Carter Vail on his latest album, ‘100 Cowboys’

After nearly a decade dedicated to perfecting his brand of humor and music, Carter Vail finally broke through with his song “Dirt Man” in 2024.

While working as a producer in Nashville, Vail spent years experimenting with solo music projects. His music videos were a way to stand out, but he struggled to gain traction.

“I’ve been putting out music pretty much to silence for the last six years, maybe maybe a little more than that now — almost 10 years now,” Vail says. “You get used to putting something out and no one responds.”

But the viral success of “Dirtman” has drawn attention to what he calls his serious music.

In this session, Vail talks about his new album, 100 Cowboys, his life before becoming a mainstay on your discovery feed, how jujitsu helps his creativity, and why you should never delete your creative efforts.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.