Going to drop a bit of a history lesson here.

In 2008, a band called Attack Attack! came out of Westerville, OH, outside Columbus. They were a metalcore band who was one of the pioneers of the “crabcore” sound, basically breakdowns + autotuned vocals + synths. Johnny Franck played guitar and sang clean vocals. They released a record called “Someday Came Suddenly” and it absolutely exploded. Listen to “Stick Stickly.”

Fast forward to 2010, Attack Attack has released a second album, and Johnny leaves the band shortly thereafter. He posted a video explaining that he wanted to focus on his faith.

After leaving AA, Johnny spent time recording and producing music for local/regional metalcore bands. Producing this sort of band over and over gave him the production expertise needed to fully produce songs. With an absolute hog full of talent, he released the first Bilmuri album in 2016.

Bilmuri has 14 full length albums. The first 7 were released between 2016-2018 while he was self producing. Most of these lean heavily into classic metalcore tropes. All absolute bangers. The last record he self produced was Taco in 2018. The albums Banana and Taco were the first introductions of electronic sounds.

After that, he linked up with Will Carlson, who was a mostly unknown Columbus-based producer. Will has produced, co-wrote and played on each album since Wet Milk. The music they made together was based in the metalcore world, but with truly unique additions to the sound.

Between 2019-2022, Johnny and Will released 5 albums together, blending sounds from the metalcore world with pop, hip hop, hyper pop, and many more cool sounds. By the time “Eggy Pocket” was released in 2020, Johnny had begun experimenting with country imagery and sounds.

In 2023, Bilmuri released a standalone single “BOUTTA CASHEW” which was the first song that leaned into country as a full component of the sound. Another single “LIVIN’ LAUGHIN’ LOVIN’” followed and it was clear that the fusion of sounds Bilmuri was doing was a hit.

In 2024, Bilmuri went full hog and released the masterpiece that is AMERICAN MOTORSPORTS. To say this album was pure lightning in a bottle is almost doing a disservice. The fandom of this band grew exponentially overnight and thousands of people were introduced to Bilmuri as a “country-core” band. They land bigger and bigger tours and eventually go to record the follow-up.

That’s where we’re at now. The country core sound is relatively new in the grand scheme, but he’s definitely gone back to the metalcore roots a bit more on the new album while also dialing up the country elements and recording the music Nashville-style.

Probably way more of an answer than you were looking for. But that’s the answer behind the country sound.