Instead of waiting tables or summer camp counseling, junior Matt Byrne spent his summer playing bass guitar on tour with his hometown country rock band, the Back Country Boys.
“When you play on stage, it’s the most exciting thing you’ll ever do. When you come off of that, and you go back home, and you’re sitting there alone, the change seems more drastic than it really is,” Byrne said. “I see now why so many musicians are drug addicts.”
Byrne traveled from mid-June to the first week of August, playing close to 30 total gigs in cities across the south and midwest. The group visited six states, including Georgia, Tennessee, and Illinois.
The band rented an RV to travel and carry their musical equipment and stayed in hotels and Airbnbs along the way.
“The worst part was driving during the day,” Byrne said. “Even when the AC was on, it couldn’t compete with the outside heat trying to cook the metal box that we were driving.”
The band typically played in restaurants or bars offering a three hour show, featuring mainly song covers but also eight or nine of the band’s original songs. The sets covered a wide range of country music from artists like Johnny Cash, Midland, and Morgan Wallen.
“We have fans that consistently show up to watch us,” Byrne said. “That’s always fun to see people who really want to support you.”
Lead singer Mike Joyce and drummer Brayden Reites began to play together in high school during COVID-19. Then in July 2020, Joyce met pianist Colton Pointz playing outside his father’s restaurant, the Pub & Grill, in Ave Maria, Florida. By March 2021, they had developed into a three-piece band.
“Around that time, when it was just us three, we officially became the Back Country Boys,” Reites said.
Byrne knew Joyce from middle school, and last summer, Byrne was working at the Pub & Grill when the manager, Joyce’s brother, connected him with the band.
“Up until then, they had gone from no bass player to a 70-year-old bass player to no bass player again, so it just kind of worked out perfectly,” Byrne said.
That summer, the group did a smaller-scale tour in Chicago and Nashville. By the time this summer rolled around, the group was ready to take it a step further.
“We wanted to ramp it up again,” Reites said. “We proved that this can work; we know a lot more people now. We can get way more gigs.”
Byrne said playing and touring with the band has been a very valuable experience for developing as a musician, especially through learning to play songs quickly.
“I had to learn about 50 or 60 songs in two or three weeks when I first started,” Byrne said.
While in Chicago, Back Country Boys had the opportunity to sing the national anthem at a Chicago White Sox game, which Byrne, Joyce, and Pointz all said was the most memorable performance of the summer for them.
“I’ve played baseball my whole life, so playing in that stadium was a really cool full circle moment — to come back to the baseball field, but this time I’m playing a piano,” Pointz said.
“We got to stay on the field and tour the stadium, and they had a postgame concert,” Byrne said. “Jake Owen performed, and we got to watch him from our box. That was a pretty cool experience — I mean, I’ve never done anything like that.”
The Back Country Boys have undergone significant change since this summer: Pointz recently left the group and plans to move to Nashville, Reites is a freshman at Florida Gulf Coast University, Joyce is working as a full-time musician, and Byrne is back in Hillsdale studying philosophy.
“Coming back to school definitely reminds me that I do want to be a musician for a career,” Byrne said, “But the awesome thing is that I get to play gigs while I study here, so I’m not going crazy because I still get my fix.”