Since their inception in 2015, Giovannie and The Hired Guns have made a blockbuster career out of wildly defying expectations. With a visceral sound that merges alt-metal, Red Dirt country, Latin pop, Americana, and much more, the Stephenville, Texas-based five-piece have ascended from playing local honky-tonks to taking the stage at major festivals and arenas across the country, drawing an ardent crowd ranging from cowboys to metalheads to skate punks. As they continue their colossal rise—a journey that’s included scoring a No. 1 radio hit with their smash single “Ramon Ayala” and winning the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Award for Best New Artist in Alternative & Rock—Giovannie and The Hired Guns now return with their new album Land of the Lost: a body of work that pushes the boundaries with even more intensity and with the band’s most brutally honest songwriting to date.
Like all of their work thus far—including their 2017 debut Bad Habits and 2020 self-titled sophomore effort, both self-released—Land of the Lost fully echoes the singular collision of elements that makes their live show so glorious: the force-of-nature energy, formidable camaraderie, and passionate refusal to stick to any particular style or sound. A self-driven musician who got his start gigging in dive bars while working at a nearby rock quarry, Yanez grew up on such wide-ranging genres as outlaw country, classic alt-rock, hip-hop, and Mexican folk music and deliberately assembled a lineup with similarly eclectic sensibilities. Thanks to word-of-mouth praise for their frenetic and party-like live show, Giovannie and The Hired Guns quickly made the leap from can’t-miss regional act to a fast-rising sensation playing sold-out shows all over the Lone Star State. They've achieved such triumphs as opening for country superstar Jason Aldean before a crowd of 36,000 at Globe Life Field (a stadium in Arlington, Texas). Prior to signing with Warner Music Nashville, they also shattered records with the meteoric success of “Ramon Ayala”—a 2021 release that marked the first time in over 15 years that an artist’s first career-charting radio single reached the No. 1 spot on both the Active Rock Radio Chart and the Alternative Radio Chart.
Looking back on the making of Giovannie and The Hired Guns’ most personal album yet, Yanez reveals that Land of the Lost helped to clarify his overall mission and vision for the band. “This record made me want to keep putting out songs that are fun and serious at the same time,” he says. “I want to show everyone that it’s okay to feel sad and out of place, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time—it’s all a part of being human. We just want to be real with our fans and let them know we’re all different and a little off-the-wall too. We’re all connected, and without them we’d never be where we are now.”
