[Cover photo credit to Zach Van Dorn]
Robert Deitch is a singer/songwriter, born and raised in a small town in southeastern Iowa, whose work was honed in Nashville, where he has spent much of the past 15 years as a music row staff writer. During this time, he has had over 30 of his songs cut by other artists, and completed three albums of his own. His most recent album, Legacy, will arrive on June 20th, 2025.
Legacy is an Americana and Country album that focuses on “the grit, heartache, and resilience of life’s twists and turns.” It sets out to paint portraits of characters navigating life’s complexities.
Today, we’re very pleased to premier Deitch’s new track taken from his upcoming album, titled “Bullet Holes”, which arrives this week on May 30th, 2025.
Though Deitch’s album is quite varied, “Bullet Holes” may be the hardest-hitting track of the collection due to its confessional nature and subject matter. In many ways, it’s a modern day “Amazing Grace”, or perhaps more accurately a prequel to that famous hymn, referencing many things that audiences will find familiar regardless of gender, but with a particularly poignancy in sharing a male perspective. Opening with a quiet and reflective mood, we soon find that there’s a reason for that, since the narrator is in a place where all they can do is look back on the wreckage of their life. Confronted with such a scene, they can only draw the conclusion that there’s no further downward to spiral.
This “dark night of the soul” as its sometimes called, is only truly effective if a person has reached the furthest point in their internal struggle, and Deitch carefully illustrates the reality of that extreme state with simple, emotive language. It would be easy to look at someone’s life destroyed and think mainly of the harm that someone has done to others on the road through addiction or simply through bad decision making, but by going so deeply into the narrator’s perspective, Deitch makes sure that we understood how deeply the person at the center of the drama suffers, too.
Sonically, the track is spare and careful, but not rough and rugged. It’s enhanced by pedal steel, soaring strings, and powerful vocals. All of that helps set the stage for a glimmer of hope. This is a lament for what’s been lost or wasted, and a deeply conveyed one at that, but it’s also a kind of prayer for something else, some other state of being that might yet be possible. If a person can “hate the man that I’ve become” and admit “lessons I never learned”, doesn’t that recognition create a new possibility? It’s mainly the music that suggests the possibility of grace, and maybe that sound is also a nod to a feeling of enlightenment, the relief of a new perspective, if nothing else. A little nod at the end of the song to a children’s hymn casts back into the speaker’s past, reaching for a possibility of redemption, and the song leaves that as a final thought to consider, what may be yet to come.
Robert Deitch shares about the new track:
“Bullet Holes” is a song about the bottom. Every recovering addict/alcoholic has story about finding their bottom. Most would agree that the emptiness and brokenness of that moment is almost indescribable. “Bullet Holes in an empty soul” is my best description of that moment.
Recorded at Golden Bear Studio, with Producer/musician, Bryan Vanderpool, the album Legacy offers a balance of upbeat, honky-tonk energy and introspective ballads. It features traditional instruments like pedal steel and acoustic guitar alongside contemporary production, a blend of old and new.
Robert Deitch has played in venues all throughout the Midwest and Southeast United States, including multiple shows at the Bluebird café, The Listening Room, The 5 Spot and Bellcourt Taps in Nashville. He is also a regular at Legendary Byron’s, Wooly’s, XBK, Redstone, The Goldfinch, The Bixler and other venues throughout the Midwest.
Deitch has also shared the stage with artists like Kendell Marvel, Zane Williams, Jamie Lin Wilson, Trent Tomlinson, and Ned Ledoux.
