Kid Rock boasted that he could take Southern rock and mix it with hip-hop. Fellow metro Detroit artist Louie Lee has tweaked the formula somewhat into what he calls “Country Hop and Roll” — and unlike Robert Ritchie he actually grew up in a trailer park.
It seems to be working. Although Lee says the project has only existed in earnest for only the past year and a half or so, he has cultivated a following on TikTok and released new singles at a rapid clip. Last week, he took his act on the road to the South by Southwest festival in Texas, and on Friday, he’ll perform a hometown show at Ferndale’s Magic Bag.
Lee says he grew up listening to Motor City artists like Kid Rock and Eminem, as well as lots of grunge and alternative rock. But he says that being raised here cultivated his omnivorous music tastes.
“Growing up in metro Detroit, how can you not like techno music?” he says. “How do you not like house music? How do you not like Motown music? How do you not like hair metal bands? How do you not like J Dilla?”
An example of his “Country Hop and Roll” sound is recent single “On the Floor (Yippee Ki Yay),” which mixes a heavy bassline, nü-metal guitar bursts, a trap beat, and a banjo.
“They said I wouldn’t do it but I’m doing me again,” he sings.
He says the song began as an idea he got while driving around in his truck. “It’s country because it’s me and the way I rap and sing as a country singer, but I don’t want it to all be just traditional country,” he says. “I have those songs, of course, too. ... I’ve been in the studio nonstop just working.”
Lee says he started pursuing a more country sound amid the isolation of the 2020 pandemic. “This whole project started out of, like, grief, man, for real,” he says. “It was therapy. It was during COVID. Everything was tough.”
He lost four of his grandparents in the span of months. Then, around Thanksgiving of that year, a close friend died in his sleep of complications from COVID-19. He was only 37.
“I was so distraught from that,” Lee says. “I was just looking to make some music as an outlet.”
Lee, whose real name is Lewis Lee Hensley, says he decided to write country-flavored songs because his grandfather always wanted him to be a country singer. His friends already called him Louie, so his wife suggested he create an alter ego.
The first song he released was a downtempo track called “Tailgate Blues” in 2021. “I created it with no intention to have anybody like it, no fans, nothing,” he says. “I just wanted to put it out there.”
More followed, including a “country hop and roll” cover of Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” and an original called “Champagne in a Plastic Cup.” “The whole idea of the song is my girl is the finest Champagne in a plastic cup,” he says, “Even when she’s at home with no makeup on, and just in her sweats, she’s still the baddest in the room.”
He adds, “I like having the humor in it, because I don’t want to take myself so seriously anymore. … I was that kid that didn’t have the privilege to go away to college or anything like that, you know, so I knew that I had to get by with my charisma and my work ethic.”
Lee says the project was also inspired by his struggles to make it in the music industry, especially advice he got to “stay in your lane.”
He had been pursuing a career in music ever since he and some friends played in his middle school talent show. “Music was always the dream, because I always loved entertaining people and making people feel good,” he says. “I think I learned that later in life. It probably stemmed through my own traumas, even as a child, my own issues with divorced parents and all that stuff, wanting validation, wanting attention.”
For a time, he moved to California, playing guitar in alternative rock bands, touring in a van, and opening for acts like Sugarcult. At a certain point he decided to move back to Michigan, working construction jobs and trying to figure out what to do with his life.
A chance meeting with Grammy-winning producer Chuck Alkazian (Madonna, Royce da 5’9”, Pop Evil) at a Guitar Center store when he was 23 rekindled his drive, leading to him to record a demo with Alkazian.
He eventually found a gig playing in a cover band that largely performed at corporate events, but he put his own music on hold.
“I think that’s kind of why I got so burnt out as an original artist in the first place early on in my career and went to the covers,” he says. “I went to the covers because I still wanted to be able to perform and sing.”
The cover band was still an important part of his development, he says. “I learned how to be a stage performer, I learned how to be a frontman, I learned how to entertain people from those experiences,” he says. “So I wouldn’t trade them for the world.”
It also inspired him to up the ante for his stage production for Louie Lee, and his live show features high-tech flourishes appropriated from EDM and hip-hop acts including a video backdrop and smoke machines. (“This is an arena show,” he claims.)
He’s making a big push at a time when country music seems poised to be bigger than ever, following the success of crossover acts like Jelly Roll and Morgan Wallen and with pop stars like Beyoncé and Lana Del Rey gearing up to release country music-inspired records.
“I was the little kid in mom’s minivan singing Shania Twain at the top of my lungs, you know, singing Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw,” Lee says. “I think everybody has been influenced by some of it, but just maybe it wasn’t the cool thing.”
Lee says he’s not worried about being perceived as authentic.
“If you Google the definition of country music, it tells you the use of real instruments, these kinds of instruments,” he says. “Well, guess what? All those instruments are on a Louie Lee record. Is there authenticity in the storytelling? Yup. I’m not making it up. I’m telling you my truth. That’s pretty country to me. I live on a dirt road… I grew up in a trailer park… I drive a truck... I like beer… I have a Stetson hat. Like, what else can I do? I’m never gonna be country enough. I’m not gonna be Garth Brooks country, right, but that’s OK. There’s already Garth Brooks. I’m not going to be George Strait. I’m just gonna be Louie Lee from Detroit, period.”
