From dive bars to a headlining arena tour, Ella Langley sure has come a long way since her early cover band days.
She’s also certainly improved on the company she’s since surrounded herself with, according to a resurfaced podcast clip with her fellow Alabama-native, ex-roommate and “D*cked Down In Dallas” singer, Trey Lewis. Back in the day, Langley was a frequent guest on Lewis’ podcast, with her last appearance being on his December 23, 2024, video titled, “Trey Lewis & Ella Langley Eat The Grossest Foods Known To Man.”
During the holiday-themed episode, riding off the high of the November release of her deluxe album, Still Hungover, Langley opened up about how far she’s come since her first-ever cover band. Straight out of high school, she says she met a few guys all “under the age of 30” at her very first writer’s round and stuck with them through every show she played across Alabama.
The now multi-platinum certified singer opened up about how her bandmates were pretty rude to her at times, noting that when she first nudged to get more of her originals added into the set, her guitar player sassily responded, “If you write some better originals, we’ll put them in.” While Langley was able to laugh it off and jokingly agree, “honestly fair,” she said at the time, it was still a hurtful experience.
Luckily, I think her over-80% self-written, chart-topping album of the year is the ultimate full-circle moment. Langley also snapped back, noting, “It’s not awesome, but it’s kinda awesome, he’s playing in the exact same bars that I picked him up from.”
She goes on to add that the same guitar player would also make snarky jabs about his pay, saying “you couldn’t pay me enough to buy a cheeseburger” when Langley at the time was courteously splitting her pay evenly with all of her band mates at the time. According to the country music superstar, there was a bit of an unfair and unwelcoming dynamic at hand, “they weren’t booking the shows, they weren’t doing things, they weren’t doing any of that, and they just talked shit to me the whole entire time.”
Langley continued giving both herself and her ex-mates grace for the fact that it truly was a learning experience for everyone. After all, she notes she barely knew how to play guitar and to “get these guys that have been in bands their whole life to respect me— it was hard, it was really hard.”
While Langley never clarifies exactly which guitar player from her previous band she’s referencing, it seems that one user claiming to be Langley’s former bassist, Brian Doss, took offense to being looped into these remarks, commenting recently underneath both the resurfaced TikTok clip and the originally posted, now year and a half old YouTube video. Her alleged ex-bass player commented first on @dailycliphanger’s post, saying: “For the record, ALL of her band did not talk shit to her or about her. I was always very grateful to play and never rocked the boat.”
He then added, claiming that while he may have given some constructive criticism along the way, it always came from a good place: “I was always very supportive and tried to give her the best, clear advice I could. If that came across as talking shit, then oh well lol.” Obviously a bit taken aback by the statement, he doubled down, replying to his own comment with, “Maybe I shouldn’t take this so personally, but her take is a little weird here. I’m truly sorry if she feels that way tho.”
He then seemingly hopped over to the full-length YouTube video to get a second glimpse at Langley’s recount, commenting again on the 56-minute-long episode that, “the more I watch this clip the more it kinda pisses me off that she feels this way about us.” He notes that at the time he and his fellow band members didn’t exactly have the same gumption to uproot their lives, “Just because we all didn’t quit our jobs and uproot our entire lives just to follow her to Nashville and put all of our eggs in one basket does not mean we were bad people that didn’t believe in her. That was a huge risk I wasn’t about to take and I told her that.”
If I were any of them, I’d surely be regretting not taking that risk right about now. Nonetheless, he rests his case, assuring that besides the unnamed guitar player, whom Langley mentions, he doesn’t appreciate being looped into the group of sh*t talkers: “We all had great times together so I’m not sure where her opinion about everyone else in her band is coming from.”
Considering Langley now has an extremely supportive band, including her trusty guitar player Ben Flanders, who left his secure gig with Scott Stapp from Creed to support the rising star, things have certainly looked up since then. As she closes out her story in the video with, “to just have people around you that you don’t feel like you have to work so hard to [convince them to believe in you] all the time, they choose to believe in you, it makes such a big difference.”
Langley and her band will continue out on the road for the remainder of the summer and now part of the fall, with her recently announced second leg of the Dandelion tour adding 21 new dates to her busy 2026. Continuing to headline arenas across the US and joining Morgan Wallen on his remaining Still The Problem Tour dates, the “Choosin’ Texas” phenomenon will return to the stage this Thursday in Salem, Virginia.
Full Video:
Tour Dates:
- 6/25 – Salem, VA Salem Civic Center (+,&)
- 6/26 – Wilmington, NC Live Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park (+,&)
- 7/23 – Pikeville, KY Appalachian Wireless Arena (#, %)
- 7/24 – Cary, NC Koka Booth Amphitheatre (#, %)
- 7/25 – North Charleston, SC North Charleston Coliseum (#, %)
- 7/30 – Gilford, NH BankNH Pavilion (@, %)
- 7/31 – Canandaigua, NY CMAC (@, %)
- 8/13 – Austin, TX Moody Center (#, &)
- 8/14 – Corpus Christi, TX Hilliard Center (#, &)
- 8/15 – Fort Worth, TX Dickies Arena (#, &)
- 8/20/26 – Green Bay, WI – Resch Center (#, %)
- 8/22/26 – North Little Rock, AR – Simmons Bank Arena (#, %)
- 8/28/26 – Auburn, AL – Neville Arena (#, &)
- 8/29/26 – Auburn, AL – Neville Arena (#, &)
- 9/10/26 – Newark, NJ – Prudential Center (#, &)
- 9/11/26 – State College, PA – Bryce Jordan Center (#, &)
- 9/12/26 – Charleston, WV – Charleston Coliseum (#, &)
- 9/17/26 – Oxford, MS – SJB Pavilion (@, %)
- 9/18/26 – Athens, GA – Akins Ford Arena (@, %)
- 9/19/26 – Jacksonville, FL – Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena (@, %)
- 9/24/26 – Knoxville, TN – Food City Center (@, %)
- 9/25/26 – Columbus, OH – Schottenstein Center (@, %)
- 9/26/26 – Moline, IL – Vibrant Arena (@, %)
- 10/7/26 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre (@, &)
- 10/9/26- Tulsa, OK – BOK Center (@, %)
- 10/10/26 – Lubbock, TX – United Supermarkets Arena (@, %)
- 10/13/26 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre (@, %)
- 10/14/26 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre (@, %)
- 10/29/26 – Des Moines, IA – Casey’s Center (@, &)
- 10/30/26 – Lincoln, NE – Pinnacle Bank Arena (@, &)
- 10/31/26 – Saint Paul, MN – Grand Casino Arena (@, &)