East Texas singer-songwriter Travis Bolt met us at The Red Building on Nashville's Music Row during AMERICANAFEST 2025 to deliver three heartfelt and semi-autobiographical songs from his debut record Burning Bridges, coming out March 6, 2026.
The session begins with the song that helped put Bolt on the map, a song about love and loss called "Never Tried Cocaine," in which he ponders the strength of the medication needed to ease his pain. Much of the debut record is connected in some way to a really tough personal situation that resulted in his wife leaving after just six months of marriage. The second song in this session, "Coming Home," deals with his marital disaster head on.
These songs don't wallow in the grief, they process it and reemerge as art. In addition to giving his art to the world, the act of performing also helps Bolt manage his Tourette's. As he explains, "Part of what drove me to the road, playing music as a full time career, was that it was the medicine I didn't have to pay for."
Last up in Bolt's No Depression Session is "Seasons," another transformation of personal trauma into song. Proceeds from the album version of the song will be donated to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. NAMI's alliance includes more than 650 state organizations and affiliates that work in communities raising awareness, providing support and education to those in need.
Please enjoy this performance, and stay tuned for more No Depression x AMERICANAFEST '25 sessions in the pipeline!
Setlist:
Never Tried Cocaine
Coming Home
Seasons
Read next
SPOTLIGHT: Sabine McCalla Is Free To Be Herself
Editor's Note: Sabine McCalla, whose debut LP Don’t Call Me Baby came out November 7 via Gar Hole Records, is No Depression's Spotlight Artist for November 2025. Stay tuned for more from McCalla all month long.
New Orleans as artistic muse is hardly a new
NO DEPRESSION SESSIONS at Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion: Shadowgrass
This year's Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion drew us even deeper into the rich history of recorded music in the Tri-Cities area of Tennessee-Virginia. It's coming up on a century since Ralph Peer's 1927 Bristol Sessions introduced Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family to
‘Pain Puts Us In Our Bodies’: A Music Journalist Investigates How Cancer Changes Musicians’ Lives (And His Own)
Kamara Thomas lives in a comfortable hippie house with guitars lining the walls in an older, wooded Durham neighborhood. She and an affectionate, tiny dog greet me at the door and welcome me inside. Thomas takes mochi from the freezer and leads me out to the picnic table in her
Comments ()