Stephen Wilson Jr. released a new single, "Preacher’s Kid," and framed it as a true story pulled from the odd, religious corners of his youth: church classes that taught speaking in tongues and that swearing is sin, exorcisms before lunch, and a crying youth pastor who — in Wilson’s telling — “stole my girlfriend in high school.”
The release arrives while Wilson is riding a clear upswing. He won his first ACM Award for Visual Media of the Year for the official video for "Cuckoo," which he co‑directed with Tim Cofield, and earlier this year put out the official video for "Gary," which stars Gary Sinise. Wilson premiered "Gary" on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and has performed the song on This Past Weekend with Theo Von and The Howard Stern Show — a string of high‑visibility moments that have reshaped his public profile.
Timing matters here: the single dropped in the same stretched weekend that had him on festival stages. He was scheduled to play Railbird Music Festival and to return to Nashville for a CMA Fest performance at Nissan Stadium. Beyond those dates, Wilson was scheduled to tour the U.S. and Europe on the Gary The Torch Tour through the rest of the year, join the Outlaw Music Festival lineup, and support Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge Amphitheater on September 4 and Brandi Carlile at Red Rocks Amphitheatre from September 11–13, before ending the tour with two shows at The Truth in Nashville on December 11 and 12.
Musically, "Preacher’s Kid" leans into the small‑town religious detail Wilson described — a contrast to the polished, high‑profile videos and television spots that have fueled his momentum. He said he had "seen the light that was the underbelly of a catfish" and that those sights are "as compelling fodder for storytelling as any other" inspiration. The single places intimate, sometimes unsettling images of community faith next to an artist who has just been embraced on major award stages and late‑night television.
That contrast is the song’s friction: Wilson is both the beneficiary of mainstream recognition and the teller of stories that sit uneasily with that shine. The church scenes he recounts — lessons on tongues, on sin, exorcisms and teenage heartbreak — are not the easy, marketable Americana vignette. They are specific, idiosyncratic memories that complicate the tidy narrative of a rising star riding a single wave of popularity.
For fans and festival crowds, the new song gives Wilson material to bring to stages already set for the year. He released "Preacher’s Kid" less than 12 hours after a CMA Fest set, and audiences on the Gary The Torch Tour should expect to hear it alongside tracks like "Gary." What remains open, and what the release does not settle, is how the single will be positioned commercially: there are no public details in the release about label backing, chart plans, or wider format rollout. Wilson’s next moves onstage and in marketing will determine whether a song that roots itself in churchyard spectacle becomes another mainstream moment or remains a raw aside inside a growing catalog.
