So Where To Today?

Ben Gallaher fires twin barrels of melody-driven country music and heartland rock & roll with his new EP, Bullet. It’s the latest release from a modern-day guitar hero who hit the highway as a teenager, kickstarting an acclaimed career that has since taken the songwriter from small-town Pennsylvania — where he grew up listening to ’90s acts like Brooks & Dunn, Tim McGraw, and BlackHawk — to stages across the country.

For Gallaher, country music has been a lifelong journey. He began playing guitar at six years old, and the connection he made with the instrument was instantaneous. “It was a God thing,” he remembers. “My parents gave me that guitar and I just immediately took to it. From that moment on, I knew what I was supposed to be doing: singing country music and playing guitar.”

That dream eventually took Gallaher to Nashville, where he established himself as a triple threat — a singer, songwriter and head-turning lead guitarist — while earning an entertainment degree at Belmont University. In a town full of guitar slingers, Gallaher immediately stood out, playing riffs and solos that were every bit as melodic as his songs themselves. “You don’t always need a ton of notes,” he says. “The guitar is an extension of who I am, and these riffs are just as important as the words I’m singing. Just because a guitar ain’t got a lyric on it, that doesn’t mean it can’t make you feel something.”

Gallaher emphasizes hook-heavy guitar riffs and solos that have earned accolades from icons like Peter Frampton, who praised Gallaher’s fretwork on the career-changing viral video “Stomp.” Originally released in September 2022, the “Stomp” guitar riff became a popular clip on social media, racking up more than 36 million organic views.

Having opened for Hank Williams, JR., Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gary Allan, Blake Shelton, 3 Doors Down, Lee Brice, Gary LeVox, and more, American Songwriter praised Gallaher for “an authenticity that shines through” and one that “country music has been missing for far too long.”