After Tucker Wetmore wrote and recorded the songs for his debut LP, What Not To , he invested considerable effort in an often-overlooked aspect of album artistry: the track list. “I spent so many weeks just trying to get that right,” the 25-year-old from Kalama, Washington, says. “I think it ended up if not perfect, pretty damn close.”

The country star sees his carefully curated 19-song collection, which was released on April 25, as a “murder mystery scene” that even he’s discovering new clues in. “I still find things that I didn’t intentionally do, but they’re happening,” he says. “I feel like I’ve created a puzzle, shook it up, and said ‘Here you go.’”

The puzzle pieces he’s referring to are the album’s various interconnected themes, which include roller coaster relationships, gamb

See Full Page