As a songwriter, James Droll’s pen has heard in Vintage Culture’s “Pour Over,” gavn’s “Hit the Dirt” and Joy Oladokun’s “We’re All Gonna Die” which has highlighted the artist’s reputation as a distinct queer voice in Nashville. Now, Droll’s latest venture puts him at the center of his new project Big Guy & The Very Large Men. Today, he dropped the first single “Cowboy Boots” featuring Fancy Hagood.
The new track describes the dynamics of being in a closeted queer relationship while being out of the closet himself.
“Droll’s strength as Big Guy & The Very Large Men is in highlighting the nuance and the breadth of experience in queer relationships, which he strongly believes is missing from media, music, and popular culture,” IVPR publicity said about the track.
Accompanying the single’s release is the video also the first big reveal of Big Guy in his uniform. First we had Orville Peck’s fringed mask. Now we have queer country’s newest lewk: the oversized cowboy hat, belt buckle and a dartboard t-shirt.
“He highlights this perspective of ‘the bigger, the better’ as all of his accessories start to consume him,” Droll said in today’s press release. “After being told to just be the bigger guy his whole life, he’s taking elements from that commercialized experience and creating anecdotes out of them.”
As for the video, Droll continued, “It is very much a modern-day queer fever dream. It also highlights the struggle of failed past relationships affecting new relationships and how you carry that hurt with you and in turn could end up hurting someone else.”
More from IVPR:
Big Guy & The Very Large Men gives songwriter James Droll the platform to express the beauty, the danger, and the mess that comes with living an openly queer lifestyle in the epicenter of the bible belt. Having grown up in Pleasantville, Ohio, on a llama farm and his family being deeply rooted in the evangelical church, it has been a journey to get to a place where Big Guy could even exist.
Spotify Glow launched a series in Nashville in January of 2026 featuring 4 queer Nashville artists and songwriters, of which James was selected alongside Joy Oladokun, Medium Build, and Shane Stevens. Even though James shines in the studio, his storytelling is best experienced live. He has opened for artists such as 21 Pilots, Noah Kahan, Joy Oladokun, Elohim, Greyson Chance, and Paper Route.
Watch “Cowboy Boots” below:
–Rich Lopez