Kyle LaLone is a roots-rock journeyman, threading the needle between classic country, Americana, and heartland rock & roll. It’s a sound he’s been carving for years, nodding to the guitar-playing storytellers who came before him — from Hank Williams to Tom Petty — while steadily pushing toward his own horizon. That destination comes into clearer focus with Make My Own Way, an anthemic record that finds Kyle reaching beyond the twang of his earlier albums and embracing a grittier, rock-influenced sound.
“When I started making records, they were very much inspired by country music,” says Kyle, rattling off influences like Buck Owens, Buddy Miller, and Chris Stapleton. “I spent years digging into that type of song craft and that kind of guitar playing, but I’ve always been a rocker at heart. That’s what I grew up listening to. For Make My Own Way, I wanted to bring that approach to rock music.”
Diversity is woven into Kyle’s artistic DNA. Growing up as a young hot-shot guitarist in Watertown, NY, he played in his high school’s jazz ensemble, sang in choirs, and landed opening slots for national acts while still a teenager. A scholarship brought him to Berklee College of Music, where he expanded his instrumental abilities while also studying songwriting. After working as a session guitarist in New York City, he moved across the country to Los Angeles, where his reputation as a first-call sideman found him performing in rock clubs, country honky-tonks, blues festivals, and the orchestra pits of musical theater productions. Kyle could play anything, it seemed — but as much as he excelled at supporting others, he longed to tell his own story, too.
At first, that story was one of recovery and resilience. Sober since 2018, he filled his earliest releases — including the career-launching EP Somewhere in Between and its full-length follow-up, Looking for the Good — with autobiographical stories about the struggles and salvation of a man who’d learned to conquer his demons. Arriving five years later, Make My Own Way tells a wider story. There’s still plenty of personal material here, from “Grateful” — where Kyle counts his blessings over arpeggiated guitars and shuffling drums — to the soulful, sweeping country-rocker “Slow Down.” Make My Own Way also zooms out, though, reaching beyond Kyle’s first-hand experience to tackle something bigger. Tracks like “Won’t Take This Lying Down,” “Another Man’s Shoes,” and “A Change Is Coming” are inspired by the societal struggles and crooked politicians of the modern age, and they’re performed with an appropriate mix of fire and frustration.
“I wanted to emphasize raw sounds and rock influences, without a lot of polish,” says Kyle, who self-produced the album at Station House Studio in Echo Park, Los Angeles. Looking for musicians who, like him, straddled the borders between multiple genres, he assembled a small wrecking crew that included Brian Whelan (Shania Twain, Dwight Yoakam), Adam Arcos (Whitey Morgan and the 78s, Leroy from the North), Matt Lesser (Dasha, Richie Kotzen), and Grammy-winning engineer Mark Rains (Tanya Tucker). “Before we went into the studio, I was listening to ’90s bands like Pearl Jam and Gin Blossoms, who often only use two or three guitar parts on their recordings,” he adds. “I’ve noticed a tendency in country music to create big arrangements with lots of instrumentation, and I’ve certainly done a version of that on some records… but for this one I wanted to go with less is more.”
Less is more, indeed. With their lean combinations of muscle and melody, these songs are genuine rallying cries, delivered by a lifelong musician who’s never felt so emboldened to speak his mind. Whether he’s singing about being in the grips of addiction on “Falling in the Forest” or the pitfalls of social media on “New Year’s Eve,” Kyle urges his audience — and himself — to push for a better world. Make My Own Way is the soundtrack for that journey, stocked with songs that span the full spectrum of his influences.