Tyler Halverson

Thu May 14, 2026        7:30pm Doors - All Ages

• Venue Website:

  https://www.templetonmercantile.com/events

• Artist Website:

  https://www.tylerhalverson.com/

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Tyler Halverson knows who he is, and sometimes he doesn’t like it. But all of the
mistakes he’s made and hearts he’s broken have led him to In Defense of Drinking, his
stone-cold honest country album that takes a stark look at a life lived on the road.
“It’s been a life spent falling in and out of love and finding something to write about, at
the expense of your heart and somebody’s else’s,” Halverson says. “I’m not proud of the
actions that that boy took to inspire these songs. But I’m very proud of how they turned
out. The Nashville scene today is all so pretty and polished, and some artists try to
come out looking a certain way, but how about you just show yourself exactly how you
are, the good and bad?”

Growing up in the tiny town of Canton, South Dakota, Halverson has never been afraid
to be himself. Before he answered the call of the road, playing bars and rodeo beer
gardens, he spent as much time on his skateboard as he did showing cattle at livestock
shows. “I grew up in sale barns and skate parks,” he says, and those two disparate
worlds inform the music he makes. There’s a decidedly alt-country edge to the songs on
In Defense of Drinking, including the thumping, unrepentant single “More Hearts Than
Horses.”

“If you come walking my way/I’ll send you running someday,” he sings over pedal steel
and acoustic guitar. It’s an admission as striking as that of Willie and Waylon, when they
sang “Take what you need from the ladies and leave them/with the words of a sad
country song” in “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.”