SEATTLE — It was a well-earned off day for Tucker Wetmore. Two nights earlier, the burgeoning country star had opened for Thomas Rhett in Savannah, Georgia, and with 12 more days before the tour was set to resume in Wetmore’s home state of Washington, he stuck around the coastal southeastern town for a few days to unwind.

The 25-year-old singer and songwriter, who’s been making waves in the country world since the top of 2024, was loading up a boat for a September day on the water when he received some news that would undoubtedly make that ocean breeze feel a little sweeter. Wetmore was nominated for new artist of the year at the CMA Awards, his first nod at country music’s premier awards show, broadcasting live Nov. 19 on ABC.

“Pretty crazy, isn’t it?” Wetmore said over the phone a few days later. “I’m going out on the boat, and I’m a CMA nominee. You can’t really beat that.”

After the 18 months that Wetmore has had, notching a double-platinum hit with “Wind Up Missin’ You” and opening dates with country heavyweights like Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean, the new artist of the year nod wasn’t exactly a shocker.

Seemingly more improbable, at least in the minds of those who don’t think of the Evergreen State as being “country,” is that the Kalama kid is one of two Washington artists up for the high-profile honor, alongside Zach Top, who has similarly taken the country world by storm. It’s the second time the two friends from different Washington ZIP codes have been up for the same award, after Top took home new male artist of the year at the ACM Awards this spring.

“Dude, it’s awesome,” Wetmore said of his and his Washington brethren's success in the Southern-dominant genre. “Me and Zach are really good buddies. I tell people, people will be like, ‘Where are you from?’ Well, I'm from Washington state. And they're like … ‘Oh, that ain't country up there, you don't know what you’re talking about.’ But it's country as country gets, and I feel like a lot of people are starting to see that, especially with the music coming out of the area, like me and Zach Top. It's cool to be representing the Pacific Northwest the way that we are.”

Now based in Nashville, Tennessee, Wetmore will be back home soon enough (at least briefly) when Rhett’s tour rolls through Washington, with stops in Spokane (Sept. 18), Auburn's White River Amphitheatre on Sept. 25 and Cascades Amphitheater in Ridgefield, Clark County, the following night. That Ridgefield date in particular has been circled on Wetmore’s calendar for about a year.

“When we confirmed the tour with Thomas, I was looking at the dates and where we're playing. I saw Ridgefield and I go, ‘No freakin’ way, dude,’” Wetmore said with excitement. “That's 15 minutes away from my hometown. I've been to shows there. It's going to be cool to get onstage and see all my friends and family.”

While the former Kalama High School football standout will get to play for people he grew up with (and thousands of other fans) in Ridgefield, roughly 20 miles north of Portland, the rest of the world got better acquainted with the rising country star through his debut album, “What Not To,” released this spring. A few of Wetmore’s early songs, like “Wine Into Whiskey” — his first chart-crashing hit that bubbled up on TikTok before he signed a record deal — incorporated hip-hop beats (a genre-mixing sign of the times). But throughout “What Not To,” the self-taught musician reared on rock, reggae and country radio leaned into the organic, straight-ahead country side he flashed on his bourbon-sweet “Wind Up Missin’ You.”

The full-bodied, 19-song effort delivers on quality and quantity, proving Wetmore has a lot more to offer than his breakout viral hits, both of which also make the track list. “What Not To” is a rich batch of slickly produced modern country tunes packed with airtight melodies, clever wordplay and evocative lyrics that put Wetmore’s spin on true-blue country signifiers.

Wetmore might have traded in the 808s he flirted with last year,saving that for a recent collab with Texas rapper BigXthaPlug instead. But “What Not To” still shows plenty of range within a full-band country framework. The first half of the album alone cohesively rolls through the breezily soft-rocking “Bad Luck Looks Good on Me”andWestern barnstormer “Brunette” to the piano-laced classic country heartbreaker “Goodbye Whiskey.”

Elsewhere, the catchy, clap-along “Takes One to Break One” ties together a number of the album’s motifs and aesthetic themes, including breaking patterns and taking chances with a shrugged, punch-rolling resilience.

“The first album, I wanted it to be get-to-know-me kind of stuff,” Wetmore said, pointing to his rapid ascent. “I feel like everything happened so fast that I didn't really get the chance to have people get to know me. So, that was kind of my focus point — all right, let's let people in. Let’s let people know who Tucker is.”

It wasn’t always easy. The most vulnerable song on the album nearly didn’t make it. Ultimately, it became the title track.

Easily the most emotionally gripping song on the album, “What Not To” reflects on Wetmore’s relationship with his father — a subject he wasn’t keen on discussing publicly in an interview last year, where he joked about growing up in a “house full of women” with his mother and four sisters. (“Even our dogs were girls, too,” he said at the time.)

Its aching chorus as memorable as any in Wetmore’s bag, the poor-role-model lament cuts through some of Wetmore’s earwormy proclivities like a bowie knife, with a raw, unvarnished honesty about a formative family dynamic. If letting people in was the goal, mission accomplished.

“At first, I didn't want to put it on the record, if I'm being honest,” Wetmore admitted. “But I sat down, I thought of why I do this and why I write songs. Why I love music is to … tell stories that I wouldn't talk about. And this was a moment for me to really open up. … This is a huge part of me, and I still don't really talk about it, but I just let the music talk for itself.

Clearly, it's resonated.

“The amount of people that I've had come up to me at shows or events saying, ‘Hey, 'What Not To' changed my life’ or ‘You don't understand how much I needed to hear 'What Not To,' that makes it all worth it to me,"Wetmore continued. Music is healing, music is therapy for a lot of people, and if I can do that — even if it's just one song — I think it's worth the world hearing it.”

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