Ben Gallaher fires twin barrels of melody-driven country music and heartland rock & roll with his new EP, Bullet. It's the latest release from a modern-day guitar hero who hit the highway as a teenager, kickstarting an acclaimed career that has since taken the songwriter from small-town Pennsylvania — where he grew up listening to '90s acts like Brooks & Dunn, Tim McGraw, and BlackHawk — to stages across the country.

For Gallaher, country music has been a lifelong journey. He began playing guitar at six years old, and the connection he made with the instrument was instantaneous. "It was a God thing," he remembers. "My parents gave me that guitar and I just immediately took to it. From that moment on, I knew what I was supposed to be doing: singing country music and playing guitar."

That dream eventually took Gallaher to Nashville, where he established himself as a triple threat — a singer, songwriter and head-turning lead guitarist — while earning an entertainment degree at Belmont University. In a town full of guitar slingers, Gallaher immediately stood out, playing riffs and solos that were every bit as melodic as his songs themselves. "You don't always need a ton of notes," he says. "The guitar is an extension of who I am, and these riffs are just as important as the words I'm singing. Just because a guitar ain't got a lyric on it, that doesn't mean it can't make you feel something."

As his songwriting chops deepened, so did his skills as an instrumentalist, with Gallaher taking inspiration from southern rockers like Lynyrd Skynyrd's Gary Rossington, bluesmen like Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and country pickers like Keith Urban and Brent Mason.

During breaks in his class schedule at Belmont, he also found time to make trips back home to Pennsylvania, where his "Barbed Tour" — a series of acoustic shows at prisons across the state — became an annual tradition. Although he'd been gigging since high school, those solo performances at correctional institutions gave him a new perspective on the live experience.

"Music is a universal thing, whether you're playing a prison or a church or a honky-tonk," he explains. "The Barbed Tour was just me and an acoustic guitar, playing for hundreds of inmates in a prison gymnasium. One time, a guy came up to me and said, 'I've been in here for 20 years, and you make me want to go chase my dreams when I get out. Your songs just changed my life.' That's the power of music."

The power of Gallaher's songwriting reaches a peak with Bullet. Stacked high with Telecaster twang and southern storytelling, the EP shines new light on the country-rock hybrid that's become his calling card. On the album's title track, he digs deep into his responsibilities as a family man, pledging his support over crashing power chords and a larger-than-life chorus. "I wrote that song for my wife," he says, "and it took on a whole new meaning once we had our son. I'd take a bullet for them. I feel like anyone who's loved anybody can relate to that idea."

On "Mistakes," he uses the pitfalls of his past to chart a better course forward. "Everything that don't kill me makes me stronger," he sings, punctuating each refrain with blasts of overdriven Fender guitar.

"Kinda Can't Say No" showcases the husky vocals that have been sharpened by countless gigs opening for acts like Hank Williams Jr. and Blake Shelton, while a spot-on cover of Bryan Adams' "Cuts Like a Knife" — complete with a show-stealing Stratocaster solo — nods to the anthemic songwriters who came before him. Throughout the record, Gallaher emphasizes the hook-heavy guitar riffs and solos that have earned accolades from icons like Peter Frampton, who praised Gallaher's fretwork on the career-changing viral video "Stomp."

Originally released in September 2022, the "Stomp" guitar riff became a popular clip on social media, racking up more than 36 million organic views. At the time, Gallaher was gearing up for the release of Country in the House, his debut album for Stone Country Records — as well as his first full-length project since he walked away from a major-label deal several years earlier. "I signed with Sony Music the same year I graduated from college," he remembers. "Not long after, there was a regime change at the label, and things never felt right after that. They wanted me to go in a direction that didn't feel like me, and I didn't want to do that. I've never tried to model myself after someone else. I just do what I do." That independent spirit fueled "Stomp" as well as 2023's Country in the House, and it continued to energize Gallaher as he created Bullet alongside co-producers Neil Thrasher and Patrick Thrasher.

With his next full-length album slated for Fall 2025, Ben Gallaher confidently threads the needle between modern-day country music and amped-up, guitar-driven rock & roll. Bullet is just a taste of what's to come, rooted in autobiographical anthems about heartbreak, hindsight, and the hard-won happiness that comes with following your heart. It's a record that shoots from the hip, delivered by a musician who's learned to aim at his own unique target