Drew Landry’s return to music leads him to Under the Big Sky festival stage

Music has always been a part of Drew Landry’s life, but getting in a wreck with a semi-trailer truck put a pause on those dreams. Though not for long — his comeback has him set to perform alongside some of the biggest acts in country music at Under the Big Sky music festival in July.  

A few years ago, when Landry started getting back into music, he wrapped up an album and started playing real gigs again. He was getting back in the scene, doing whatever he had to do, including building stages for Under the Big Sky in Whitefish.  

Landry remembers taking his daughter to see Lainey Wilson at the festival. 

“I sat down with my daughter by that little stream that goes by one of the stages ... I thought ‘Well, I got to be up there one day,’” Landry said. “And it took a couple of years, but my daughter will be able to watch me play on July 20. That's going to be great, maybe she'll be playing in the stream, maybe she'll come sing a song with me.” 

But before he takes the stage at the festival in July, he’ll bring his "true country sound” to the Daily Inter Lake’s Press Play concert series on June 27.  

His songwriting is honest and expressive, pulling inspiration from what he sees every day — his home in Louisiana, his experiences in Big Sky country, and of course, his daughter and family. 

The Louisiana-born musician began feeding people’s appetites for classic country and folk music after the genre’s revival following the release of the movie “O Brother Where Art Thou?” in 2000. Landry opened a honkytonk and began playing shows in the swamps of southwest Louisiana. Later selling the dance hall and moving to Texas, he landed a gig opening for Hank Williams III.   

Landry began sharing the stage with some big names, including Merle Haggard, Dr. John, Robert Earl Keen, Dwight Yoakam and more. He impressed Kris Kristofferson with one of his own political anthems, “Last Man Standing.” Kristofferson told the crowd that night that it was the best song he’d heard in 30 years.  

“Chris wrote songs after that last Gulf War. Those are real songs that made you think about the consequences of our actions, and the truth that we bombed a country back to the Stone Age,” Landry said. “And so today, look at what's happening in California, and think in your heart of hearts, are we handling that the right way?”  

Politics has always been a part of Landry’s music. He wrote a song about the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The incident kept nearby communities “in a bad way for a long time,” and in addition to the health effects it had on people, it was frustrating to watch friends who were commercial fishermen try to recover.  

Politics and current events are still inspiring him, he recently wrote a song about the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement protests in Los Angeles. It’s something that may never get recorded, but the songs don’t stop coming regardless.  

“My hope is that some of those songs made a difference. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But if you really pissed somebody off with a song, you also had to make them think a little bit, and that's sometimes all you can do,” Landry said.  

ONE OF the founders and the director of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Montana online database created at Blackfeet Community College to raise awareness about cases and help law enforcement respond, Landry worked on the project as a volunteer until taking a step back to be able to spend more time with his daughter.  

“I learned a lot and there's a lot of things that kind of break your heart about that. But at the end of it, we said when we started, ‘If we saved one life, it'd be worth it.’ And we did a hell of a lot more than that,” Landry said.  

Landry decided to make a home on the Blackfeet reservation after taking a trip by train to the area back when he was still living in the south. He hiked Shangri-La, located near Many Glacier in Glacier National Park, and said it was “the closest he ever felt to God.”  

But his life would drastically change after he was in a wreck involving an 18-wheeler. The accident would put a pause on his music career and leave him looking for a place of peace. 

“I go back up there where I felt connected to the spirit and moved to the Blackfeet reservation. I took some classes to learn a language. That was about 10 years ago, now I got a six-year-old Cajun-Blackfoot daughter and, you know, I don't know how much I'm part of that culture, but they're part of my culture,” Landry said.  

Over the course of his career, Landry has put out about five albums and EPS and has “hundreds of songs.” Now that he’s been in Montana for a decade, he’s been thinking of showcasing those songs from this time in his life.  

But nowadays, there’s nothing to prove for Landry. Focusing on putting a band together and getting back to basics, he’s making some good friends in the process. He’s been playing shows in East Glacier but slowly branching out. Ahead of a show at the Great Northern Bar and Grill in Whitefish, he said he had been wanting to play there for years.  

“Tonight, I get to play here, and we'll do the best we can. Then we'll try to get another gig here. And, you know, hopefully the songs that I wrote, that I lived through, make a difference for people, and I'm just glad to be alive to do it,” he said.  

For more information on Landry’s music, visit drewlandrymusic.com. 

Landry and The North Country Ramblers are playing Under the Big Sky on Sunday, July 20. For more information, visit underthebigskyfest.com.  

Landry will be performing at the Daily Inter Lake’s Press Play concert on June 27.  Tickets are available at FlatheadTickets.com or by calling 406-758-4436. The performance will be live streamed on the Daily Inter Lake Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube pages.   

Reporter Taylor Inman may be reached at 758-4440 or tinman@dailyinterlake.com.