They Called Us Outlaws: The Outlaw Country Documentary That Rewrites History
They Called Us Outlaws
- A 10-part documentary series on outlaw country — decade in the making — premiered at SXSW 2026 to a sold-out crowd.
- Directed by Eric Geadelmann and Kelly Magelky, presented with the Country Music Hall of Fame.
- Features 130+ artists, including 17 who have since passed — Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver among them.
- Streaming distribution expected late 2026 or early 2027 — watch theycalledusoutlaws.com for updates.
The most important country music documentary of the decade just premiered, and it starts in Austin.
The 10-part docuseries They Called Us Outlaws world-premiered at SXSW on March 15, 2026, to a sold-out house at the Rollins Theatre at the Long Centre in Austin. Filmmaker Eric Geadelmann spent a decade building it. The result is the most comprehensive film record of the outlaw country movement ever assembled: 130+ artists, 11 hours of footage, and interviews with 17 people no longer with us.
This isn’t a nostalgia reel. It’s a reckoning.
Why Are They Called Us Outlaws?
They Called Us Outlaws is a 10-part limited documentary series tracing the outlaw country movement from its underground Nashville roots through Austin’s counterculture explosion and straight into the Americana wave reshaping country music right now.
Directors Eric Geadelmann and Kelly Magelky spent close to fifteen years developing the project. Shadowbrook Studios, a new Austin-based documentary production house, launched officially at SXSW 2026 alongside the series premiere. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum co-presented the project.
Executive producers include Jessi Coulter, widow of Waylon Jennings and a Grammy Hall of Fame recipient, along with Asleep at the Wheel frontman Ray Benson and Texas Heritage Songwriter Hall of Fame member Jack Ingram. Ingram also narrated the series. Willie biographer Joe Nick Patoski served as a producing force. Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey appears on screen.
What the Pilot Covers
The 90-minute opening episode, “The Prologue: Waylon, The Dillo, and That Outlaw Bit,” centres on Waylon Jennings and Austin’s legendary Armadillo World Headquarters.
The Armadillo, a converted armoury on Barton Springs Road, became the proving ground for outlaw country in the early 1970s. When Jennings first arrived at Willie Nelson’s invitation, the hippie-heavy crowd caught him off guard. He told Nelson plainly, “Austin isn’t half bad, Hoss. “That collision between hard-rocking Nashville outlaws and Austin’s cosmic cowboy scene produced something neither camp had planned.
The premiere played mere feet from where the Armadillo once stood. That geography was not an accident.
130 Artists, 17 Gone
The full series features more than 130 artists, songwriters, and producers. That list includes 13 Country Music Hall of Fame members, seven Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, and a generation of modern torchbearers.
Among the living artists featured: Emmylou Harris, Miranda Lambert, Eric Church, Tyler Childers, Margo Price, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Charley Crockett, Molly Tuttle, Parker McCollum, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Ashley McBryde, Bobby Bare, Nathaniel Rateliff, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Brooks & Dunn, Robert Earl Keen, and Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman of The Byrds.
Seventeen of those interviewed have since passed. Country Music Hall of Fame CEO Kyle Young called their recorded testimony “historical gold.” Among the lost voices are Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver, Guy Clark, Tom T. Hall, Jerry Jeff Walker, Joe Ely, Fred Foster, and Hazel Smith, the woman widely credited with coining the term “outlaw” for the movement.
Why the Outlaw Label Rubbed Everyone the Wrong Way
Waylon hated the word “outlaw.” He said so directly in interviews. The label came from the industry, not the artists.
What the musicians in Nashville’s underground and Austin’s counterculture shared was something simpler: the refusal to compromise. As director Geadelmann put it, the keyword is “regardless.” They made music the way they felt it — regardless of outcomes, regardless of what RCA or CBS wanted, regardless of what country radio would spin.
The 1976 compilation Wanted! The Outlaws, featuring Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Coulter, and Tompall Glaser, became the first country album in history to go platinum. One million copies sold. But Geadelmann’s series makes clear that that album was a sampler, not a summary. The real story was bigger, wilder, and far more complex.
Austin, Texas: Why Here?
Nashville had the industry. Austin had the energy.
In the early 1970s, the Armadillo World Headquarters drew a crowd that country music had never seen—longhaired students, Vietnam veterans, bikers, and folkies sharing space with honky-tonk singers. Willie Nelson, who had failed to break through as a singer in Nashville, found a new audience in Austin willing to accept him exactly as he was. Kris Kristofferson was rewriting what a country song could say. A generation of Texas songwriters—Mickey Newbury, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt—built an alternative tradition that ran parallel to mainstream Nashville.
The Armadillo was the venue that made it real. The LonCenter premieres geography directly.
Modern Outlaws in the Frame
They Called Us Outlaws doesn’t treat the movement as a closed chapter. Tyler Childers, Margo Price, Charley Crockett, and Parker McCollum all appear—artists who carry the outlaw ethic into 2026 without cosplaying the 1970s.
That connection matters. The Outlaw Music Festival, Willie Nelson’s travelling summer tour now in its tenth year, draws the same through-line live. The artists on that festival’s bill—Billy Strings, Margo Price, and Nathaniel Rateliff—are the same names appearing in this documentary’s modern sections.
The series argues, convincingly, that the movement never ended. It just changed zip codes.
Rare Footage and Original Music
The series features rare recordings and previously unseen concert footage. Its original score comes from Chris Coleman, a multi-instrumentalist and former member of Kings of Leon. New music recorded specifically for the project includes contributions from Shooter Jennings, Jack Ingram, Lillie Mae, Bruce Robison, and others.
Some of the exhibit footage originated in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s “Outlaws and Armadillos: Country’s Roaring ’70s” installation, which Geadelmann helped curate between 2018 and 2022. That material now lives permanently in the museum’s Frist Library and Archives.
When Can You Watch It?
They Called Us Outlaws is currently seeking streaming distribution following its SXSW premiere. Shadowbrook Studios expects a deal to close in time for a release window in late 2026 or early 2027.
For the most current distribution news, visit theycalledusoutlaws.com.
FAQs
What is They Called Us Outlaws about?
It’s a 10-part documentary series tracing the outlaw country movement from 1960s Nashville and Austin through today’s Americana scene.
Who directed They Called Us Outlaws?
Eric Geadelmann and Kelly Magelky directed the series; it took nearly fifteen years to produce.
Where did They Called Us Outlaws premiere?
The pilot premiered at SXSW on March 15, 2026, at the Rollins Theatre at the Long Centre in Texas.
Who is featured in the documentary?
Over 130 artists appear, including Emmylou Harris, Tyler Childers, Margo Price, Miranda Lambert, Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, and Matthew McConaughey.
When does They Called Us Outlaws come out on streaming?
Distribution is pending; expected late 2026 or early 2027. Check theycalledusoutlaws.com for updates.
Why is the outlaw country movement significant?
It produced the first-ever platinum country album, reshaped Nashville’s sound, and directly influenced every independent country and Americana artist working today.
Who coined the term “outlaw country”?
Hazel Smith, a Nashville publicist, is widely credited with applying the “outlaw” label—a term the artists themselves largely resisted.