Stephen Wilson Jr. is known as the “Fixer” in Premier Guitar

eft us with the truth that he was bigger than that, that he was a music man.” The riff he needed, unfortunately, was eluding him.

So, he hopped in his car, cranked up Emmylou Harris’s classic album Roses in the Snow, and just drove. “I was like, ‘I gotta find this guitar part, I gotta find it,’” he recalls. “I ended up getting off the freeway to dump off some UPS packages, passed a Salvation Army, and went in. And there was a guitar. And I just grabbed it.” He took the instrument to the counter, and the woman working the register told him it didn’t work because it was missing a string—but he could have it for $15. “That was it for me,” Wilson says. “A freecycle guitar. I went to the house of the guy who was playing the guitar and saw the smile on his face and we were meant to be together.”

Just a few days later, Wilson had his riff. It turned out to be a foundational element of Gary. “I just grabbed that guitar and it was like, ‘There it is!’ It was just keeping driving, keep pushing.”

That story captures the ethos of Wilson, a deep-thinking songwriter with Appalachia’s storytelling sense. The Indiana native, who once played guitar in the band Shadeland, knows what it’s like to work hard and struggle, and his songs reflect the heartbreak and poverty of those experiences. “The title of the album… it’s all about the stories I’ve been collecting over the years,” Wilson says. “I’ve been collecting a lot of stories in the 10 years.”

Wilson didn’t set out to be a fixer of problems or a leaner of hustles. But when he left his food-science job in Indiana and moved to Tennessee to pursue music full-time, he absorbed the lifestyle. “I’m just telling the stories of these people who have just put their noses to the grindstone and just worked hard,” Wilson says. “The album is a tribute to my working-class heritage, to the guy who worked in a factory job for 30 years but on the weekends, he played guitar. It’s all about songs that have real-life experience, stories of when I was waiting tables and how I listened to songs while I worked.”

The album, which took four years to complete, is loosely based on Wilson’s own struggles. “It’s a glimpse of the journey from leaving a 9-to-5 and walking into Nashville,” he says. “The album is a snapshot of the past 10 years of my life.” He recalls getting laid off from his food-science job at a pharmaceutical lab in Indiana. “I went home and wrote the song ‘Under the Storm,’” he says. “I was sitting in my house, everything had collapsed. I poured this whiskey out and wrote and performed this song as if I lost everything. That’s how this whole journey started, this reconstruction of who I was.”

Wilson’s father has long been a pure figure of inspiration—he wrote the songs and Wilson followed in his footsteps. “My dad constantly pushed and motivated me,” Wilson says. “He really poured himself into whatever he did.” The album is full of tributes to his dad, who passed away too soon. “It’s all about hustlers who were truth-tellers and music men, the guys that were trying to determine their angles,” Wilson says. “The record is a continuation of the American tradition of storytelling.”

Wilson’s music is rich in musical styles and lyrical content, infused with emotions and vivid imagery. He wants his songs to resonate with listeners on a personal level, offering a glimpse into his own experiences. “It’s about trying to capture something that’s both fresh and nostalgic,” he says. “It’s about telling stories. Being an artist is all about telling the truth, writing songs that are honest. It’s about using my heart and my head. My music is a tribute to the fixers of this world.”

In the end, Wilson has found his place as a fixer with a guitar in hand, telling the