Dirt Road Souls
“Next To You”
Released: February 27, 2026
There is a specific kind of anticipation that only exists when you find yourself suddenly submerged in a new love. “Next To You” captures that warm nostalgic feeling perfectly. It lives in the hour before you leave the house. You’ve got your best shoes on. You already know she’ll be there. Dirt Road Souls have bottled that feeling and turned it into “Next To You,” the second single from their forthcoming roots rock opera, (The Life and Times of) Johnny Moonshine, due April 3 2026.
The Boston trio, made up of Davis Black on guitars and vocals, Rick Weden on drums, and Brian Sargent on upright bass and mandolin, has been building toward this album for a while. Black, who spent years fronting The Inebriations, came to Dirt Road Souls through a personal reckoning. After The Inebriations dissolved, he sorted through years of unfinished songs and realized he was holding the raw material for something larger. A character named Johnny Moonshine emerged from the wreckage. A backroad dreamer, a runner, a romantic with bad timing and worse luck. Twelve songs. A beginning, a middle, and an end.
“Next To You” sits somewhere in that story, though it wears its stakes lightly. This is not a song about failure. It is a song about the hour before you find out whether tonight is the night. The lyrics are economical and honest. “I can’t wait to see what tonight is gonna bring, even wear my best pair of shoes.” That line lands because it is specific. It is not trying to be poetry. It is just a man in love getting dressed and hoping for a memorable outcome.
Black described it plainly: “It’s about that pure youthful joy and optimism about going to the dirt road kegger knowing she’s going to be there and anything might happen.” He added, with a grin you can hear in the music, that it is a country-fried track with a girl and whiskey but no mention of trucks. “They are there,” he said. “It’s just implied.”
The production, handled entirely by Sargent at Aberrant Sound in Wrentham, MA, keeps things lean. The guitar riff drives the song forward without showing off. This gives it a somewhat retro feel with a dash of The Rolling Stones, or a touch of The Black Crows. The upright bass though, sets them apart and gives the low end a warmth that no electric four-string could replicate. Weden’s drums stay in the pocket holding down the groove. This is a band that plays like three people who have ridden the same roads long enough to stop the need to explain themselves to each other.
Sargent and Black go back further than the band. They grew up in the same town. Black said it plainly: “He knows all the stories, where the bodies are buried. We are both dirt road souls.” That history is in the music. You do not fake that kind of comfort.
“Next To You” is a lighter track than lead single “Hold On Soul,” which earned the band praise from Americana UK and airplay on Boston’s 92.5 The River. Where “Hold On Soul” leaned into Southern gothic and the weight of yearning, this new single moves faster and smiles wider. It is the sound of Johnny Moonshine before the trouble catches up with him. The verse about missing someone “like a deadline, and I’ve missed a few” is the only moment where the shadow creeps in. It goes by fast, but it sticks.
This is where Dirt Road Souls show something worth paying attention to. They can write a song that feels loose and fun on the surface while running something truer underneath. “Next To You” does not need to announce its emotional content. It trusts you to feel it.
The album release party is set for April 18 at Midway Cafe in Jamaica Plain. If you are in Boston, that is a room worth being in. Dirt Road Souls built their reputation on live shows, and this material deserves to be heard in a bar with a cold drink in your hand and the right person standing next to you.
Stream “Next To You” on Spotify now. Follow Dirt Road Souls on Instagram and Facebook, and find their full catalog on Bandcamp. (The Life and Times of) Johnny Moonshine arrives April 3, 2026.