Born and raised in Thompson Falls, deep in the mountains of Western Montana, Tanner Laws grew up around the things that make country music worth writing: steep mountains, wide valleys, rolling hills, hard winters, rodeos, rivers, and the kind of people who mean what they say. He studied Civil Engineering at Montana Tech — and was good at it — but the songs kept coming, and eventually the songs won.

Tanner spent years building his craft the honest way: playing bars, rodeos, and dance halls across Big Sky Country before forming the Tanner Laws Band in 2024. The lineup reads like a strange and perfect accident — jazz majors from the University of Montana handling drums and bass, a software engineer pulling double duty on electric guitar and pedal steel, a killer fiddle player holding the high lonesome end, and a former engineer up front with a voice built for the wide open spaces he writes about. In their first year together, they were named Missoula’s Best New Band.

The sound they’ve landed on is rooted in country and folk storytelling — influenced by Alan Jackson, Keith Whitley, and the Turnpike Troubadours. These are songs about hunting and fishing, about losing and learning, about the specific kind of pride that comes from a place most people only drive through. There’s fiddle and pedal steel up front, a rhythm section that can swing a dance floor, and lyrics that sound like they were earned rather than written.

The band hit the road immediately and hasn’t slowed down — opening for Clint Black, Colby Acuff, Gary Allan, Rodney Atkins, Corey Kent, Braxton Keith, Dustin Lynch, Sam Barber, and others, while racking up Northwest CMA awards for Songwriter of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, and Favorite Local Solo Artist. They’ve played the Miles City Bucking Horse Sale, the Calgary Stampede, countless rodeos and county fairs, and listening rooms from Montana to Atlanta.

Tanner Laws isn’t waiting on Nashville to discover him. He’s building something real, in his own backyard, for the people who actually live the life he sings about.