On Feb. 18, The Cowgays posted their first TikTok video, a clip of their debut single, “Wish I Wasn’t Gay,” and scored nearly 400,000 views. Dressed up in their finest cowboy/girl outfits, including a faux-cowhide vest and chaps, the trio — comprised of singer-songwriters Adam Mac, Brooke Eden and Chris Housman — stir up the spirit of ‘90s country with spine-tingling harmonies, story-driven lyrics and a whole lotta pink-hued drama.
Collectively, they have released four albums, four EPs and various pop-country singles. Their catalogs, particularly Housman’s “Blueneck,” Eden’s “Act Like You Don’t” and Mac’s “Dust Off Your Boots,” are just as flashy and polished for radio play as anything currently on the airwaves. But in 2026, it’s difficult not to look around and feel like they don’t belong in country music — or anywhere near Music Row.
“It feels hard when [Trump’s] putting out pictures of him being Jesus and God, and then saying, ‘All hail, Allah,’” says Eden. “For the Christians and the MAGAs of America, you gotta start being like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not the person that we thought you were — even though you told us that you were this person. You also told us you were that person, and we just believed what we wanted to believe.’
“There have been times when I felt much freer,” she continues, noting that it’s especially scary when many cities across the United States have pulled back their upcoming Pride events. “Nashville Pride used to be three days, but this year, it’s one. Nashville should be all about queer country at Pride. It’s definitely saddening to see. But I also feel like in an environment where we are right now, it’s even more important that we are putting out music that is just gay as can be — being ourselves and being this collective community for people.”
Mac feels the heat rising, too. “A few years back, it felt like there were going to be real strides forward. When you came out, Brooke, and T.J. [with Brothers Osborne] came out, it was almost going to be a renaissance of queer acceptance,” he offers. “Recently, the pendulum has swung back the other way, and now it’s feeling like… ‘law here, law there, suppress. You can’t do this. None of this.’ I have to believe that we’re trucking through this, and on the other side, we will swing back, and that will be where The Cowgays land.”
In the aftermath of going viral with their debut outing, the group unleashes their second single, “Good Hoedown,” a blast of boot-scootin’ fun akin to Brooks & Dunn and Tracy Byrd on Friday (May 1). “Luck ain’t a lady, and neither am I,” they sing, layering golden harmonies you might have found on The Chicks’ Wide Open Spaces. In the music video, The Cowgays team up with the Georgia-born winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars season six, Kylie Sonique Love.
With a ‘90s country sparkle in their eyes, The Cowgays are nothing if not totally committed to rekindling their love of Faith Hill and Shania Twain for a modern world — lighting a match in much the same way as those trailblazers, only super gay. And they’re ready to burn down the establishment if it comes to that.
Adam Mac, Brooke Eden and Chris Housman recently hopped on a Zoom call with Billboard to discuss religious trauma, being openly gay in a red state, fully dialing into ‘90s country and creating safe spaces at their concerts.
Your vocal talent speaks for itself, particularly with your Instagram covers of popular ‘90s country songs. With “Wish I Wasn’t Gay,” how did you divvy up the vocal parts?
Adam Mac: That’s kind of been the funnest part, because we all obviously have our solo careers. This is a whole new beast. Thinking about three solo vocalists coming together, it’s whatever the story is calling for. A lot of them are so personal that sometimes it’s like, “you tell your story, you tell you your story, and I’ll tell mine.”
Brooke Eden: “Wish I Wasn’t Gay” was maybe the second song that we wrote for The Cowgays. We had not even really gotten to that point yet, totally. Sometimes it depends on where everyone’s range is. Chris is obviously the lowest. Then, Adam and I are very close in range. He has a really high range, for a guy, and I have a pretty mid- to low-range for a woman. Sometimes, yes, it’s stories, but also where the song sits in each of our voices and just trying to complement (each other).
The song deals heavily with religious trauma. What was the turning point for you, in terms of exorcising that trauma and the self-loathing that comes with it?
Chris Housman: The three of us have talked about that a lot. We all knew that we had to overcome that and how long that took. This (song) was a celebration of getting over that. For me, personally, I know it took 10 years, a decade of my life to unpack.
Eden: I was really mad at God for a long time. I grew up super religious. I went to a Baptist school. Everything was about God. I also had OCD as a kid. The sin of it all — I was obsessed with it. I was really scared of going to hell and all these things. And then I found out that I’m gay, and I’m like, “Oh, hell no.” [laughs] You know, “God, why would you make me this way?” And also, “Why make me a country singer where they hate us?” It introduced me to the love of my life out on my country music radio tour. Are you kidding me? [laughs] This song, for me, was a coming back to my own spirituality. A lot of people think that we’re mocking it, and it’s not that at all. It’s literally — clap your hands for Jesus, hallelujah, praise the Lord. We are now happy with who we are and who we were made to be.
Radio tours are particularly trying for women in country music. Brooke, being a woman and knowing you were gay, how did you deal with having to schmooze gatekeepers to get them to play your music?
Eden: When I was on a radio tour, I wasn’t out, so it was really interesting. Not only was I not out, but I also had just met my wife. My wife was my radio rep, whom I met on my very first day of radio tour. It was crazy, scandalous. My now wife and I would literally bebop with the guys, and we became besties with a lot of the radio people. They already loved her, and they knew that she was gay. She was out, but I wasn’t. I don’t know, we kind of just bebopped with them. I was such a whiskey drinker at the time, and I was just like, “Hey, you want to take a shot of Jack with me?”
What has your experience been like living in Nashville and a red state?
Housman: I feel like Nashville is a blue bubble in a very large red ocean. In East Nashville, it feels like you can be in your own little world bubble. I haven’t experienced anything crazy, but the industry itself and Music Row are a lot like, “We support you, and we wish you the best.” But not a lot of people are willing to put their neck out there and sign queer artists. There really has not been the support like there has been for straight white men, not even close.
Mac: For a long time, Chris and I both struggled with that, feeling like (we didn’t) have a seat at the table while not trying to pretend to be something that we’re not so that we could get the same opportunities as other people, and failing every time. All three of us stepped into our queerness and stopped watering ourselves down when we started creating our own community, and that community grew into a fan base. Our people can’t find us unless we are showing up as we are. That really changed things for us and put a lot of things into perspective and probably led to The Cowgays and how bold we are as a trio. We’ve been through all that and came out the other side and have chosen ourselves.
When you look at someone like Kacey Musgraves, you can see how her Golden Hour album opened the door for pop fans to dig her music. She sought out other opportunities, such as opening for Harry Styles on his 2018 tour. Is that a playbook you’re using for this new trio?
Eden: There are a lot more out liberals in country music right now and people who would be down to take The Cowgays on tour and introduce us to their fans. They know that when they show up and want their bandmates and crew to be diverse, it allows their audience to also be welcoming. Kacey knows her audience, and she knows that a lot of queer people love her. That’s all she’s concerned about, and she’s less concerned about what the general country music fandom will think about her supporting the LGBTQ community. She doesn’t really give a f–k.
Housman: Similarly, Kacey hasn’t got a ton of radio support, but she doesn’t need it. We would love to be on the radio, but that’s not what we’re really doing.
Maren Morris would be a perfect pairing with The Cowgays.
Eden: We love her. There are a few more artists out there right now that are on a similar level that would be really cool to get to tour with, like a Carter Faith or a Kaitlin Butts.
Housman: And The Chicks. Come on.
Mac: That would be the perfect trio-on-trio tour.
Your new single, “Good Hoedown,” has a similar vibe to Tracy Byrd’s “Watermelon Crawl” and much of Garth Brooks’ work. What did you want to evoke, musically?
Housman: “Wish I Wasn’t Gay” is an outlier as far as the sound.
Eden: That one had to be gospel because of the nature of the song. We also just felt that had to be the first song, because it was a welcome to The Cowgays and a “you’re allowed to be here, and you’re allowed to come as yourself.”
Housman: “Good Hoedown” really dials in on the ‘90s country, exactly like “Watermelon Crawl.”
Mac: The day we wrote this, we all left in the same mindset of like, “Oh sh-t. This is it. This is the thing we’ve been searching for.” It was all the things that we loved and grew up loving about country music, and we are reclaiming it…
Eden: …in a gay way. [laughs]
Mac: Truly, country music can be so gay, so queer-coded in a lot of ways, especially when you look at the ‘60s and ‘70s, the aesthetic of country music with nudie suits and rhinestones. That is camp, mama. [laughs] We just wanted to really exaggerate that.
Eden: We wanted to rewrite the songs that we wished we had had when we were growing up and loving country music, but never really hearing our story or seeing people who loved like us. It was very healing to be doing that now for our younger selves and anybody else who’s also searching for that. Another thing that we love about ‘90s country is the harmonies. Even if it was a solo artist, the harmonies were always right there, up close.
Faith Hill and Shania Twain are obvious influences on you. What are the formative albums for you?
Eden: There was a part of the 2010s that I die over: Chief by Eric Church.
Mac: The Chicks’ album, Wide Open Spaces. That’s the one that I would pick. Other than the Spice Girls… the Spice Girls were a segue into The Chicks for me. I was a girl group kind of little gay boy. Give me the girl power.
Housman: I would say… if the Pistol Annies were in the ‘90s.
Eden: Also, Brooks & Dunn and “Neon Moon” with Brand New Man. It’s just so indicative of the ‘90s and that sound and that feeling that takes you right back there.
Chris, you have a song called “Life Behind Bars,” in which you contemplate your career and whether you’ll spend your life as a bartender. Was there a moment when you realized that superstardom might not be in the cards for you? Or does that even cross your mind?
Housman: The industry is just so crazy. It’s the wild, wild West right now. Obviously, we hope for superstardom.
Mac: I’m still in a delusional state where that is coming. [laughs]
Housman: To what we were talking about earlier, though, I wish the industry saw the potential and the untapped market that we see. There are so many people who grew up on country that gravitated away from it because they felt unwelcome by it and got the ick from it — very understandably. If we can just find those people, why wouldn’t half the country love us? [laughs]
Mac: We go out on the road and play shows and fill up rooms full of queer people and people who are— just not even always queer—more accepting of our music and who we are. We know that they’re there. We’ve seen them and interacted with them. We’re waiting for the industry to catch up and see the honey pot, I guess.
Eden: Not to mention, the number of very straight people who have come up to all of us and been like, “Oh, my God, my daughter just came out. My cousin’s out. My brother is out. My uncle, whoever, my mom came out.” Everybody has that gay cousin, that gay sister, that gay best friend that they want to support, and they want to be an ally for. If the industry just gave it a try, I really think that they would see the untapped potential there. Here we are, and the gays will spend money. [laughs]
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