There’s committing yourself to a life of music, and then there’s selling your house, buying a van, and hitting the road. The Minnesota folk trio Wild Horses threw themselves into the latter.
In 2021, the band got booked at the Grand Rapids Riverfest, a regional end-of-summer festival that has featured headliners like Jason Isbell and Wilco. Bolstered by the high-profile slot, Jed LaPlant and his partner Ariana, the husband-and-wife songwriters who founded Wild Horses, sold their home, picked up a 1989 Chevy Astro van, and hit the road.
“We decided this is what we’re gonna do,” Jed says. “We’re going all-in.”
Since then, they’ve spent nearly all their time on tour, playing their own gigs and supporting headliners like Charley Crockett, Trampled by Turtles, and Sam Barber. The LaPlants found that such a nomadic life was the perfect catalyst for songwriting. “Whatever it is — roots or Americana music — is unique, in that the job of it fuels the inspiration,” Jed says, recalling something a peer once told him. “Being out on the road is the fuel.”
Wild Horses took their road experiences and assembled them for The In Between, the group’s second studio album, released in October via Atlantic Outpost Records. It’s an autobiographical snapshot of a grassroots folk band trying to navigate an era when selling all your belongings and pursuing a music career sounds, at best, ill-advised.
After releasing their debut album, Runaway, in 2022, Wild Horses upgraded from that Astro Van to a high-miles coach and converted it into a tour bus. The early lineup fluctuated between four and six players — including banjo and trumpet — before they found a path ahead as a trio with bassist Landon Pahl. A longtime friend of Jed’s, Pahl followed his pal’s lead and quit his day job, joining the LaPlants for a life on the bus.
On The In Between, Wild Horses —Jed on vocals and guitar; Ariana on vocals, fiddle, and keys; and Pahl on bass — compile nine tracks, each of them written by the LaPlants. Early single “Sunrise on the Absaroke” gives the album its title. It’s a road-weary tune about making ends meet in close quarters and includes the line, “Livin’ in the in between, trying to beat the desert heat/there’s nothing I could do to keep from crying my way home.”
On “Take It As It Comes,” which plays out over a high-tempo guitar-and-fiddle melody that evokes horses galloping, the LaPlants double down on their life on the run. “There’s a sense of urgency in that song,” Jed says, “that I think came out of playing a lot of really noisy bars in places where we really didn’t belong — trying to win over people. That urgency came from the idea that this had better work.”
Grand Rapids is a town of a little more than 11,000 in north-central Minnesota, named for the rapids of the far northern reaches of the Mississippi River that cuts through downtown. The LaPlants met in town, playing open-mic nights, and fell in love.
“We were both working other jobs,” Jed says. “We were paying for a house and all that. Then, during Covid, I ended up with a broken back, and the construction job I had wasn’t gonna cut it. We were at a crossroads. We started jamming with friends of ours — a bass player and a drummer in town here — just to keep out the cold.”
So far, it’s working. The band have found receptive audiences on the road, especially during an October tour with Trampled by Turtles. In December, they’ll join Sam Barber for a swing that begins in the Midwest and ends on the West Coast.
Jed has a personal goal of understanding how people connect with his songs, and spending time playing before Barber or Crockett allows him the chance to witness firsthand what lyric or melody is moving the needle.
“It’s satisfying when you have moments where you can see people crying along with moments that came out of the grief of tearing down our dream house,” he says. “Then equally, seeing the joy on people’s faces when we get to those moments where the music climbs and builds.”
Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose upcoming book, Sonoran Sounds, is set for release in March 2027 via Back Lounge Publishing.
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