Colt Classic Presents:
Colby T. Helms & The Virginia Creepers
Thu, Oct 8, 2026
Analog at Hutton Hotel
Nashville, TN
Every town has them.
The underdogs. The people who never quite fit in. The ones who are misunderstood. The ones who strive, stumble, and keep going anyway.
With his second album, One for the Losers, Colby T. Helms tells their stories.
Raised in the Blue Ridge foothills of Southwest Virginia, Helms launched his career as a teenager, writing raw and ragged songs that drew from the people, places, stories, and struggles that shaped him. If his debut album chronicled his own experience, then One for the Losers widens the frame by looking outward. Across a dozen tracks, Helms shines a light on the overlooked and misunderstood characters who've crossed his path, from troubled friends and fallen mentors to moonshiners, immigrants, and working-class Virginians trying to survive in a world that threatens to leave them behind.
"This is a record for people who don’t feel like they have a voice," he says, speaking with a southern drawl colored not only by his Appalachian roots, but by the years he's spent singing at folk festivals, fiddlers' conventions, campgrounds, and dive bars, too. "I wrote my first album while I was still in high school, then I spent a few years on the road, playing those songs every night. One for the Losers delves into what it's like to be a road musician, as well as the characters and challenges you encounter along the way — and some of the ones waiting for you back home, too."
Country. Bluegrass. Folk. Helms' interpretation of American mountain music bears the fingerprints of them all. Largely recorded in Nashville with producer David "Ferg" Ferguson, the album is as diverse as its influences, balancing electric full-band performances with intimate, stripped-back recordings that place Helms' storytelling front and center. For Helms, that balance feels like an extension of a childhood spent on the borderlines, embracing the grey areas between social groups.
"In high school, you were either an artistic kid who did choir and theater, or you were a redneck in FFA," he remembers. "I did it all. I never fit into any one category, and I think my music is the same way. I play multiple instruments. I play multiple genres. I've got more than a few sides of music in me."
That diversity springs to life on the album's title track, which was inspired by a childhood friend whose struggles with alcohol ended in tragedy. Rather than offering easy answers, Helms uses the song to wrestle with grief, survivor's guilt, and resilience. "Young and Dumb" examines addiction through the eyes of someone losing a battle with it. "Deadhead on the Weekend" tells the true story a troubled former boss whose self-destruction ultimately cost him his job, while acknowledging the lessons he still left behind.
Elsewhere, Helms broadens the album's perspective. "Armed and Dangerous" tells the story of his girlfriend's father, who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a child and survived hardships that forced him into a life few Americans could imagine. Built around cinematic imagery and rhythms inspired by Mexican music, the song offers a perspective rarely heard in contemporary country songwriting. Then there's "Ballad of the Bondurant Boys," an epic acoustic narrative inspired by Franklin County's infamous moonshine era. Like many of Helms' best songs, it blurs the line between history lesson and folk tale, preserving a piece of regional culture while emphasizing more universal themes like power, injustice, and survival.
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