Stephen Wilson Jr. Turns a Preacher's-Kid Childhood Into Country Song

Stephen Wilson Jr. has released a new song, "Preacher's Kid," built directly on an upbringing in which swearing was a sin, church classes taught children to speak in tongues, and witnessing an exorcism before lunch was, as he recalls it, not out of the question.

The country singer-songwriter grew up in a small town ringed by religious expectations. Those years supplied him with material that most writers would struggle to invent. One memory in particular sounds ready-made for a country song: Wilson says a youth pastor who preached about the impending end of the world ended up stealing his high school girlfriend.

Wilson frames those experiences as the foundation of the new track, which draws on the personalities and contradictions of the small-town world he came from.

"A small town can be a world," he says, reflecting on how enormous those communities feel when they are the only world you have known.

What does this change for Wilson's standing?

The song arrives as Wilson holds some of the strongest credentials in his field. He earned his first Academy of Country Music Award for Visual Media of the Year with "Cuckoo," a video he co-directed with longtime creative collaborator Tim Cofield.

The partnership with Cofield has become central to Wilson's artistic identity. Together they have developed a visual language that matches his songwriting, which leans on vivid imagery, unconventional storytelling and a willingness to sit with the complicated details of human experience — qualities that critics and fans have often described as cinematic.

The pair also collaborated on the video for "Gary," which features an appearance by actor Gary Sinise, known for his roles in Forrest Gump and Apollo 13. That song earned a place on Billboard's Country Airplay chart and widened Wilson's audience.

Where can audiences hear him?

Wilson's Gary The Torch Tour has taken his performances across the United States and Europe. Along the way he has shared stages with Dave Matthews Band and Brandi Carlile.

He has two Nashville performances scheduled at The Truth on December 11 and 12 — the next chance to hear the new material, and the older stories, in person.

Wilson's approach is consistent: he finds extraordinary stories in ordinary places, and he resists smoothing out the strange parts. "Preacher's Kid" is the clearest example yet, converting lessons in speaking in tongues and warnings about the apocalypse into song.

The obvious caveat: a childhood memoir told through music is curated by the person telling it, and Wilson controls that narrative completely. Listeners get his version of the town, the church and the girlfriend-stealing pastor. Whether that version is fair to everyone in it is a question the song cannot answer — and does not try to.

Even so, the evidence so far argues that the material holds. A preacher's kid with a remarkable stock of stories has grown into one of country's most imaginative voices, and by his own account he has plenty more stories worth hearing. The December dates in Nashville will show how the new songs sit beside the ones that already earned him an ACM Award.

By Tom Whitfield