The Yellowstone and Marshals star played a Townes Van Zandt-like songwriter who was also a gang member

Fans of gritty TV dramas know Luke Grimes for his role as Kayce Dutton on Yellowstone and now CBS’s Marshals, but before he broke out in that part, he played a country songwriter with criminal ties in a television pilot titled Outlaw Country.

The role was a bit of foreshadowing for the Ohio native and current Montana resident, who has since become a celebrated singer and songwriter with albums like his self-titled 2024 debut and his most recent, the gorgeous Red Bird, both recorded with Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb. In a new interview with Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast, Grimes says that Outlaw Country, while never picked up for a series, afforded him his first real opportunity to record a song he had written.

“It was kind of amazing. John Linson, the producer, he had Sons of Anarchy and [became] a producer on Yellowstone, he hired me for this pilot. He had this idea for a singer-songwriter, a Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley-type guy, who the way he made money was criminal activity. He was in a gang,” Grimes says. “That’s why it was called Outlaw Country.”

Grimes came up with a pair of original songs for the pilot, which filmed in Nashville about 15 years ago. “They let me write and record the songs for it. I was in bands all through acting school in L.A., I was always in bands, played drums and wrote with the band,” Grimes recalls, “but that was the first time I wrote a song that I cut or was for anything.”

One song was titled “Wild Grass,” while another was dubbed “Reckless Road.” “Which sounds very outlaw country,” Grimes says. “It’s not bad for a first foray.”

Grimes dropped Red Bird in April, a record of 10 songs each co-written by Grimes, often with Cobb and Jessie Jo Dillon, the three-time ACM Award Songwriter of the Year. The track “Haunted” was featured in Marshals, which airs its Season 1 finale on Sunday, May 24. Earlier this spring, Grimes blended his acting and country music lives with a cameo in Ella Langley’s video for “Choosin’ Texas.” Watch Grimes’ full interview below.

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