Feidler, a South Dakota songwriter, is succeeding in making the move from chutes to stages, just like the legendary late rodeo star

Kenny Feidler is not chasing record deals, arena shows, or anything else associated with becoming country music’s next breakout star. The former rodeo cowboy has enough of a following to grind out a living on the dance hall circuit, and he’s fine with that. The South Dakota artist says his only concern is ensuring his high-energy concerts live up to his own expectations. “I always think about being fierce with it, and giving everything,” Feidler says.

Feidler (pronounced “Fiddler”) has a pair of recent LPs to show off. He recently released Live at Cain’s — a 12-track, straight-to-master recording of an October 2025 concert opening for Josh Meloy. The same month he played that show, Feidler released The Western Tragedy, his first studio album since Bloodshot in summer 2023.

The live album, which features six songs from The Western Tragedy, was a target of opportunity for Feidler. He released a much-longer concert record, Live at Buck’s, earlier in 2025, but the chance to share a night at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa provided too much nostalgia to pass up.

“I’m 38. It’s not like a big flash-in-the-pan thing for me to get to play stages like Cain’s,” Feidler says. “Who knows when something like that will happen again? And I lived in Oklahoma for six years, right when I started playing music. It was a big deal to get to play that stage, and it was kind of important to me.”

Feidler was born in Baltimore but the notion of the West appealed to him from a young age. In high school, he became a bareback bronc rider and was good enough to make the rodeo team at Northwestern State College in Alva, Oklahoma. He was heavily influenced by the life and music of Chris LeDoux, and when he moved to Oklahoma, he discovered the state’s Red Dirt scene. It was enough to push him to music. Like LeDoux, Feidler started writing cowboy songs and selling music out of his car at rodeos. A 2013 song, “Barrel Racer Land,” a crude number about cowgirls and the cowboys who chase them behind the chutes, became popular enough to make a name for Feidler in rodeo circles.

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After he graduated in 2010, he moved to South Dakota, from where his then-girlfriend (now wife) hailed. It felt like home to him in a way that Baltimore never did.

“You can only write about yourself so much,” he says. “I zoned in on listening to people’s stories around me. These are themes that run across all kinds of cultures, but they’re not always talked about. This place gets talked about like the romantic side of the West. It gets embellished — the easy stuff does. But there’s generational ranches getting passed down here. My boys will probably see that one day. My brother-in-law took over a ranch after my father-in-law passed away. There’s heavy stuff here. Everyone looks at the shiny things and doesn’t think about the weight of them.”

Feidler processed his feelings about his adopted home into what became The Western Tragedy. Its eight songs — all written by Feidler — are heavy on nostalgia and imagery that evokes the West. On “Coyotes,” he sings about the animals trailing wagon trains, waiting for a tragedy to scavenge. “Pinto” is his ode to the late Idaho songwriting icon Pinto Bennett, who Feidler never met but was heavily influential on his bandmate and friend, Casey Shelden, an Idaho native.

He has incorporated The Western Tragedy into his concerts since last year. Fiedler’s fanbase is not a massive one, but it’s loyal, and he can make a living playing bars and clubs from South Dakota to Texas or west to the Rockies. The new album, he says, has been a hit.

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“It has a lot of stuff that’s very meaningful to me,” Feidler says. “A lot of stories about people that I know. I felt like there wasn’t any angst in this one. I didn’t feel like I had to get any heavy stuff out. I just settled into the songs. And this version of my band has been together for several years. Any shows that we headline, we’re doing two-hour shows, so I’m playing everything. It’s been a really good response to this one.”

Despite his determination to be a self-made artist, Feidler has experience on big stages. He was part of the Stagecoach festival in 2023 and opened for Colter Wall in 2024 at Denver’s Mission Ballroom, in addition to a steady run of shows with Meloy over the past two years. He’ll spend the late winter and early spring on a headlining run of bars — highlighted by the Rhinestone Saloon in Fort Worth and the Tractor Tavern in Seattle.

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“We’ve had a couple of cool things that have happened in the past,” he says. “And I feel pretty good about this year. A lot of stuff comes with the right timing, confidence in my band and professionalism, and I feel like we’re pretty well-set to take on whatever comes our way this year.”

Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose book (Almost) Almost Famous will be released April 1 via Back Lounge Publishing.