With a resume that includes bartender, construction worker, beer truck driver, and ranch hand, singer/songwriter Isaac Hoskins traffics in the same hardscrabble world he’s created in his body of work. An Oklahoma native, Hoskins grew up in southern Kansas and briefly attended WichitaState University before dropping out and moving south to become a Texas songwriter in the tradition of Jack Ingram, Guy Clark and Robert Earl Keen. After the global COVID pandemic came to a head in 2020, and Hoskins watched the live music world evaporate, things spun to a dark head, and he knew something had to change. After three days alone in the desert, Hoskins came home and started over. Twelve months sober, 30 pounds lighter, and now performing full time, Hoskins has channeled the darkness into a new album, Bender. Recorded at The Finishing School in Austin, TX and produced and engineered by Gordy Quist of The Band of Heathens, Bender conjures Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, and John Prine in an ode to unhealthy coping strategies and life on the other side.