Turnpike Troubadours came out of eastern Oklahoma in 2005 and worked their way up through the Oklahoma and Texas Red Dirt circuits until their self-titled 2015 album reached the top five of Billboard's country chart, with Kyle Nix on fiddle, Hank Early on steel guitar and accordion, Ryan Engleman on lead guitar, RC Edwards on bass, Gabe Pearson on drums, and Evan Felker's songs at the center. Then it nearly ended. Shows started getting canceled in late 2018, and in May 2019 they announced an indefinite hiatus. Felker got sober in 2020, the six reunited in late 2021, and A Cat in the Rain, produced by Shooter Jennings and put together slowly in the wake of the break, followed in 2023.
The Price of Admission went the other way. Felker sat down and wrote for 30 days, the band cut it in about a month at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles with Jennings again, and on April 11, 2025, they dropped it by surprise, confirming it from the stage during their "Boys From Oklahoma" shows with Cross Canadian Ragweed at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater. It's 11 songs and their sixth studio album, with Felker co-writing for once, alongside Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show, Dave Simonett of Trampled by Turtles and John Fullbright. "Be Here" comes out of his time in rehab, the band chanting "I really don't need to be here" behind him, and Jennings said there's never been a better song about rehab. In summer 2024 they opened a run of stadium shows for Zach Bryan. Felker lives on a ranch outside Okemah with his wife and two kids.