Nate Perry & Ragged Company – Till the Well Runs Dry

A record that smells like sweat, bourbon, and hard-won freedom

I’ve always had a thing for stories told with a guitar in hand. Maybe it’s because life doesn’t exactly hand out clean lines – it scribbles, it stains, it makes you carry the scars. Listening to Till the Well Runs Dry from Nate Perry & Ragged Company feels like flipping through someone else’s scrapbook. But only to realize half the pages could’ve been torn from your own.

Nate’s got that lived-in voice full of honesty. You can hear New Hampshire backroads in it, Army nights in Kentucky, and the dive bar neon glow of Nashville bleeding into Boston brick. It’s not nostalgia for its own sake – it’s fuel. And this EP runs hot on that fuel.

The sound of chasing it, not waiting for it

Nate Perry once said his early songs leaned heavy on lament. Well, this new batch it’s all motion. Count on You bursts like a Friday night that refuses to die early, while Tonight sounds like it crawled out of a whiskey-soaked bar floor just to ask for one more round.

And then there’s Disappear, carrying that Springsteen lineage – inherited the way some families pass down stubbornness. It’s about flipping the script, finding love, light, and a reason to lace your boots for tomorrow. Listening, I caught myself thinking about the times I should’ve switched gears earlier in life but hung around in dead ends too long. That’s the kind of reflection Perry nails – he just bleeds it into the room.

Between the lines, the man and the band

The lineup goes Sam DeMello on drums, Connor Milligan on bass, Ollie Nash on keys, Mike Chandler. They’re not a backup band – they’re the storm that makes Nate’s stories hit harder. They’ve already worked stages like Boston Calling, New England Americana Fest, and Lowell Summer Music Series, and you can hear why. This is a band with dirt under the fingernails.

Between the Lines hits hardest for me. It’s Perry writing to his younger self, almost like a father pulling up a chair: plans will fail, you’ll stumble, but that’s no excuse to stop. I thought about my own dad, the short but sharp talks that land years later. He’s still up and running, same like these songs. They follow you.

And just when you think they’ve burned through it all, they close with How Much it Matters. It’s the morning after track – looking back at reckless nights, empty bottles, and wondering what could’ve been built if the fire was aimed forward. It’s a statement carved straight.

Till the Well Runs Dry – A well worth emptying

I walked away from Till the Well Runs Dry with the sense that Nate Perry & Ragged Company aren’t writing for fame, or playlists, or whatever buzzword the industry is slinging this days. They’re writing to remind themselves – and the rest of us – that you keep going until there’s nothing left in the tank. And honestly? That’s the only kind of music that ever sticks.

The well’s open — stream the album on Spotify below.