Article Contributed by Mike
Published on 2026-11-01
photo by: Lukas Keel
Sean Keel & Bill the Pony revisit some things that are hard to let go with their new single, “Hard to Let Go,” released October 30, 2026, via Icons Creating Evil Art.
Blending folk, Americana, and a little something darker, the new track arrives ahead of Second Breakfast, the band's forthcoming album on Icons Creating Evil Art. For fans of Townes van Zandt, Tom Waits, Ryan Bingham, and Nick Cave, the song continues the group's distinctive approach to storytelling and roots music.
Bill the Pony started with Sean Keel, his son Lukas, and their good buddy Michael Bull. Luke and Mike wrote the music. Sean wrote the words. Three jazz/folk records followed. Then Mike left the band for something more jazzy, Lukas and Sean responded with something a little more country, and a little more sick: Second Breakfast, their first on Icons Creating Evil Art, home to Sean’s last three solo records.
Here is what they say about the record's second single, “Hard to Let Go”:
“In any good catholic family there is the adopted kid who somehow survived an abortion and goes on to be Archbishop, or a nun. In Bill the Pony that survivor song is Hard to Let Go, originally recorded in a Garage Center practice room, with a little bleed from Tool playing over the Garage center speakers. One of the founding members of the band was not impressed ‘No way that is going on the record!’. And yet, here it is: A deceptively simple song about vandalism and throat cancer, love of God and Self, and that dark place between poetry and just making some noise. We very much hope our listener enjoys it.”
Lukas Keel plays acoustic guitar and bass. Gabriel Rhodes plays electric piano, mandolin, and organ, and Joseph Marquez plays drums. Lukas produced and mixed the recording at Hale and Hearty Studios.
The good nurse in the story is Carl-Marcus Gidlöf, head of the Icons Creating Evil Art snake. Lukas and Sean had been with the song too long, had lost the picture, and decided it belonged with the medical waste. But the label boss heard it and very much disagreed. As is so often the case in such stories, we are really happy he stepped in. We were going to kill the thing. And now it’s a headliner on what is by far our favorite BTP record.
About Sean Keel & Bill the Pony
Sean Keel has taken an unusual route into songwriting. A longtime University of Texas at Austin mathematics professor, he began playing guitar in his forties and writing songs in his fifties. He has written a lot of unread poetry, short stories, and a sword-and-sorcery novel.
Before reaching a wider audience, Keel made three self-released folk/jazz records with his family band Bill the Pony (a foundational character in Lord of the Rings). The band includes his wife Michelle, daughter Rose, son-in-law Ben, son Lukas, nephew Kieran, daughter-in-law Ana, and some almost family, Matt, Nora, and Ananyaa. If you are at the house, you are pretty much in the band (please leave your shoes outside).
His first release with Icons Creating Evil Art, a dry scary blue, arrived in late 2022, followed by ferals welcome in June 2024 and Dinosaur in 2025. Performances at Sweden’s Live at Heart festival brought his music to new audiences through a couple of duo shows with Lukas and the first-ever show by Bill the Pony.
In 2024, Keel was named one of the six winners of the Kerrville Folk Festival’s Grassy Hill New Folk Competition for Emerging Songwriters, joining the winners’ Texas tour that November.
Second Breakfast now brings Sean Keel and Bill the Pony together under a shared ICEA album credit for the first time. Keel sees darkness others might miss; he is a little more fun around the family. Hopefully that comes through on this single, and on this record.
“HARD TO LET GO” — SINGLE CREDITS
Sean Keel & Bill the Pony
Released October 30, 2026
Icons Creating Evil Art / Virgin Music Group
Running Time: 3:47
Lyrics: Sean Keel
Music: Lukas Keel
Produced by Lukas Keel
ISRC: SEXCG2602811
Listen to “Hard to Let Go” on your preferred streaming service.
Follow Sean Keel on Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, and Apple Music.
Find Bill the Pony on Spotify and Apple Music.
