The higher the Muscadine bloodline rises, the more grounded Charlie Muncaster becomes.

“One of the biggest compliments that drives me,” says Muncaster Rolling Stone“is when someone says: ‘I can’t believe how Normal that’s you, people.’ There’s something about that that drives me, because you can really be who you are and you don’t have to change for people to listen to my music.”

Muncaster and Gary Stanton, the Mobile, Alabama duo who lead Muscadine Bloodline, have spent most of the past two years avoiding major label interest while building the kind of massive fan bases those labels are clamoring for. They’ve had a platinum single with “Porch Swing Angel” and another viral hit with “Me on You.” They’ve been a popular arena opener for Turnpike Troubadours. And they’ve delivered a steady stream of new music to their fans.

The coastal plain was released on Friday and is Muscadine’s fourth studio album and second in 18 months following the 2023 album. Teenage Dixie. With the band’s long-time producer, Ryan Youmans (Jelly Roll’s Self-medication) at the helm, the duo saw the 14-track album as a challenge to improve their music and songwriting while doubling down on their independence.

“If there was a name for this record, it would be ‘proving ground,'” says Stanton.

It’s not so much that the two harbor grudges, but rather that they take pride in their independence. They insisted on making this record with the touring version of Muscadine Bloodline – Justin Rowton (bass), Weston Stewart (guitar) and Zoltan Tobak (drums) – rather than a studio band. And they were the main songwriters.

“I kind of tip my hat to Charlie and I because we’re an independent band and we’re not in cahoots with a lot of people. I think a lot of people who write about us in the industry try to hype up a song we wrote with Brent Cobb, for example,” says Stanton. “They’ll say the highlight of the record is that song, and that’s because Brent is the writer. So as songwriters, he and I just thought: We wants to write the majority of this record.”

Stanton and Muncaster had similar upbringings. Both grew up in South Alabama and were both heavily influenced by church and gospel choirs. The result was a pair of headstrong Southern musicians who both love songwriting, hunting and fishing. They respected each other even before they joined forces and formed Muscadine in early 2016.

While in college, Muncaster invited Stanton to Auburn, Alabama, to spend a weekend writing songs. They wrote a few, including “Ginny,” which became their eponymous debut album in 2017. But more importantly, Muncaster had a show that weekend and invited Stanton to be a part of it.

“I thought we’d split the money, have a drink and have a good time, but it turned out we had instant chemistry,” says Muncaster. “We were just singing cover songs, but we felt something weird was happening: we knew all the songs each other knew and we took turns singing lead and harmony. There were people in the audience saying, ‘You guys are awesome! What’s your band called?’ Well, we didn’t have one! We were just mates. Maybe we should do something about it.”

Muscadine first gained attention when they performed in college towns in Alabama and Mississippi following their self-titled debut album in 2017. They built a loyal fan base, but perhaps gave fans the wrong impression of what the band would become. When Stanton and Muncaster were in college, they made music that appealed to college audiences. Stylistically, The coastal plain will take them further from those roots than ever before. This is not a college anthem. This is one of the strongest country albums of 2024, full of introspection and songwriting depth. The duo knows it won’t appeal to some of their most diehard fans.

“Every once in a while you’ll see a comment or something that says, ‘Man, I miss the old Muscadine,’ and that’s cool,” Muncaster says, “because every artist I loved and respected growing up has turned a page, and another page, and another page. I’m OK with losing some fans there if we can gain some new ones here, because that’s the truest form of what we’re doing now.”

The current single is “Tickets to Turnpike,” a lyrical and musical tribute to the Turnpike Troubadours, another independent group – and one that Muscadine has frequently featured as an opening act in arenas and amphitheaters over the past two years.

“Having been inspired by these guys and their records as a kid, we wanted to go on tour with Turnpike and have an ode to these guys,” says Muncaster. “It’s a love song. We ask a girl out on a date, which happens to be at a Turnpike show. It’s not really a song about how much we love Turnpike, but it’s in the style of a turnpike song. It’s like ‘The Bird Hunters.’ The song is about two guys hunting birds, but that’s not what the song is about. It’s a song about heartbreak. In that sense, this song is an ode to them with ambiguous meanings.”

They also invited Kyle Nix of Turnpike to play fiddle on the song. “We could have just gotten anyone in town to do it, but it wouldn’t have been Kyle “It’s a mistake, but I didn’t manage to play,” says Muncaster.

The songwriting challenge they set themselves on “Tickets to Turnpike” – pushing beyond their comfort zones and emphasizing both storytelling and lyrical wordcraft – is a trademark of The coastal plainThe album’s first single, “10-90,” is based on the phrase: “When you’re down to 10, I’m the 90 left.”

The album’s final track, the stripped-down “Good in This World,” was born out of the duo’s challenge to write in the style of one of the all-time greats.

“It’s very John Prine influenced, right down to the gut guitar,” says Muncaster. “We’ve never done a song like that before. It was cool to end a record with a song that was just that, with Charlie singing. It’s a light song about the simple, everyday things that can happen to you when you’re sitting at a gas station getting gas, and what you can bring home.”

The desire to be an all-around band shouldn’t be taken to mean that Muscadine is running away from the work that got them here. They don’t shy away from the stomping, let’s-get-it-done energy of “Me on You” in their electrifying live shows. The song will play a major role in nearly every concert on this fall’s Coastal Plain Tour, which kicks off Sept. 7 in Minneapolis. It’s more that the group has joined the new wave of country artists who are putting lyrics, emotion and vulnerability at the forefront of their music. Stanton believes this is Muscadine’s future.

“Honest, Teenage Dixie felt like our first record,” he says. “It was like our introduction to the world. We’d been a band for eight years, but this felt like, ‘Now we’re getting started.’ This record is a more mature version sonically and lyrically, and adds a kind of ode to our upbringing in church and choir. There are a lot more gospel and bluegrass influences on this record.”

The other side of Muscadine’s story also involves their Alabama roots. They are determined to promote other artists from the state.

One such artist is Taylor Hunnicutt, whose influences extend beyond country and Americana to blues and soul. Hunnicutt, from Demopolis, Alabama, is enjoying her own rise, thanks in no small part to the platform Muscadine has provided her. Not only has she opened for Muscadine, but she has also recruited Muncaster and Stanton to produce a new album with her.

“They were the first to give us a chance when we were much, much smaller than anyone else opening for them,” Hunnicutt says. “They reached out because they’re independent and they’re Alabama. They respected that we were really trying to get our music out there and spread it. I love them like brothers, and that’s why it’s going to be so important to me to make this record with them.”

With the glass ceiling for independent artists largely shattered, Muscadine has the opportunity to carry the torch for the South Alabama music scene for years or decades to come, but they know they will have to challenge themselves indefinitely to get to that point. That’s why, even though they’re more in demand than ever, they’ve put their creativity and time into The coastal plain. They’ll come back in a few years and try to top this album. But for now, the duo is excited about what they’re releasing.

“This record is 100 percent the best work we’ve ever done,” says Muncaster. “I’ve never felt more confident. I can’t pick a song on it that I don’t like. If you forced me to take a song off tomorrow, I couldn’t do it.”

Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose third book Red Dirt Unpluggedis scheduled to be released on December 13, 2024 via Back Lounge Publishing and can be pre-ordered.