When Evan Honer put his cover of Tyler Childers’ “Jersey Giant” into the world, it crossed 200 million streams and earned RIAA Gold. More useful: it told you which corner of the music he was working from — outlaw country adjacent, folk-rooted, built for the indie-country internet. Three albums later on his own Cloverdale Records, the answer has shifted. “It’s more on the alternative side than the folky/country side that I’ve been making,” Honer said of his latest record, Everything I Wanted. That negotiation between where he started and where he’s heading is what makes this show worth the drive.
Honer brings the fall leg of his “It’s an Even Longer…” Tour — a pun on the spring run — to Emo’s Austin on Wednesday, November 18. The spring “It’s a Long Road Tour” logged more than 30 North American dates. This fall leg runs October through November, from the Carolina coast through the Pacific Northwest before two Texas nights: San Antonio first (Stable Hall, November 17), then Austin.
Everything I Wanted is the record to know walking in. Released September 2025, all 13 tracks cut in 18 days in a garage studio Honer built himself in Nashville — a fact that shows in the sound: lived-in, deliberate, without any label-funded gloss. The production leans on Jason Isbell and Pinegrove textures rather than the acoustic folk he came up on: more electric, more layered. The standout cuts are the title track, “Long Road,” and “Waiting Room.” Country Central rated it 8.4 out of 10. Honer describes the record as “a journey of my thoughts about a relationship” — a plain description of a record that earns its plainness. He also has two earlier Cloverdale albums in the catalog: West on I-10 (2023), released on his college graduation day, and Fighting For (2024).
Emo’s Austin sits at 2015 East Riverside Drive, where it moved in 2011 after nearly two decades on Red River. The original Red River location, which opened in 1992, was the city’s punk and alternative anchor; the current room took over the site of the old Back Room. It holds 1,600 standing, runs four stages during SXSW, and covers enough ground — rock, country, hip-hop — that Honer fits easily. It’s a room on the Austin circuit where the touring tier and the room size match up. An independent artist filling it is not an accident.
Doors open before the 7:00 PM start. Tickets available via Ticketmaster.