Hayes Carll spins an array of twangy tall tales on his latest album, “KMAG YOYO (& Other American Stories),” but none gets higher than the rapid-fire narrative of a hapless soldier who takes a drug-induced rocket trip to the moon.
The celebrated Texas singer-songwriter is riding his own upward trajectory, and his career’s recent blastoff has boasted its share of surreal moments, too. Carll, 35, just charted his first album on the Billboard 200, recently made his first appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” and this summer will play the prestigious Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. Last fall, he earned the new/emerging artist of the year honor at the Americana Music Awards — “I’d been nominated five years earlier for the same award,” he said with a laugh — the same outfit that in 2008 awarded him the song of the year prize for his uproarious yarn “She Left Me for Jesus.”
Plus, he got to dance with Gwyneth Paltrow.
“Things have picked up for sure, and it’s been a gradual process. I mean, I put out my first record in ’02, and I’ve been gigging since ’98. But it’s been fun for me; you know, I’ve always been grateful that I didn’t have a lot of success early on, ’cause I think it would have been terrible for my songwriting and probably my personal life,” Carll said in a phone interview from his home in Austin, Texas.
“I went out and paid my dues and have built kind of a solid foundation for my career and fan base. … And when the times were bad, I still loved what I did so much that I didn’t care that I was sleeping in my van or playing for two people or all the miserable stuff I was doing. It was all I wanted to be doing, so it was great for me.”
Carll has earned rave reviews for “KMAG YOYO” — the 12-song record and the amped-up title track both are named for the military acronym for “Kiss My A– Guys, You’re on Your Own” — which debuted last month at No. 63 on the Billboard 200.
“My first SoundScan of my first record, I remember getting it back, and it had sold 56 copies in the first week. And I didn’t know anything about the record industry, but I imagined that probably wasn’t very good. And then I think we did like 10,000 in the first week of this record, which was more than my entire first record. So it was a pretty excellent kind of reminder that I’ve come a long way since the start of it,” he said.
The troubadour and his five-piece band, The Poor Choices, which includes Chickasha guitarist Travis Linville, are headed for Oklahoma, with shows Thursday at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa and Friday at the Wormy Dog Saloon in Oklahoma City.
Raised a sixth-generation Texan in a Houston suburb, Carll received his first guitar when he was 15 and immediately began penning songs inspired by Jack Kerouac and Bob Dylan. After earning his history degree at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., he honed his craft playing Texas coastal towns such as Crystal Beach and Galveston. His first two indie albums, 2002’s “Flowers and Liquor” and 2004’s “Little Rock,” along with his engaging live shows, earned him a fan following and his deal with Lost Highway, which released his acclaimed national debut, “Trouble in Mind,” in 2008.
“I was fairly nervous for ‘Trouble in Mind’ because … I knew a lot more eyes were going to be on me than had previously been. So I felt some pressure with that. With this record, I didn’t really feel the same at all, I just kind of wanted to make a record that I felt good about and that I enjoyed doing and something that I’d want to listen to,” he said.
Some country fans heard two of his new songs before the album even dropped. “Hard Out Here” and “Hide Me,” along with three of his previous tunes, were featured in the music-driven drama “Country Strong.”
“I was actually recording my record when they were filming the movie, and they invited me to the wrap party,” he said. “And I met Garrett Hedlund, who does all the singing on my songs, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill and Leighton Meester and then met Gwyneth. So she came up and asked me to dance, and then we were dancing, and Garrett was singing ‘Hard Out Here,’ one of my songs. So it was this really surreal thing: I’d been in Nashville (Tenn.) like an hour, and next thing I know I was dancing with Gwyneth Paltrow while Garrett Hedlund sings my songs. So it was a fun night.”
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