Stephen Wilson Jr. has released a new single, “Preacher’s Kid,” adding another song to a run that has kept him moving from studio work to festival stages and TV spots. The release arrives as he heads into a busy stretch that includes Railbird Music Festival this weekend and a return to Nashville for CMA Fest on Sunday.
Wilson Jr. framed “preachers kid (pk): based on a true story(s).” He said the song grew out of the world he came from, one where “a small town can be a world” and “another world within a world when the world was once much smaller.” In his telling, that world included church classes that taught speaking in tongues and that swearing is sin, as well as exorcisms before lunch.
He also folded in the kind of details that make the song feel both lived-in and highly stylized. Wilson Jr. said he saw “the light that was the underbelly of a catfish,” a line he described as material “as compelling fodder for storytelling as any other abstract inspirer.” He added that a crying youth pastor preaching an impending Armageddon stole his girlfriend in high school.
That mix of memory and invention sits at the center of the release. “Preacher’s Kid” is presented as rooted in true experience, but Wilson Jr. shapes those memories into vivid images rather than plain autobiography, turning childhood church life and small-town restraint into something stranger and more cinematic. That approach fits a busy year for the singer-songwriter, who last month won his first ACM Award for Visual Media of the Year for the official video for “Cuckoo,” which he co-directed with Tim Cofield.
The new single also lands amid a growing body of visual work with Cofield. Earlier this year, Wilson Jr. released the official video for “Gary,” his ninth collaboration with Cofield, and the video starred Gary Sinise. He first premiered “Gary” late last year with a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, then performed it on This Past Weekend with Theo Von and The Howard Stern Show.
For listeners, “Preacher’s Kid” is the newest entry in a catalog that now sits beside that recent momentum. For Wilson Jr., it arrives just as his schedule tightens again: after Railbird, he returns to Nashville on Sunday for CMA Fest at Nissan Stadium, then continues his Gary The Torch Tour across the U.S. and Europe for the rest of the year. The run will culminate with two shows at The Truth in Nashville on December 11 and 12, with additional festival and support dates also on the calendar, including the Outlaw Music Festival, Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge Amphitheater on September 4 and Brandi Carlile at Red Rocks Amphitheatre from September 11 to 13.
