Evan Felker

Felker was born in Okemah and raised in Wright City, a small town in rural southeast Oklahoma.[1] His mother, Tane, worked in the healthcare industry[2] and his father, Van, was a cowboy.[3] He has one younger sister, Cheyenne.[4] He was part of "an outdoorsy family that did a lot of hunting and fishing".[5] Growing up, Felker enjoyed short stories,[5] and wrote poems and creative prose.[6] He started playing guitar at the age of fifteen, learning from books and from high school friends.[7] He began writing rock songs and considered country music uncool.[8] Felker's uncle was a songwriter and rock musician, and Felker travelled to Tulsa, Oklahoma as a teenager to watch him perform.[6] Felker attended tech school to train as an electrician and later worked in paper mills, food plants, and Mercury Marine in Stillwater, Oklahoma.[5]

When Felker moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma in his twenties, he became interested in country music; his "heroes" were Cross Canadian Ragweed and Jason Boland.[9] He and guitarist Ryan Engleman began playing as a two-man acoustic act and were joined by bass player R.C. Edwards two months later. Eventually, drummer Giovanni “Nooch” Carnuccio and fiddler Kyle Nix joined, and formed the Turnpike Troubadours. The band later relocated to Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

Felker married accountant Staci Nelson in November 2016, in Barcelona, Spain.[10] They were divorced in August 2018[11] but were reported to have reconciled in August 2020.[12]

Felker is a keen hunter.[13][14][4]

• Turnpike Troubadours

• TurnpikeTroubadours.com (official site)