What’s in a name? For Muscadine Bloodline, a title rebrand may have been the spark that elevated the country duo from permanent college town cover band to now playing in front of sold-out audiences at pro football stadiums.
It’s now nine years since Gary Stanton and Charlie Muncaster decided on ditching not only their home state of Alabama but also their nondescript stage name—Gary and Charlie—and head to Nashville in pursuit of country music stardom. Not only did Muscodine Bloodline sound more like a real band, the change helped forge a both a friendship and now dedicated partnership with a sole goal of launching their unique style of country music worldwide.
“We always joked that all band names sucked unless it worked out,” Muncaster says. “We’re still chugging along. So hopefully it’s working out just fine.”
The self investment has paid off more than the two could have envisioned. Since moving to the Music City, the indie country artists have built a massive cult following—and their success is now blowing up on a national platform. They’ve got a new album, The Coastal Plain, which has been critically acclaimed. And in addition to their own U.S. tour in support of their work, they’re also currently opening the for rap-country crossover superstar Post Malone.
“We were just running around as Gary and Charlie, because we didn’t know that we were really going to work together in an official capacity,” Muncaster says. “Once we finally built a lot of chemistry, and decided we were going to do this thing together, we decided we need to have a band name. We wanted something that rhymed and something that sounded inherently southern, and we landed on Muscadine.”
Their careers are reliant on each other’s full attention. This has required Stanton and Muncaster to become nearly inseparable—and not just onstage or the recording studio.
“There’s the aspect of putting your life into Charlie’s hands and his into yours,” Stanton says. “We both represent each other—and we’ve been pretty much married for nine years. We’ve seen each other a lot—sometimes more than our spouses.”
The two have now developed a teammate-like camaraderie in the weightroom as well. Muncaster, now six years sober, has had to rely on Stanton—a lifelong fitness buff—to help him regain his health. Today, Muncaster is down is more than 50 pounds in his physical pursuit of becoming a better conditioned country performer.
And while weightlifting and conditioning have allowed both of them to show off a bit of their country muscle, better performance onstage is allowing Muscadine Bloodline to showcase their high-energy stage shows on a national level.
“We want to sound good, and have you leave our show saying that was a great live band,” Muncaster says. “We’re confident that if we can get you to a show, you’ll buy another ticket because it was a good enough performance to warrant another buy.”
Staying Sober and Staying Dedicated to Fitness
Muncaster began playing guitar at age 14, but admits to really having no initial desire to pursue music until college. This was about the time when voice began to develop as well as his instrument skills. His onstage career began playing nightly gigs along the Auburn bar scene. As he played for mostly friends early on, he started earning some cash—as well with free food and booze.
“The moment for me was when I was like, ‘Oh, I can drink free beer and get 300 or 400 bucks?” he recalls. “That was my jumpstart moment into music.”
Soon after he paired up with Stanton, who had finished up college at Southern Miss with a degree in music management. After hearing positive reviews among the local crowed, the two soon decided that it was the right time to head to Nashville. “Within like six months, we started to really see some traction,” Stanton recalls. “We’re like, dang let’s keep at it.”
On the road to music success, however, the late-night performance came at a health cost for Muncaster—he ballooned to over 270 pounds. Fortunately, he found the willpower to drop alcohol cold turkey. Since then he hasn’t had a drink in over six years.
“I started realizing that no good decision I’ve ever made has come from being hammered,” he admits. “So for me it was as simple as saying to myself, it’s easier for a guy like me to be sober.”
But what Muncaster didn’t have was a plan to drop the 50-plus pounds of extra weight he’d steadily gained. The extra poundage began affecting his performance onstage. Fortunately, Stanton was the weightroom role model Muncaster needed. The two began working out together, with the help of personal trainer Matt Blank. Blank was a friend of Stanton’s during college at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Stanton never needed to use a tough love approach to get Muncaster to join him in the gym, but instead offered a lead by example formula—consistency. That’s all Muncaster needed.
“I would tell Charlie that I’ve been going to the gym, and eventually Charlie decided to tag along,” Stanton says. “From there we’ve gone through spurts of working out every day together. Some days, if Charlie wants to go play a round of golf, he’ll go do that. Or if we’re not going to work out on a day, we’ll come up with a plan for things we need to stay away from.
Training became a pattern forming staple in Muncaster’s day to day world. He began catching on to certain lifestyle adjustments—meal prepping being one. And the healthy habits began to snowball, with Muncaster asking questions and Stanton always there to answer.
“He was literally, like the first person in my life at age 23, who showed me how to count calories,” Muncaster said. “And it blew my mind.”
Now, Muncaster sports a 220 pound frame, thanks to a steady and consistent workout and diet regimen. “I’d really check out what he was doing in the beginning,” Muncaster says. “Then I’d be like, alright, I’m gonna cook some grilled chicken and rice and call it a day. The more I learned the easier it became.”
Stanton sees the progress, and is proud to be a part of his partner’s transformation.
“To Charlie’s credit, he’s done it healthy,” he says. “It’s not like a crash diet to reach a goal, then quit and three months later he’s back to where he was. I feel like Charlie’s got, like, a pretty good grasp on what he needs.’
Muscodine Bloodline Are Partners on the Stage and the Weightroom
Before settling on Muscadine Bloodline as the official name, Stanton and Muncaster toyed around with other options. One was Dry County Riot.
“It sounded too much like a southern metal band,” Stanton says. They settled on combining “Muscadine”—a locally grown grape—with “Bloodline,” a simple term representing their southern heritage. And the words sort of rhymed too. “We came along Muscadine Bloodline, and it was like, We don’t hate that. So that’s where we landed,” Stanton says.
Even with a fancy new name a continuously expanding worldwide fanbase, the two admit separating themselves from their Alabama and southern traditions will never be an option. “You cant hide these rednecks,” Muncaster says.
The closest “non-southern” activity would be Muncaster’s penchant for golf, which he does as often as time allows. Stanton, meanwhile remains an avid hunter who purposely stays away from the links. “I have addictive personality,” he says. “I just don’t have room for one more [hobby]. If I do, I’ll try to be playing on the tour if I start.”
The two, however have developed a healthy pattern for getting in a workout no matter the city they roll into. Having an Anytime Fitness membership helps. “Twenty bucks a month get you into any gym in America,” Muncaster says. “That’s pretty healthy.”
Stanton has been heavy into weightlifting since high school football and baseball days. “It’s been a part of my life forever,” he says. “I kind of learned the ropes during high school workouts for football and baseball.”
While the 5’6”, 165-pound former athlete is a seasoned veteran in the gym, Muncaster is quickly becoming a reliable pec-building protegé. He’s constantly gobbling up quick training tips Stanton throws at him while at the same time burning calories throughout this weight-loss journey.
They’ll also rely on a workout program created by trainer Matt Blank. Stanton and Blank have known each other since their college days at Southern Miss. “We’ll open it up and do the workouts specifically made for me and Charlie,” Stanton says. “Over the last two years, he’s helped us maintain a strategy, especially on the road.”
Stanton says normally they’ll do a two-on (upper body, lower body), one-off split, with Sundays set aside for R&R. On the road however, they sometimes tend to tackle full-body workouts when soundcheck, media appearances and other commitments leave them with little time.
“Gary has set a good example, and I’m starting to catch on,” Muncaster says. “I’ve been like, I wonder what that’s like to be healthy. Once you start catching on to that, you also start wanting to be better in certain other areas. And that’s kind of the trickle down effect it had.”
A Duo Made for the Long and Steady Run to Success
On the road, when the temptations of post-concert pizzas, Oreos, or a cold beer hover backstage, Stanton tries to come prepared with healthier alternatives. He’ll oftentimes fill the tour bus fridge with deer meat or turkey breast prepared following one of his recent hunting trips.
But while they both continue to keep their waistlines down with better meal options, the Muscadine Bloodline duo understands that their real meal tickets are their voices. So keeping them healthy night in and night out is as important as counting macros.
“We’re not Greek gods like Riley Green or Parker McCollum,” Stanton says laughing. “So we have to go out and sound good every night.”
Before and after every concert, Stanton and Muncaster go over a host of vocal exercises and breath work in order their voices stay on point for each 90 minute show and to also prevent fatigue the vocal chords. Drinking tea helps as well, the duo says.
“I’ll do breathing exercises before I go on stage,” Muncaster says, “because I gotta hold these big breaths to sing. I feel like if we don’t do our warmups, we’ll literally get worn out. Then you’re worried about the next night.”
While their songwriting for The Coastal Plain—with southern melodic ballads such as 90-10 has been labeled “sneaky good, sometimes overtly stellar,” the pair wants to present to their newest fans that their live performances are even more dazzling as the reviews.
“You’ll just have to come out and see one and figure out,” Stanton says. We’re very detailed in how we build a flow of songs. We don’t just get up there and just play. We try to take your 90-minute journey of what we’re working on at the moment. Our goal is you just sound is better than we did on the records.”
In the minds of Muscodine Bloodline, the rise to country music as independent artists has been a slow and steady climb—and they’re OK with that—while seeing others skyrocket to success. In 2020, they teamed with current country music phenom Lainey Wilson on “Pieces.” While her rise to worldwide stardom appears to some to have come at meteoric speeds, Stanton and Muncaster still take the slow and steady grind approach to continue moving forward.
“If you’re looking at your career and saying, ‘Why aren’t we here?’ I think that’s a huge lesson that we’ve learned to avoid along the way,” Muncaster says. “It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing— I’m happy for them. What we’re doing is is what we’re doing. We can’t and don’t compare to everybody else. We like to say, ‘Be where your feet are.’”