Country singer Kaitlin Butts sets new album Hello, Honky Tonk for October

Country singer Kaitlin Butts has announced her new album, Hello, Honky Tonk, due October 30 on Republic Records, her first full-length release since signing with the label in October 2025, Saving Country Music, MusicRow and Country Now reported on August 13 and 14. "With every song, I saw a character in a honky tonk," Butts said of the writing process, which she has compared to the film version of Chicago, "where you get to step into a character's mind for a few minutes."

Butts also traces some of the album's spirit to Disney World's Country Bear Jamboree, which she recently revisited before its update and said gave her one of her earliest real interactions with country music as a kid. Watching the character Teddi Barra descend from the ceiling on a swing, she recalled turning to her mom and thinking, "That is me." She pictures the album's honky tonk as modeled on Nashville's Skinny Dennis, full of characters: a bar fight, a bad girl just off work, and herself as the entertainer.

The album is led by the single "I Wanna Be Bad," written with Natalie Hemby and released August 14, about a dependable woman giving herself permission to cut loose with neon lights and tequila. The accompanying video, directed by Butts and Chris Beyrooty, was shot at Nashville's Cross-Eyed Critters karaoke bar and features line dancing, drag queens and animatronic animals.

Butts is a Tulsa-born artist in the Red Dirt country tradition, and Saving Country Music describes the new record as continuing her willingness to have some fun with the genre's darker corners. Her last album, Roadrunner!, drew on the musical Oklahoma!, and Hello, Honky Tonk follows her fan-favorite EP The Yeehaw Sessions, which reworked songs including Chappell Roan's "Red Wine Supernova," Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle," The Chicks' "Sin Wagon" and Don Williams' "Tulsa Time," and included her viral track "You Ain't Gotta Die (To Be Dead To Me)," which has topped 157 million TikTok views.

The album lands as Butts's profile is rising: she has opened shows for Lainey Wilson's Whirlwind Tour and Ella Langley's Dandelion Tour, headlined her own sold-out European Cowgirl Experience overseas, appeared in the video for Langley's "Choosin' Texas," co-directed Flatland Cavalry's "Unglued" video, teamed up with Willow Avalon on "Hypothetically Speaking," and joined The Band Perry for a new take on their hit "You Lie." She is featured for a second consecutive year in the Country Music Hall of Fame's American Currents exhibition, earned a 2026 MusicRow Award nomination for Breakthrough Artist of the Year, and belongs to both the 2025 Opry NextStage class and the CMT Next Women of Country class.

Hello, Honky Tonk is a 15-song record, available now for pre-order and pre-save, and sits within country and the release calendar alongside the rest of the fall's new records.