Kaitlin Butts Shares New Single ‘I Wanna Be Bad’
The Tulsa singer also unveiled a video filmed at Nashville karaoke bar Cross-Eyed Critters.
Tulsa-born singer-songwriter Kaitlin Butts has released “I Wanna Be Bad,” the latest preview of her fourth studio album, Hello, Honky Tonk, due October 30 via Republic Records. The song follows “Never Really Mine” and arrives alongside an official music video directed by Butts and frequent collaborator Chris Beyrooty. Hello, Honky Tonk has also been named among Rolling Stone‘s most anticipated albums of 2026.
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Written by Butts with Natalie Hemby, “I Wanna Be Bad” centers on the urge to cut loose after hours, with its narrator imagining a night of drinking, dancing and kissing a cowboy. The video was filmed at Nashville’s Cross-Eyed Critters karaoke bar and features line dancing, drag performers, oversized beers and animatronic animals. Its staged honky-tonk world reflects two references Butts has cited for the album: the vaudeville-style vignettes of the movie musical Chicago and Disney’s Country Bear Musical Jamboree.
Recorded in Nashville with producer Tofer Brown, whose credits include Carter Faith, Willow Avalon and Little Big Town, Hello, Honky Tonk is built around characters and scenes from barroom nightlife. Butts said she imagined the album as a series of connected snapshots, drawing partly from Chicago’s Roxie Hart and from childhood visits to Country Bear Musical Jamboree. A recent trip to see the original Jamboree also helped shape the album cover after Butts watched the cowboy-hatted Teddi Barra descend on a swing. “That is me,” Butts recalled telling her mother. She said she pictures the album’s scenes unfolding at Nashville honky tonk Skinny Dennis, with bar fights, after-work revelers and Butts herself appearing as the entertainer.
The album follows Butts’ 2024 release Roadrunner!, which drew inspiration from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! In spring 2026, Butts joined Willow Avalon on “Hypothetically Speaking” and appeared in its official video. She also starred in Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” video and co-directed Flatland Cavalry’s “Unglued” after writing the treatment for the clip. Butts later joined The Band Perry for “You Lie (Forever Version),” a reimagining of the group’s hit “You Lie.”
