Evan Honer

Evan Honer was still a college student in Southern California when his music — a mix of acoustic folk, indie-Americana, and alternative pop, delivered by a young songwriter who's never been afraid to blur the boundaries between genres — began earning a global audience.

It happened fast. One minute, he was uploading performance videos to social media with little response. The next, he was a viral success, earning 50 million streams with his version of the Tyler Childers deep cut "Jersey Giant" and building a following with his original music, too. On graduation day, Honer released West On I-10, a debut album that quickly led to collaborations with Liam St. John, Wyatt Flores, Vincent Mason, and more, as well as sold-out shows across America and Europe.

That whirlwind period is captured on his newest release, Fighting For. Co-produced by Honer with longtime collaborators Stephen Myers and Jon Notar, it's a coming-of-age record that asks hard questions and offers no easy answers. Instead, it embraces the conflicting swirl of emotions that come with early adulthood, from exhilaration to uncertainty. "I'm still figuring out what I'm fighting for," Honer says, speaking with the unguarded honesty that's already turned songs like "idk shit about cars" into anthems for fans across the world. "I don't have things together yet, but I'm staying in the game. I'm still here, even when I'm still falling apart."

That last line also shows up in "Easier," one of several new songs that place Honer's vulnerabilities on full display. "I thought by now I'd like to read; I thought by now I'd get some sleep," he sings during the track's cinematic chorus, singing at the very top of his range, railing against the adulthood realities that don't measure up to his expectations. On the album's opener, "Nowhere Fast," he measures the distances between society's expectations of a young man — "I'll check the boxes that you need, I'll cut my hair, get my degree, have it all figured out by twenty-three," goes one of the sarcastic verses — and the need to chase down his own horizon. When he sings "I'm going nowhere fast" during each chorus, it feels less like resignation and more like a battle cry from someone who refuses to let his own future be decided by others.

Fighting For captures the zeitgeist of 20something life during the 2020s. It's a soundtrack for young adults navigating the long road from past to present, looking to make some sense of the relationships, regrets, and romances they encounter along the way. Appropriately, Honer recorded the album on the move, finding small windows of time between gigs to capture these songs in small studios, churches, living rooms, and even Air Bnbs. He had opportunities to do things differently, of course — including seven-figure offers from virtually every major record label, along with Grammy-winning producers vying to work with a young musician who'd already earned 200 million streams on his own — but that didn't appeal to Honer. He wasn't wild about giving someone else control of his creative process. "There are no rules this way," he says. "When you do something yourself, maybe you don't know what you're doing, but you can make something beautiful out of that process."

Not only something beautiful, but something expansive, too. On the album's title track, Honer balances the lonely, empty feeling of a breakup with orchestral splashes of cello, violin, and trumpet. "I just never know what I'm fighting for," he laments over finger-plucked guitar, before the song's lush string arrangement sweeps in like a rush of emotion. On the anxiously upbeat "Wake Up, Come Down," crashing cymbals and overdriven guitar amps nod to his emo influences. Wyatt Flores — another songwriter who's built his own empire in recent years, turning unfiltered thoughts into anthemic American roots music — makes an appearance on "Take Me As I Come," a rough-edged folksong whose quiet verses give way to cathartic, high-flying choruses.

Stacked high with acoustic-driven songs and plugged-in performances, Fighting For shows just how wide Evan Honer's musical reach can be. This is music for campfires, festival stages, and everywhere in between, delivered with a rare mix of urgency and poise. It's music rooted in Honer's personal experience, yet still filled with universal stories about punching one's way to the next round. Take into account the fact that Honer chose to release Fighting For on his own label, Cloverdale Records, and that musical reach seems even bigger.

"I wanted to build a community of hard-working artists who are likeminded, consistent, and willing to bet on themselves, and that's why I created Cloverdale Records," says Honer, who moved to Nashville, TN, one year after graduation. Now living in an epicenter of the music business, he's reshaping his small corner of the industry, making it feel more equitable to songwriters who, like him, want to make authentic art. "We've had over 100 releases with Cloverdale already," he adds. "I'm bringing a lot of the artists on the road with me. We're working together and writing songs together, and it feels good. It feels right."

With 2023's West on I-10, Honer introduced himself as a one-man act — the sort of solitary singer/songwriter who could fill an entire stage by myself, relying on the strength of his writing, not the size of his band, to pack a punch. Fighting For finds him trying on new roles, too. He's a bandleader now. An electric guitarist. A road dog, backed by a lineup of instrumentalists and collaborators. A record label CEO, willing to extend help to the underdog. What a difference one year can make.

"I was very limited when I recorded West on I-10," he explains, having created the debut album while wrapping up a college degree in business administration and finishing his commitment to the school's Division 1 swimming and diving team. "I was practicing 20 hours a week with the team and playing gigs on the side. The album helped close out that chapter of my life, and I think the music sounded unpolished because I didn't have any other choice. It was mostly just me on an acoustic guitar."

"Fighting For is unpolished, too," he adds, "but there's more instrumentation. I have more means to make these songs sound the way I want them to sound. The record is all over the place, because that's how I am, too. It's an album about me starting to figure things out."

Maybe Evan Honer doesn't know what he's fighting for. Maybe he's saving that discovery for the next album. He's still fighting the good fight, though. And with Fighting For, it sounds like he's winning.