Rock powerhouse Tim Montana has plenty to celebrate. His sixth album, Entire State of Tim Montana, arrived July 31 via BBR Music Group/Broken Bow Records, delivering 16 tracks of gritty storytelling, Southern-rock swagger, and hard-rock muscle. Named by actor Charlie Sheen, the album features an extraordinary lineup of collaborators and guests, including Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, ZZ Top vocalist and guitarist Billy F. Gibbons, Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell, and Martin and Charlie Sheen.
The album’s release comes as Montana prepares to bring his annual American Thread Sporting Clays Shoot back to Nashville on September 28–29. Founded by Montana, the event has raised more than $1.8 million for military families and veteran-focused nonprofits, with this year’s proceeds benefiting Special Ops Xcursions. The two-day event will open with a concert at Chief’s on Broadway on September 28, followed by the sporting-clays competition at Nashville Gun Club on September 29.
Get your tickets here before it sells out!
We caught up with Montana to discuss American Thread, his connection to hunting and the outdoors, and Entire State of Tim Montana.
Photo Credit Todd Lund
RR: How did you get the idea for this event?
Tim Montana: Years ago, I got invited to a sporting-clays fundraising event at the Nashville Gun Club through Lee Brice. Either he was on my team, or my team beat his – I can’t remember. But either way, we got trophies, and I just thought it was a really cool way to raise money for veterans. So that’s what gave me the idea.
When I started looking more into doing my own thing, I realized how hard it is to make sure your money actually goes to the people who need it. So we ended up setting up our own vehicle for fundraising and making sure that money goes to Special Ops Xcursions. They do incredible work.
RR: Why do you think music and outdoor experiences – hunting, shooting clays and that kind of thing – work so well together?
Tim Montana: There’s a connection there, I think. Picture it: if you blasted “Back in Black” by AC/DC and had a 12-gauge go off right in the middle of it… I mean, come on! I live in this small town in Montana, and I find that a lot of the dudes up here with face tattoos and neck tattoos are actually farmers and hunters and fishermen. So I just think they go together great, man: music and outdoors and shooting shotguns.
RR: Agreed! Has the event always been a two-day thing: one for music and one for sporting clays?
Early on, it was just one event: people were shooting clays then going right to having cocktails and bidding on items. But most of the time, they were kind of burned out after shooting 15 to 20 stations. They didn’t appreciate the music of the auction as much as they do in a seated setting.
So we’re doing the first part at Chiefs this year! They’ve been super cool to work with – they’re excited; I’m excited. And I want people to know: if you cannot attend the concert, you can still buy tickets, and we take those tickets to special-operations families and Gold Star families. We’ll fill those seats with soldiers from Fort Campbell and their people.
RR: Is there a memorable moment from one of the past events that stands out to you?
Tim Montana: The first or second event, I was riding around the event in a golf cart, and I look over, and Charlie Sheen and Lee Greenwood are deep in conversation. That’s not something you see every day. I was like, “What could those two possibly be talking about?” So that one pops up.
Another one is Ed Roland from Collective Soul singing “Shine with my buddy Adam Schoenfeld, Tim McGraw’s guitar player. I was like, “Wow, this is really something.” Seeing these acts, not ones you’d normally put together… seeing them come together is crazy.
Last year was crazy, man. A bunch of people showed up that I had invited who never confirmed. That’s what I love about doing this in Nashville. All of a sudden, I see Gavin DeGraw side stage. Here comes Craig Morgan. Craig gets on stage with Gavin DeGraw and sings “Soldier.” I had no idea these two knew each other. What the heck? It just blew my mind.
Those things just happen unplanned. People who are scheduled are like, “Hey, when do I get up?” And I’m like, “Well, I’ve got Craig, and then Gavin DeGraw for some reason took over the mic.” I love everything about it.
RR: Tell me about your friendship with Charlie Sheen. How did that come about?
Tim Montana: So, I met Charlie through our mutual friend and veteran Robert O’Neill. He had also heard my music a few years ago and gave me a shout out on Twitter, and it just kind of grew from there – he directed my music video for “Mostly Stoned,” which ended up getting me my record deal with Nashville Broken Bow.
He also gave me the title for Entire State of Tim Montana. At the end of his biography, [The Book of Sheen] he wrote, “I’d like to thank the entire state of Tim Montana.” The man’s a marketing genius, he’s coined some banger phrases.
RR: How does the new album reflect where you are creatively right now?
Tim Montana: I think I just got a lot of confidence. From my days writing in the Nashville circles, I just learned how to write songs. I had a publishing deal, and I did the write-every-day thing. Sometimes two a day, sometimes three a day. I did that whole world.
It’s great, because I think the greatest talent in Nashville is the songwriters. Hands down. I don’t think that’s debatable. There are more talented songwriters than talented anything in Nashville. I mean, that’s where the artists come from. The working force behind great artists is great songwriters. Sometimes those paths intersect, and sometimes they don’t. I learned a master class in songwriting over the years.
On the flipside, when I dropped “The Devil You Know” [from 2024’s Savage, Montana’s rock-forward album], I realized that rock radio is different. There’s no mold you have to stick to. I can talk about unpleasant things from my childhood. In the music video for “The Devil You Know,” I portrayed some stuff from a rough trailer-house upbringing.
What spoke to me as a child was grunge music and almost depressed lyrics, but it gave me hope. It made me think, “Oh, I’m not alone.” Then I started getting DMs and messages and hearing people say at meet-and-greets, “Thank you. You made me feel not alone.” So with that album I went to a deeper level.
And now I take what I learned from Nashville songwriting and plug it into that. I tell my real, true stories of childhood trauma, depression, teenage angst and all that stuff – and it works. With this album, finally, I plugged in both of those worlds. The light bulb came on for the first time in 18 years.
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Listen to Entire State of Tim Montana below – and get your ticket to the American Thread Sporting Clays Shoot here!