This High-School Football Coach Is Fronting a Red Dirt Country Buzz Band

Keyland have spent the better part of the past year positioning themselves as the next band to break out of Oklahoma’s Red Dirt scene. This month, the group put those efforts on full display with Knuckle Sandwich, Keyland’s third studio album and first since 2023.

Founded and fronted by Kyle Ross, an assistant high-school football coach and English teacher in Bixby, a Tulsa suburb, Keyland have built a fan base across the state with a high-energy live show and a hit-you-in-the-feelings songwriting style. Knuckle Sandwich wastes no time driving that home in the leadoff song “Cannonball,” which features lyrics like “You can tell me you love me, or you can go to hell,” setting the tone for the 11-track LP.

“It all kind of centers around decision-making, and indecision,” Ross says of the album, “and love looking more like a punch to the face sometimes. Sonically, it’s fun and it touches on a lot of different areas between country and rock and Americana.”

Ross and his band recorded Knuckle Sandwich at the Sonic Ranch, an analog studio just outside of El Paso, Texas, where major albums by Koe Wetzel, Vandoliers, Waxahatchee, and American Aquarium have been recorded recently. “It’s a legitimate, magical place down there,” Ross says of the studio on the Mexico border, where he has recorded most of Keyland’s music since 2023.

Keyland’s profile has risen over the past year, bolstered by opening slots for the likes of American Aquarium, the Droptines, and the Josh Abbott Band. The Abbott show was at Tulsa’s Cain’s Ballroom in June 2025, contributing to a growing buzz around Keyland’s music in the city, especially at the Mercury Lounge, a hotbed of Red Dirt in Tulsa where the band has become a regular.

This summer, before football season starts and Ross’s day job calls him back to the field, Keyland will join the Texas group Uncle Lucius on a run through Colorado, Montana, and Oklahoma, including stops in Colorado rock rooms the Belly Up Aspen and the Fox Theater in Boulder.

The “build it piece-by-piece” approach that Ross has taken to his musical career so far means that he’s passing a milestone of sorts with Knuckle Sandwich. His previous two studio albums, plus a series of EPs, were all released only to streaming. When he hits the road with Keyland this time, he’ll have hard copies of his music to sell at the merch table.
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“I’ve put music out before, but this feels different,” Ross says. “I’ve got real, tangible vinyl to sell. It’s been fun to blue-collar, ma-and-pa them. People are sending me their address, and I’m sending them out. I just want more shows on the books and to spread the good word of Knuckle Sandwich.”

Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose upcoming book, Sonoran Sounds, is available for pre-order via Back Lounge Publishing..