
AN INDEPENDENT ARTIST. A NEW EP
Rusty’s new release, a four-song EP, produced by Dane Clark, is Rusty’s first studio release in 11 years. The songs will be released as singles on all streaming platforms, beginning with “Dark Days” on July 3, 2025.
For 30 years, Bladen has been writing music and playing his songs for fans, stacking show after rock and roll show. With nine albums of original music (four studio and five live releases), he has been traveling the Midwest, a song-of-the-road warrior. Rusty has played more than 5,000 shows and is a member of the inaugural 2022 class of the Madison Music Hall of Fame. Rusty’s every-night-is-a-great-night live show and the pile of encyclopedic rock and roll and country history turn a performance into a party.
And now he’s releasing a new EP on his label, River Road Records.
INDIANA HOMEGROWN ROCK AND ROLL
Rock and roll came early to Bladen. Guitar lessons as a 10-year-old. He memorized the Neil Young songbook for guitar as a young teen. A frontman of rock bands for ten years.
Rusty wrote and recorded a debut solo album, Are You Happy Now?, in 1993 and embarked on a solo tour that would see him hitting the road throughout Indiana and Kentucky. He followed the debut with 1998’s full-length album Everything for Everybody. The Ride That River EP was released in 2006, with Mellencamp drummer Dane Clark behind the kit for three songs, including on the title cut, a song featured in the 2005 film “Madison”. Homegrown Treasures, an album of new songs recorded solo and live, was released in 2009. For The Better, made with producer/guitarist Thom Daugherty, was Rusty’s 2014 rock album. One of his live albums, the full-band One Live Night, is a career-spanning overview of Rusty Bladen’s homegrown rock and roll, recorded at the historic Scott Theater in Scottsburg, Indiana.