Best of KC 2024: Wards rewarded as state staple Hembree finally achieves rockstar dreams

Hembree // Photo by Nick Spacek

Earlier this month, we published The Pitch’s annual Best of Kansas City issue. You can take a peek at the results of the readers’ poll here. The issue also included a list, compiled and written by our editorial staff, of some local people, places, and things that we thought clearly won 2024. We’ll be publishing these items online throughout November. 

Kansas City’s Hembree released their third full-length album, Better Days, on Aug. 9. The group describes the album as their most upbeat yet, undoubtedly influenced by their sunny new stomping grounds of Los Angeles, not to mention the career renaissance they’ve recently found themselves in. 

After a challenging past three years dealing with the pandemic and the broken touring industry, Hembree has chosen to embrace a positive new attitude towards the music industry, which is heard throughout Better Days, especially on tracks like “Wonderful Life” and “Money Time Love.” Since moving to Los Angeles in 2019, lead singer Isaac Flynn has also worked as a professional songwriter for music publisher Peermusic. Working with the Ward brothers—Alex and Austin—the collaborations on this new LP set a new high water mark for how an incredibly young band can still shove several lifetimes of experience into 12 tracks.

In August, the band performed two album release shows at the Crossroads Hotel Rooftop and subsequently embarked on a national tour in support of the album—including gigs in Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, and more. Their regular appearances at some of the world famous venues like The Troubadour, joined by high profile guest performers from huge bands or famous comedians (Will Forte, keep showing love to KC!) are an excellent temperature guage for how hot the act is becoming. That they still make time to let us flood them at The Ship while one of their parents joins them to play lead guitar… that’s just keepin’ it real, man.