“There’s some planted down in the dirt of every hometown,” Cooper Alan sings in the first moments of “Roots,” the opening track from his long-awaited debut album Winston-Salem. “There’s the tree you can see, then there’s roots.” Describing it as a “good old driving American country-rock song,” Alan intended “Roots” as a tribute to the daily unsung heroes he saw holding it all together around him in our country — firefighters, police, teachers, truck drivers, farmers, and military. But it doubles as an overture for the album altogether. From here, Alan sings about who raised you, strangers you meet along the way, the trials you face, the bars you frequent. He sings about all the things that make us who we are to introduce a debut that captures everything about who he is as a man and a musician.
At this point, Alan has enough singles he could’ve already released an album or two. It’s been six years of nurturing a fanbase, building a catalogue, his voice and viewpoint fully-formed from the beginning but only growing more assured and nuanced with time and various genre experiments along the way. The series of one-offs allowed Alan to explore all the different moods and styles, from vulnerable meditations on mental health to rollicking good-time drinking songs. When it finally came time to collect all these in his first full-length statement, there was only one name for it: Winston-Salem, a nod to Alan’s hometown. His roots, the place that made him.
From a young age, Alan knew he wanted to play music. It started with cover bands in 8th grade, then party bands in college, and eventually entertaining patrons across the honky-tonks of Nashville’s Lower Broadway. By the late ‘10s, he’d honed his chops as a showman. From there, he befriended Victoria Shaw, who became a songwriting mentor as Alan began to figure out his voice as an artist. After posting early singles “Climate Change” and “New Normal” online, Alan’s career began to take off. The foundation of his life as a recording artist was an open dialogue with the fanbase he found on TikTok. He’d share parts of his own life, and he heard what resonated with listeners. Soon, he’d amassed more than 750 million streams and more than 18 million followers across social media. This early era led to Take Forever, a 2023 concept EP equal parts soul-baring and heartwarming in Alan’s account of his marriage to longtime partner Hally.
Winston-Salem emerged from a continuous process of writing that kicked off in early 2024. Initially, it was a shorter album continuing in the vein of Take Forever — personal songs, the highs and lows of Alan’s life in that moment. He realized that was only part of him, and began writing a batch of energetic barroom bangers. Ultimately, Winston-Salem also became the name for two halves: Winston the more reflective songs derived from Alan’s life, and Salem the second half, when the album cracks a beer and settles into a long night of dancing and letting loose.
Together, they allow Winston-Salem to represent all the sides of Cooper Alan, both emotionally and stylistically.
“This is how the songs came out of me,” Alan says. “It’s everything I’ve always loved after growing up listening to AC/DC and Lynyrd Skynyrd, Toby Keith and Eric Church, 50 Cent and Eminem. You gotta have the reflection, but you gotta have the party. Any given week you’re going to want to cry, then hug someone and tell them you love them, and then go to the bar and have a beer because you busted your ass all week.”
Within each side, there are songs that work in small duos or trios, speaking to each other and established threads that run through the album in all its diversity. On the Winston side, Alan opens with “Roots” and leads into songs mulling over bygone American generations and the core American values in his DNA. Many of them find Alan — approaching 30, married, expecting his first child — encountering those who came before him as he’s beginning to take the first steps into a new phase of adulthood. “Hard Acre” is a deeply poignant lyric, an account of a young man meeting an older man selling some property, the latter eager to share a glass of whiskey and remember the times he had on this land while advising the younger man: “This is as good as it gets, enjoy the ride.” “Lazy Boy” is a tribute to Alan’s grandfather, wise in his final years after a full life spent as a farmer and cancer doctor.
Family looms large on Winston-Salem. Picking up from where Take Forever left off, “Starting To Show” is a song about Alan and his wife just before becoming parents. In the chorus, Alan sings of a whole mix of emotions: excitement, love, freaking out, hope for what’s next. “It’s about where Hally and I are now in this stage of our life,” he says. “It almost brings me to tears every time I hear it — it’s the one that hits my heartstrings the most.” “Starting To Show” forms a parenthood trilogy with “Better Dad” and “Good Mama,” songs that look to Alan’s parents and wonder what sort of parents he and his wife will become. Like “Roots,” these songs and the people depicted in them become the anchor when times get tough, as in the harrowing bullying song “Take A Life” or the anxiety-driven “Devil In My Mind.”
After the memoiristic strains of Winston, the Salem half is the party Alan promised. “BOS” and “Take Bobby Home” are both old-school country ragers, soaked with spilled liquor and rattling off wry wordplay. That mood pervades clever drinking songs like “Drunk Drink” and “Plead The Fifth” too. Salem is also where Alan allows himself to stretch out aesthetically, allowing a reggae tinge to waft into “Greener Grass,” which is — what else? — a paean to weed. Though Salem is dominated by character songs, it’s still not without commentary from Alan, whether in “Crazy Shady Uncle” or a State Of The Union by way of the pop-rap hybrid “Alive.”
There’s also “Damn In Me,” a sort of bridge between it all. “That song is a response to anybody in this music world that has tried to tell me to change or be in a box,” Alan explains. That’s been the way Alan has proceeded through his career so far: Trying every sound and mood that felt right and authentic to him, brushing aside naysayers hung up on what is or isn’t “real country.” For Alan, this isn’t about iconoclastic rebellion, but staying true to yourself and your muse. To hear him zig and zag is a freewheeling experience, a joyful ride with an invitation to come along.
After years of sharing every facet of himself online, Alan knows his fans are ready for Winston-Salem as a complete portrait of him as an artist. He knows everything he’s going through are things the rest of us go through, too.
“I hope everyone sees this album is 100 percent me,” Alan concludes. “I wanted to put every bit of myself on this thing, without fear, hoping to relate to everyone who finds these songs.”