“Remember, the last one to give up always wins,” country music singer and Grand Ol’ Opry member Jamey Johnson said to Dirt Reynolds during a local bar gig. Later that night Reynolds was invited out on the road with Johnson and his crew. It was March 2020, days before the world would shut down. Dirt Reynolds is the musical monicker of Nashville singer, songwriter, and guitarist Chris Watts - and he hasn’t given up yet. A former troublemaker raised in central Louisiana, Watts was stabbed in a bar and shot in the New Orleans Super Dome while on Hurricane Katrina duty for the Louisiana National Guard. He released his debut album Scalawag on July 26, 2020, in the wake of a deadly East Nashville tornado and global pandemic. Scalawag combines raucous rock ’n’ roll with broke-but-not-broken characters to illustrate the truth and the lies the American South tells to itself and others. The album was reviewed favorably in American Songwriter and No Depression Magazine. It was called “a rousing slice of air-punching alt-country” by folking.com and “a new southern revolution” by Disciples of Sound. Country Standard Time declared “Watts comes out firing relentlessly”. Dirt Reynolds is currently the singer and guitarist in Nashville power-trio Upset Boy and the Queens, featuring former members of all-female punk rock staples Thelma and the Sleaze.