"You should be playing stadiums!". Ian laughs while hearing this after another blazing performance at the 2024 SXSW music festival. Is he laughing because he has played his fair share already, from shows with some of the most influential musicians of all time, from the Rolling Stones to Bob Dylan, to a long line of headline festival performances, or because he knows the folly of the music business? "I'm always aiming for the fences," he says, but you can tell he's also motivated by something deeper. Ian is a triple threat and an artist's artist. He came up in Austin, mentored by the greats. Stevie Ray Vaughan famously gave him his first guitar, and you can hear the lineage in his fingers, but then you hear that voice..." I was obsessed with the soul singers as a kid," he says, and you can hear those influences in his silky falsetto and his soulful phrasing. Spin magazine described him as a cross between Aaron Neville and Jimi Hendrix, and that duality sets him apart from so many other guitarists. There is a sensitivity within the fire and an economy in his playing that came from years and years playing with the greats as a young man, sharing stages with Willie Nelson, Albert King, Jimmie Vaughan, Albert Collins, Doug Sahm, and many others while still in his teens and early twenties. At the same time, Ian is always searching for new ways to expand and refine his music, working with groundbreaking producers like Mark Howard/Daniel Lanois(Bob Dylan, U2), Joe Chicarelli(White Stripes, Elton John), and more recently, Adrian Quesada, whose band 'the Black Pumas' was starting to hit as they were making Ian's 'Strange Days.' He looks at songwriting through a lens just as serious as Guy Clark or John Prine, but through a scope that includes influences from country blues to brit pop and back. "Man, many people don't even listen to lyrics anymore, but to me, it is the core of a great song, and if the core is hollow, the rest of it will echo that." That solid foundation has led to four top 20 rock radio hits, countless TV appearances, and even a feature role In the film Slingblade, Billy Bob Thornton's southern gothic masterpiece. With such a rich history, it would be easy to rest on his accomplishments, but Ian doesn't see it that way. "When we pull into a town, nobody cares what we've done in the past; they want to be electrified, and our focus is to be the best thing they have ever seen." Watching him play to yet another capacity crowd and leave them screaming long after he's left the stage, you can see his dedication and hunger are just where they need to be. He's staring down another touring season filled with festivals and marquee shows and gearing up to record later this year in what will be his twelfth release. It's a dizzying pace, and you have to wonder how anyone can keep their focus and integrity with that much action and movement."I have to speak from the heart." He says. "It's the only thing you have and the only thing that matters. Trends come and go. When you speak from the heart, you never go wrong." Looking across the field and seeing thousands of fans completely immersed in his music, you can see a lifetime of soul smiling back at him.