You might know the band members from their other Omaha bands, but as Lightning Stills, they’re breaking out their best dusty twangs and lamentations for some sweet-kickin’ tracks Outlaw Country-style!
Craig Fort (of doom metallers Leafblower) wrote this record while sobering up for six years, an autobiography of sorts, detailing his years working at a local watering hole, observing and talking to the patrons and friends, some of whom you might actually know but not know their stories. Lightning Stills is filled with those tales.
Each song on Lightning Stills is a chapter of a journey. The cut-time upbeat “Gas Me Up” saddles up to a bartender’s pour that “kickstarts the fires inside.” And when that fire starts dying, the quick-step dirge “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Dealer” offers a pick-me-up, even if the keys haunt and forbode and a chorus joins in like a spiritual. Relationships go off the rails in the instant classic “Drunker than Me,” its saloon piano and shaggy accompaniment coalescing into a soaring bridge just in time for “Rambled Out,” a dirty rock and blues number. In “My Mama Wants a Love Song,” the main character wonders how to “write a love song without the pain.” Where would it start, and “where would it go?” In answer, fiddle and steel soar toward brightness, where “a catchy tune catches the light.” But when you’re as far down as the narrator is, the climb up is steep. When stark pulses of drum and guitar open “Spirits,” a listener might expect Johnny, Kris, or Waylon to step in. Craig Fort bottoms out his voice, lamenting to a priest that there’s a “devil over there, giving me hell.” Still, by song’s end, the time has come to throw off those “sheets to the wind,” and “Willie and the Ghost” follows, shimmering like an Irish-American cowboy ballad, drums rolling. In “Closed Down the Bar,” the character finds sober redemption—an uplift of singalong furnished perfectly with a shouted, “One more time.”
Lightning Stills
s/t
Max Trax Records
February 20th, 2026
Lightning Stills isn’t an album detailing the evils of alcohol. Instead, it’s life stories while still in the moment. “I started this project as a way to keep me occupied and help me through getting sober,” vocalist/guitarist Craig Fort of Omaha’s reigning outlaw country band explains.
Aside from the obvious health benefits of quitting the sauce, his reason for quitting was far more personal. “Ultimately, I got sober for my family,” he confesses. “Once I had my first son, I started trying to stay away from the bar except for playing shows. My drinking stuck with me though and eventually took over. I realized I needed to get some help or my boys weren’t gonna have a father anymore.”
Though he has sworn off alcohol, the offending substance flows freely figuratively throughout the band’s makeup. “The band name ‘Lightning Stills’ is a character I created – a reference to white lightning moonshine stills,” Craig explains, about the eponymously named alter-ego, a rhinestone cowboy in the vein of Waylon Jennings and Johnny Paycheck. “Lightning Stills” alludes to the clear high proof, unaged corn whiskey that is made in a ‘moonshine’ still. “When I first started, the ‘Lightning Stills’ character was a bootlegger. I have some history of that in my family and that lifestyle appealed to me I guess. Even off the sauce I feel like I’m still trying to find the right potency for my brew,” he laughs.
Lightning Stills is a venerated cast of Omaha musicians – a who’s who of local artists of varying genres, all unified in a love for pure and unadulterated Outlaw Country. Originating in 2020, Craig (a hardcore, metal, and garage mainstay whose leads the post-rock mainstays Leafblower) first formulated the band with Omaha music icon and multi-instrumentalist Mike Friedman who had been playing country for decades. Pulling into their magnetic orbit a “good-timing odd bunch” that features guitarist Tom May, bassist Dan Maxwell, and drummer Javid Thunders, Lightning Stills was born. “We’re a real sundry assortment,” he says. “Dan and I have been playing together in various projects for 15 years. The other fellas have played in folk, indie, garage, metal, etc. That’s one thing that’s always been nice in my experience about Omaha. You can have a bill with hip hop/metal/country, and everyone that comes out are friends and possibly play in other projects with each other as well.”
Deciding it was time to record a full record after releasing a handful of tracks in 2020 and 2021, the self-titled debut started taking shape, and a caboodle of punk-infused Outlaw Country was born. “Coming from a small town, I grew up with the outlaws and ‘90s popular country that I couldn’t escape,” he concludes. “My grandpa played in a country band. So in a sense, Lightning Stills is still just me playing music with my buds. We just aren’t playing as loud.”
Lightning Stills is Craig Fort (vocals, guitar), Mike Friedman (steel guitar, guitars, keys, vocals), Tom May (guitars), Dan Maxwell (bass), Matt Baum (drums) with Oliver Bates Craven guesting on fiddle (NOTE: Javid Thunders played drums on the album).
