[Editor’s Note: On February 17, 2024, West Virginia/Kentucky twang rock band Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates released their latest album Restless Spirit via WarHen Records. In the following essay, Tucker explores his past and recounts the journey creating the album. You can read Alex’s review here.]
Some quick background info on me:
I am a born and raised West Virginia musician and writer who currently fronts twangy rock and roll band Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates. I cut my teeth in the DIY scene happening in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia between 2006-2014, co-founding garage rock band The Demon Beat (with Adam Meisterhans and Jordan Hudkins, who went on to found Rozwell Kid), alt-country outfit Prison Book Club (featuring John R. Miller, William Matheny, Andrew Ford, and Meisterhans), indie rockers Bishops, and heavy punk band RHIN.
The Cheap Dates just released our second full-length album Restless Spirit on WarHen Records. This album was written during an especially transformative time in my life. The following essay provides some historical context, some behind-the-scenes info, and hopefully an example that it is never too late to find yourself again.
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I’ve had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol for most of my life. I grew up in the beer joints. My mom bartended at the VFW, American Legion and Moose Lodge in my hometown. When I was in elementary school, I would walk to the bar to wait for my mom’s day shift to end. While there I romanticized the lifestyle. I loved the jukebox, the felt of the pool table, the flashing lights of the poker machine. I romanticized my dad’s stories of bar brawls and wild nights. I romanticized the musicians that I loved “living out the songs that they wrote.”
My only chance to not end up like the other ghosts who lived in those bars was to do well in school so I could get a scholarship. I did just that, and I still almost ended up back where I started. A lot of my friends and family weren’t as lucky as I was, and that is not lost on me.
Some of the first Cheap Dates album, Alive and Dying Fast, was written while I was in what is known as the “contemplation” stage of pre-recovery. This is most apparent on the chorus of “Manic”: “Gotta stop all this goddamn running around / Can’t see the sun if you’re always looking down / and I gotta try to love myself a little better this year / but I’m still me, I chase my vitamins with beer.” I had tried to quit drinking several times in the past, with my longest stretch being a four-month period in 2017 while living in Harrisonburg, VA. It wasn’t until early 2019 that I started to really feel the darkness on an almost daily occurrence. I just could not find hope in anything. Not music, not love, not my job, nothing. I was stuck in an awful cycle. Eventually something had to give – I had to change or die.
In a desperate attempt to escape the bar scene and get back to my home state, I took a position with the Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area (AFNHA) AmeriCorps program. Finding housing was difficult, but I eventually lucked out when a friend offered up her childhood home in the Monongahela National Forest just outside of Hendricks, WV along the Dry Fork of the Cheat River. There was no cell reception or internet. The water for the house came from a waterfall in the woods out back through a system of tubes and a pump. I shared the house with ringneck snakes. It was the perfect place to do some distraction-free inner work.
The songs eventually started pouring out – the first ones I’d ever written without the influence of booze. Some of the earliest ones made it onto the Silver Queen EP that Cheap Dates drummer M Tivis Clark and I made long-distance during the first months of the pandemic. After that, I began writing for Restless Spirit. Jason Molina’s influence ran deep, as did the influence of the woods, water and wildlife of my forest home.
As things slowly began to open up again, we started testing out some of the new material at our scattered live shows. Eventually we had enough songs to make a record. We once again turned to our friend and producer extraordinaire Duane Lundy to steer the ship at his Lexington Recording Company studio in Lexington, KY. New full-time band member Mason Fanning played more instruments than anyone on the album, contributing bass, baritone guitar, Fender Rhodes and vocal harmonies. Old friend Jason Brown from excellent band Sugarbelli returned to provide his own croon to several songs. Lee Carroll, longtime bandleader for country legends The Judds, added some incredible organ and keys parts. Possibly relevant to this website, mastering engineer Justin Perkins of Mystery Room Mastering, known for his mastering skills on the Replacements reissue catalog, also returned to add the finishing touches. My old bandmate and Rozwell Kid frontman Jordan Hudkins once again contributed artwork, this time conjuring a striking cardinal complete with broken horns and stars in its eyes, both lyrical nods to the album.
I’d like to think that these songs are the purest representation of me as an artist. I also hope that nothing comes across as preachy. The biggest takeaway I had after putting all of the pieces together, was that some of that long-lost hope began creeping back into my work. I hope that these songs are relatable to you in some way, no matter what darkness you might be navigating (or have navigated in the past). I am pretty protective of the things I create, but as Tivis told me: “they aren’t ours anymore.” It’s time for these songs to leave the nest. Thank you for listening.
[Editor’s Note: Want to see the band? Here’s when and where you can see them!]
Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates Tour
3/22 – The Snack Institute – Charleston, WV
3/23 – The Green Lantern – Lexington, KY
3/24 – Cobra – Nashville, TN
4/4 – The Purple Fiddle – Thomas, WV
4/5 – Waterfront Hall – Wheeling, WV
4/6 – 123 Pleasant St. – Morgantown, WV
4/11 – The Government Center – Pittsburgh, PA
4/12 – Opera House – Shepherdstown, WV
4/13 – Olde Mother Brewing – Frederick, MD
4/14 – The Golden Pony – Harrisonburg, VA
Tucker Riggleman is a writer and musician from West Virginia. He is a recipient of a 2025 West Virginia Creative Network Literary Arts Fellowship and the author of two poetry books. Tucker has been traveling in bands and making records for over 20 years. He currently fronts country-rock group Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates and plays bass for songwriter William Matheny.
