Just another hat act. Those are words Gary Allan has heard whispered before. Debuting when he did in 1996, at a time when Nashville was scratching a rash of suburban cowboy hat-wearing newcomers, it was perhaps an inevitable response.

But he had the edge of experience. Having honed an individual style on the honky-tonk circuit in his native California since age 12, Allan is nothing if not resilient, and like the long line of honky-tonk icons whose music has inspired him—Lefty Frizzell, Merle Haggard, Johnny Horton, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Buck Owens—he’s learned that the best way to meet a challenge is head-on. With a smile. ‘There were these guys at Buck’s place last night,’ Allan says, the day after giving a by-invitation performance at a Bakersfield birthday celebration for Buck Owens. ‘I was signing their Gretsch guitars. They were way into punk, and they said, ‘Man, we thought you were just another hat act out of Nashville, and you rawk!’ When people see you’re real, they’re so impressed, and they so want something like that. I’ve had those guys at my shows since I was 15. Our shows are different that way—I don’t worry about politics too much. I go in and I have fun.’