Charley Crockett stands his ground as new album release sparks political divide among country fans

“Best thing you could have done would have been to stay out of politics,” one Instagram user wrote after Austin-based country singer Charley Crockett shared a politically charged post referring to President Trump as a “grifter” and calling for Elon Musk’s deportation on the social media platform in February.

His outspokenness has spurred discourse among country music’s Republican-leaning audience. He’s lost some fans, but others say they have discovered his music because of his public candidness.

“All my life I just flat-out never trusted the government,” Crockett told the crowd during his South by Southwest Music Festival show on March 18. “I thought this was the kind of country where we knew that the only way we could get anybody from the government to do anything that represented us was to hold them to the fire.”

With police drones and bomb-sniffing dogs deployed, security felt tight at the Luck Ram Jam concert at Stubb’s BBQ. However,  Austin Police Department and SXSW officials told the American-Statesman that they were not aware of specific threats against one of the most stridently political performers to play the 2026 festival.

With his new album, “Age of the Ram,” coming April 3, Crockett told the Statesman that he will always stand by what he believes in.

Crockett previewed new album at SXSW

Charley Crockett performs at the Continental Club during the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals on Friday, March 13, 2026.

Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman

“Age of the Ram” is the third installment of “The Sagebrush Trilogy.”

Crockett wrote on Substack that the series follows “a man trying to find his name in the world.” He described his 2025 release “Lonesome Drifter” as “the wanderer,” with “boots full of highway dust, chasing a song and a dollar.” That year’s follow up, “Dollar A Day,” represents “the rustler,” who is “learning what hunger will make you do.”

The final part tells the story of an outlaw who doesn’t set out to become a legend but ends up one anyway.

During the concert, Crockett previewed several new songs, including “Crazy Woman Ridge,” “Kentucky Too Long” and “Fastest Gun Alive,” a twangy ballad about a vagabond gunslinger reminiscing on his past as he tramps around the countryside. He also teased “Life & Times of Billy McClain,” a stripped-down, three-part theme woven throughout the tracklist.

‘If you don’t pick a side, that’s picking a side.’

Charley Crockett performs at the Continental Club during the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals on Friday, March 13, 2026.

Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman

Two days before the Stubb’s performance, Crockett kicked his boots up on a desk in his downtown office and spoke about politics within modern country music. “Identity politics gets people fighting each other while somebody in the other room is robbing everybody,” he told the Statesman.

“If you don’t pick a side, that’s picking a side,” Crockett said. “I felt a lot of pressure as I got better known that if you wanna get rich, keep your mouth closed.”

He feels that the people in country music who accuse him of being inauthentic are dishonest people themselves, he said. There were disparate reactions when Beyoncé won Best Country Album for “Cowboy Carter” in 2025 and former rapper Jelly Roll won Best Contemporary Country Album for “Beautifully Broken” at the 2026 Grammy Awards.

“One of the saddest things about it to me is that many people saw (Jelly Roll) and said, ‘At least he’s not Beyoncé. At least he’s not an outspoken black woman,’” Crockett said.

He also chafed at the backlash against Puerto Rico native Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime performance in February.

“I don’t know much about Bad Bunny, but when I started seeing him villainized and weaponized in the media and our administration presenting him as not even being an American citizen, I have a problem with that,” Crockett said.

Stoking division and hatred ‘isn’t country.’

Charley Crockett leaves the stage after performing at the Continental Club during the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals on Friday, March 13, 2026.

Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman

Crockett hails from the birthplace of Conjunto. Freddy Fender, born in Crockett’s hometown, San Benito, as Baldemar Garza Huerta, popularized the intersection of country music and Mexican American sounds in the 1970s. Crockett feels modern Tejano music is more aligned with the traditional sounds of country than today’s chart-topping hits, he said.

He compared his origins in the Rio Grande Valley to being from the Mississippi Delta or Appalachia, “except without the national reverence for the culture,” Crockett said.

“The difference in South Texas is that the cultural and language differences stand out more and are politicized with border issues.”

In October, the singer spoke out about President Trump’s push to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”

“I don’t recognize it by any other name,” Crockett wrote on Instagram at the time. “Any real Texan knows that our Mexican American brothers and sisters hold up our economy in every industry. I’m proud to have been born in the Rio Grande Valley where the population is over 90% Latino.”

Crockett said being “country” means taking care of the land, being good to people and having a love of agriculture.

“Stoking division and hatred within each other isn’t country,” he said.

Is Crockett San Benito’s next Freddy Fender?

An advertisement for Charley Crockett’s album “Age of the Ram” is seen on a sidewalk in downtown Austin, marked by tire tracks, during the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals on Tuesday, March 17, 2026.

Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman

Some San Benito residents have called for Crockett’s likeness to be painted alongside Fender on the Rio Grande Valley’s landmark water tower. Crockett rejects the idea, saying the Tejano legend holds an unrivaled status in the community.

“I don’t want to be up there because that’s his position, what he means to the people where I’m from,” Crockett said.

He recently returned home to headline the San Benito Hog Waddle heritage festival. City officials gave him the key to the city.

It has been decades since his hometown was represented on the national stage. “Somebody said to me that it’s been a long time since people in San Benito had somebody like this,” Crockett said.