The 86th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally opens Friday, August 7. That same evening, about an hour south of Main Street, Nashville recording artist Mark Mackay plugs in at Cohort Craft Brewery in Hill City for Party at the Pavilion. Free show, 5 p.m., outdoor amphitheater, Black Hills stacked up behind the stage.

He’s been through this part of the state enough times to have a feeling about it. “Yeah, man, I can’t wait. I love it up there,” he said. He’s played the rally a few times over the years in a few different rooms, plus a Rapid City date and another Hills gig last summer. “Music fans have always been great up there, so we’re stoked to be back.”

For anyone who hasn’t heard him yet, he has a description ready, and he knows how worn out the category has gotten. “Everybody likes to say that they’re country rock, they’re somewhere between country and rock. We’re like the definition of between country and rock,” he said. “We’re a very guitar driven band. We’re like an up tempo rock band in that sense. But it’s got the country storytelling. We literally sit right in the middle of it.”

The split traces back to geography. He grew up in California and went to music school in Hollywood, which is where the rock half comes from. Touring pulled the other half out of him. His band started landing support slots with Steve Miller Band and REO Speedwagon, then Blake Shelton and Tim McGraw, and everything kept pointing toward Nashville. He’s been there roughly ten years now, signed to Bungalo Records through Universal Music Group. On the songwriting scene he’s blunt: “The songwriting here is on another planet.”

Piano Came First, and So Did a Confession

His parents put him in piano lessons as a kid. He sat through them without much enthusiasm and moved to guitar, which is what he’s built a career on. Then he said something he apparently hasn’t said before. “These days I almost enjoy playing piano more. I’ve never said that out loud.” Consider it on the record.

There’s a new single coming in September, and he’ll be playing it in Hill City. Behind that single sits a finished full-length album he’s handling the old way. “We actually have a stockpile of new music,” he said. “We have the full length record done, but the only way to get it is to come to our shows. We’re not putting it on streaming yet.” Physical copies, merch table, handshake. That’s the distribution plan.

Fifteen Hundred Shows and Counting

This year marks his first headline tour, which is a different animal after a decade of opening. He counts about fifteen hundred shows so far and still tinkers with the set constantly, “finding ways to engage differently and do things differently.”

Some of that tinkering comes from watching people who’ve been at it longer. He caught Eddie Money not long before Money died. “I watched how the band never really stopped playing,” he said. Between songs the players noodled while Money rambled and cracked wise about his daughter and traded shots with the crowd. Lee Greenwood does something similar. “I was watching the way he tells jokes with people that are, you know, he heckles those people in the front row.” Mackay files those moments away and tries them later.

His measuring stick came from a friend in Nashville, hit songwriter Jeffrey Steele. Steele told him to ignore the label executives, the friends, the family, all of it. “The only way that you know whether a song is doing its job is by standing up, singing it for people and reading those reactions,” Mackay said. Singing along, crying, smiling, any of it counts. “Nobody has a better view on what connects better than I do.”

The Part Nobody Puts in the Bio

His first tour ever was two weeks opening for Ted Nugent, with ten-hour drives between every show. Finish the set, work the merch booth, get seven hours down the highway, do it again. Fourteen straight days of that taught him he could handle most things.

Ask what the schedule costs him and he doesn’t dodge. “You miss everything,” he said. “I miss my nephew being born. I miss my best friend getting married.” He says he can count his bad days on one hand, and on those days the list gets long. “None of us want to give up being on the road and touring. I know that sounds so horribly selfish, but that’s the reality.”

Friday’s set opens rally week on the quiet end of the Hills, before Highway 385 fills up with chrome. Bring a chair. Cohort has beer, mead, and the Prairie Dog Taproom for food.

Party at the Pavilion, featuring Mark Mackay, Friday, August 7, 5 p.m., Cohort Craft Brewery, 23845 US-385, Hill City. Free admission.