender, straight white man singing the same thing that everybody else is singing. That's not f--king outlaw!"

"We often get pushback on, 'What would the ancestors of country music say? They'd be rolling over in their grave,'" Mac adds. "In reality, they were outlaws because they pushed back against the system. That's exactly what we're doing."

What's Next for the Cowgays?

A full album is in the works. Eden says the band is just getting to work in the studio, and that they've written "a bunch of songs" that they're excited to share.

They've also tossed around the idea of a Cowgays variety show format, based off of Hee Haw, that would allow them to tour together or spotlight their work as solo artists while also coming together as a band.

The music will be a '90s country-oriented "country music party," Eden says, where everyone is invited. It'll be bold and self-realized, unapologetically true to the Cowgays' story and to the stories of everyone who is marginalized as a country music fan.

"We're not knocking at the door of country music, saying, 'Hey, can we come in?' We're kicking it down and then saying, 'We're here,'" Housman says. "And hoping that allows other folks like us, underrepresented folks in general, feel seen by the genre."

30 Outlaw Country Songs That Define The Movement

With its roots in the '60s and the honky-tonk style forged by Hank Williams, outlaw country music began to snowball in the '70s as more and more artists bristled against the genre's commercialism, social conventions and the slick and shiny "Nashville Sound."

Though some artists like Johnny Paycheck and David Allan Coe had served jail time before their success, the "outlaw" label applied more broadly to those artists who rejected the status quo in Nashville. Many of the definitive songs of the movement speak directly to that rebellion, while others simply embody an artist-driven, independent musical vision that sidestepped Nashville's country hit formula of the day.

Keep reading for a round-up of 30 songs that define the outlaw country movement.

Gallery Credit: Carena Liptak