Stephen Wilson Jr. once studied microbes; now he dissects working-class exhaustion. On his new single “Hardwired,” the country songwriter recruits Miranda Lambert and lifts the disorienting riff and chorus of Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” — literally — to frame a blue-collar anthem about bodies and minds pushed past their limit.
The interpolation is not a novelty. Wilson, a 2023 Rolling Stone Future 25 artist, has always pulled from the alt-rock he grew up on. His 2024 Blankets EP offered straight-faced covers of Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and the Postal Service, but “Hardwired” folds the impulse into original material. “I’m very much an indie-rock kid at heart,” he says. “But I’m a country songwriter. I write songs from a rural perspective and a blue-collar perspective.”
Written with Lambert, Jesse Frasure, and Adam Hood, the track continues the line of inquiry Wilson opened with “Gary,” a character study of unglamorous labor as the quiet heartbeat of American life. Here, the Pixies’ ghostly refrain — “where is my mind?” — becomes the internal soundtrack to ceaseless work. The video, directed by Jace Kartye, nods to early-MTV visual awkwardness without parody.
The song is expected on the follow-up to 2023’s Son of Dad. Wilson plays St. Augustine, Florida on August 7.
