Edan Archer is the type of woman who co-writes odes to liquor with her mom and has a repertoire of murder ballads at the ready, some of which were written by her, others which have been passed down as folk songs since the Renaissance era.

Archer grew up in swampy Gainesville, Florida, hometown of Tom Petty & his pre-Heartbreakers band, Mudcrutch, singing Appalachian music around the house with her mom & two sisters. Even at a young age, the dark themes of those traditional songs crept into her songwriting. “I was writing about living & dying & reincarnation because those are the themes I heard in church,” she says.

Today, Archer is equally adept at modernizing centuries-old murder ballads (see 2016’s “Cruel Mother”) as she is singing Petty-style dive-bar jams like “Bad Imitation of Something Good,” off her 2019 album, Journey Proud. She continues to mine similar territory on her forthcoming record, on which she champions the working class, celebrates the raw, wild power of the divine feminine & spins tragic tales about No Good Johnnys & the flawed women who love them.

Archer has shared the stage with Drive-By Truckers, Patterson Hood, Nikki Lane, Margo Price & more.