By Myescha Joell
Matt Axton & Badmoon close out the Same Old Story EP with “Musclechops,” a track that moves like heat rising off asphalt. A singer-songwriter and guitarist at the helm of a band that tours as a four-piece and expands to a full ten-piece with a brass section for larger shows and festivals, Axton has built a sound rooted in the mountain soul that defines the Badmoon identity.
The new single unfolds with a warm, rolling groove that feels equal parts canyon breeze and late-night Los Angeles haze. There’s a looseness to it, a lived-in quality, as if the song wasn’t so much written as remembered, conjured from a specific place and a specific kind of stillness that only comes when the world goes quiet around you.
“Musclechops is based on the time I moved to LA about five years ago, living in the Hollywood Hills. I moved out to LA, and just like that, the shutdown happened,” said Axton, lead bandmember.
The circumstances that inspired “Musclechops” are written all over its DNA. Axton arrived in Los Angeles ready to write the next chapter of his career and found himself suspended instead—the city humming below while the world held its breath during the pandemic. What could have been a story about frustration turned into a meditation on patience, on reinvention, on the strange freedom of having nowhere to be. Though it was the final track released from the EP, “Musclechops” sits second in Same Old Story‘s sequence—anchoring the project’s emotional center.
“Musclechops really helps cement the mountain soul vibe. It’s mountain soul and rock & roll, a.k.a Americana, which is a broad genre, but we do a lot of rock & roll, soul, blues, and funk. It’s very multigenre,” explained Axton.
The visual world of “Musclechops” is also taking shape with a hand-crafted animated music video currently in the works, made entirely without the use of AI, a deliberate creative choice that reflects the same commitment to artistry that defines the music itself.
“We’re doing everything old school, from the sound and the songwriting to the way we tour,” said Axton.
The band recorded Same Old Story primarily at the legendary Sunset Sound in Hollywood, in the same rooms that witnessed decades of American music history. Four of the five tracks were cut there, with the fifth recorded at a studio in Reno, Nevada. For Axton, stepping into that space carried its own weight.
“Recording in the Prince Room at Sunset Sound, looking into the mic with Prince’s name on it, was incredible,” enthused Axton.
The project moves fluidly across genre lines with two country songs, two funk-driven tracks, and one that refuses to pick a lane. The title track, “Same Old Story,” which lends the EP its name, opens with a reflection on love and loss. “Crazy City” leans psychedelic, capturing the particular madness of Los Angeles and the mountains that offer escape from it. “Badmoon”, all cowboy trains, high plains, and dynamic guitar work, has rightfully earned its place as the band’s unofficial theme song and their calling card on stages from coast to coast. The EP closes with “Golden Times,” a collaboration with Northern California band Dead Winter Carpenters, built around the conviction that even in the darkest stretches, these are still the golden times.
To understand Matt Axton’s music, you have to understand where it comes from. His grandmother, Mae Boren Axton, co-wrote Elvis Presley’s first million-selling hit, “Heartbreak Hotel.” His father, Hoyt Axton, was one of popular music’s great behind-the-scenes forces, the man who gave the world “Joy to the World (Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog),” “Never Been to Spain,” and “The Pusher.” His mother, Donna Axton, was a composer, pianist, and music professor, and like every Axton before him, Matt writes everything himself. “Part of the family curse,” he jokes,, and given where he comes from, it was always less a choice than a natural inheritance.
Matt grew up moving between tour buses and backstage corridors, absorbing a tradition that treated music not as a career but as a calling. It wasn’t until a football injury sidelined him and he picked up a guitar that the lineage caught up with him. Twenty years later, he carries it forward with over 300 original songs, a rich baritone voice, and a fingerpicking style that sounds like it was handed down rather than learned.
“I grew up with music that filtered down to me from both sides of my family. Each had a distinctly different connection to their craft, but it was that genuine love for music as a power for good that inspired their desire to embrace all that it could offer,” recalled Axton.
With five weeks of touring in the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest already behind them and 200 days on the road logged in the previous year, Matt Axton & Badmoon show no signs of slowing down. The band recently recorded a new album in Tulsa, Oklahoma, set for release later this year, another chapter in a catalog that keeps finding new terrain to cover. In the spirit of his family’s legacy, Axton also founded the Americana Joy Music Series and the Tahoe Joy Festival, keeping original artists at the center of the conversation.
Where mountain soul meets rock & roll, Matt Axton & Badmoon are doing some of the most compelling work in Americana today, and “Musclechops” is the perfect entry point. Stream the track and the full Same Old Story EP on all major streaming platforms, and follow the band across social media for updates on their forthcoming album and upcoming tour dates.
“Musclechops” is now available on all music streaming platforms, with promotional support from Starlight PR.
Go check out “Musclechops” and stream it now!
