On El Viejo, Corb Lund not only pays tribute to late friend and mentor Ian Tyson, but has also created an ode to the notion of stripping everything down and letting the tape roll — simply capturing a moment of pure vulnerability and organic inspiration in real time.

Much like his music, Lund is decidedly hard to define. The western Canadian singer-songwriter is an elusive artist — onstage, offstage and in the studio — seamlessly weaving between the outlaw country, Western, and indie-folk realms with an honest curiosity and rowdy devotion to each.

Raised on the rolling prairies of Alberta in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, and hailing from generations of ranchers and rodeo people, Lund was instilled with the tried-n-true DIY sentiment of “if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself.”

Lund has a devoted audience comprised of city dwellers, along with authentic Western music fans still living an agricultural lifestyle; both sects finding elements of their lives reflected within the themes of the music, due to the fact that he toured for years with indie-metal band the smalls, and later turned his sights to writing Western songs. This has created a unique and quirky hybrid writing style.

Within Lund’s forthcoming 11-song LP is a common theme — possibly even a character thread — of the gambler, the outlaw who roams from place-to-place with no direction home, except for an unrelenting journey to seek out what lies just beyond the unknown horizon.