In connection, there is inspiration

Skin to dirt, Tyler Baker likes to walk barefoot around the 40 acres he grew up on in Hillham in the northeastern part of Dubois County. Meandering through the fields and forest and around the pond on his parents’ land, he reconnects with his roots.

And in this connection, there is inspiration.

“There’s just something safe about it, something nostalgic,” the 36-year-old said. “It kind of touches my soul in a very positive way.”

This land is where Tyler and his cousins, Brandon Qualkenbush and Landon Milbourn, formed Goodbye June. A rock and roll band born in 2005 from the three working through the grief of losing a brother and a cousin after Tyler’s older brother, Shane, died in a car crash.

The loss left the family reeling. Tyler was a senior at Dubois at the time.

“I had all these big plans. I was gonna go to Purdue and be an engineer,” he said.

But then the crash happened in June and those plans changed.

“I didn’t actually want to go to college after my brother died. I wanted to stay home with my mom and dad and just get a job to be close to them because they were taking it really hard,” he said.

The connections between cousins create friendships of a different sort. Stronger. More resilient. Intimate.

As the family was grieving, Brandon and Landon had both come up to live with them. All three had a music background so in their shared sadness, they began playing and writing songs together.

“That was a big part of the healing process,” Tyler said. “But from that time together, we started getting together more. We started playing more. Eventually, we started playing shows.”

The sound they created drew on the roots of guitar-heavy rock and roll, but it was infused with the funkiness of Black Gospel from Brandon and Landon’s southern Pentecostal background and the grittiness of Blues. All topped with lyrical storytelling of Country music.

In 2009, after Tyler graduated from IU, the trio decided to head to Nashville.

“We thought we were hot stuff,” he laughed.

High hopes in hand, the bond between cousins helped bolster them through the long slog of making it. It took three years to get their first management deal. They got their first major label deal in 2015 and their first record, Magic Valley, came out in 2017. Community Inn followed in 2019.

The band released their third album, ‘See Where the Night Goes’, in February.

Tyler attributes this long path to their dedication to being a real American rock and roll band. “No gimmicks, no frills; we’re just trying to be honest,” he said. “And I think when you set out to do that, maybe it takes a little longer for the gumbo to develop its flavor.”

Besides staying true to their music, Goodbye June’s success has come through a simple formula of persistence, dedication and heart spread over the long, hard road of experience. They wrote hundreds of songs, got told no thousands of times, played the small shows with 20 people in the audience, and went so broke they wouldn’t waste a half-eaten burrito.

They just kept doing it together.

That hard work has led to going on tour with ZZ Top, Greta Van Fleet, Whiskey Myers, and The Struts. Their music has been licensed by ESPN, the NFL, and Major League Baseball as well as featured in video games — Madden Football and Need for Speed to name two. They’ve toured Europe, been in Rolling Stone, and have millions of plays on Spotify — their top song on Spotify is ‘Oh No’ which draws direct inspiration from that Pentecostal upbringing.

According to Tyler, the only reason they’ve been able to keep going is that they have each other.

The trio will be playing a sold-out show at The Astra in May. Despite the connection to Dubois County, this is the first time Goodbye June has played here. For a guy that has performed around Europe and toured with the high-profile names he’s toured with, Tyler is nervous about this show.

He’s been waiting to come back.

“I’m coming home to play and I want to present what I’ve been working so hard for,” Tyler said. “We are going to be stone-cold killers and we’re gonna play the raddest rock show that we’ve played in front of a lot of friends and family.”

“But we are going to treat it like we are in an arena and we are fighting for our lives,” he added. “I want to show everybody what we are doing all over the world.”

The hard-hitting, strutting power trio’s performance won’t be held back by the Astra Theatre. Jasper’s downtown is going to be filled with Goodbye June’s raw energy on May 18.

This Sunday though, if the weather is nice, Tyler may be walking around digging his toes into the cold spring dirt of his childhood home.

The memories abound there. Shane’s room remains relatively the same as it was in 2005. He is buried about a mile away in Emmons Ridge Cemetery. Tyler visits him when the weather is nice.

Shane introduced Tyler to Grunge, Hard Rock and 90s rap when he was a kid.

“I remember he taught me a Metallica song on guitar,” he said adding he thought his brother would love the music Goodbye June is creating.

“But even if he didn’t, I know he’d act like he did to make me happy.”