Rank & File
Popularity
Rank & File has one upcoming show in the Netherlands: on September 19, 2026 at Poppodium Phoenix, Breda.
Stay in the loop
Like Rank & File and new shows appear on your homepage.
Every new date appears in your own calendar automatically.
About
Also known as: Rank & File
Before alt country was a genre anyone had a name for, Rank and File were already doing it. Formed in Austin in 1981 by Chip and Tony Kinman, the brothers had just walked away from California punk band The Dils and landed in Texas with something genuinely weird on their hands: country music played with a punk attitude. Joined by guitarist Alejandro Escovedo, they helped invent what would later be called cowpunk, even if early audiences at New Wave clubs had no idea what to make of them. Their three albums trace a restless arc. The 1982 debut Sundown came out on Slash Records, and 1984's Long Gone Dead leaned hard into traditional country territory, with steel guitar, fiddle, and Johnny Cash style rockabilly guitar lines alongside a Lefty Frizzell cover. The final album in 1987 shifted toward a more pop oriented sound, a move Tony Kinman later admitted felt wrong. The band split not long after. Tony Kinman passed away in May 2018.