Heber City Americana musician Alicia Stockman was driving home after a horrible house show in Dallas when her engine block cracked and began leaking coolant into the oil, which may as well have been a terminal diagnosis for her car. She “limped” her way to a Kia dealership in Grand Junction, Colorado, where she called her ex-boyfriend and parents, in tears and beside herself.
“I was 36 at the time. I was not a young kid. I was a full-ass grown adult,” she joked. “My parents came and picked me up, and we towed my car home, and I sold it for salvage. It was this dark window of time when everything was upended, and I didn’t know what to do.”
Stockman had been contemplating a move to Nashville, Tennessee, but at that moment, she realized she wanted nothing more than to be safe at home in Heber City.
“The whole point of leaving was to run away from my problems. Then, coming home, (I had) no other (option) but to face them head-on and be upset,” she said.
The experience inspired the title track on her latest album, “Homebound.” The album’s lyrics, which Stockman wrote between 2021 and 2026, explore break-ups, bowling and, most often, place.
For example, “Jerkwater Town” is an ode to a small town and its residents who refuse to abandon it. Though it mentions a train and “our own Dairy Queen,” bringing local favorites like the Heber Valley Railroad and Dairy Keen to mind, Stockman actually wrote it about an artsy town of 2,000 people in West Texas called Marfa.
“Marfa is a weird word, and no one knew what I was talking about, so I took it out of the song, which, at the end of the day, serves it better. I’ve had people from all over be like, ‘This is my hometown you’re talking about,’” she said.
Meanwhile, “League Night” is indisputably an ode to Heber City’s Holiday Lanes.
“Growing up in Heber, it was every birthday party, every gathering. … My boyfriend is in the league on Tuesday nights in the winter, which is 34 weeks long. That is almost a human child’s gestation period,” she joked. “I’d spend a lot of time there being like, ‘This is such a vintage vibe. It’s so weird. It’s got so much character.’”
The track’s been a hit at shows, so much so that one family showed up to a concert in Layton in matching bowling shirts.
“Bowling is like Dolly Parton. It brings everyone together,” Stockman said.
But “League Night” hasn’t been nearly as much of a crowd-pleaser as the album’s closer, “Crimson Blues.”
“I would not know which song to end a set with, and I’d be like, ‘Do you guys want to hear a song about murder or bowling?’” she said. “You would think there would be more debate, but 98% of the people not requested, screamed the word, ‘Murder!’”
“Crimson Blues,” Stockman explained, is a clapback to bluegrass murder ballads.
“They’re all in major keys, and they’re just fun, upbeat songs about killing women for various reasons that aren’t very compelling,” she said. “This is … my unhinged, slightly psychotic, true crime-loving murder ballad.”
Moving from bowling to a murder ballad in the span of a few tracks is a reflection of Stockman’s growth as a songwriter in the five years since her last album, “These Four Walls.”
“The rule of thumb is you have to write 100 songs before you really have your voice,” she said.
Stockman feels she finally found that in “September.” She’s particularly proud of the lyric, “The first frost feels like closure, nature’s way of starting over. The woman I’ll be next fall, will I know her?”
Stockman’s voice, she said, is more “pedestrian” than “poetic.” She uses visual imagery to paint scenes of particular moments in her life or conversations she’s had.
Stockman’s growth in the past five years hasn’t been restricted to her songwriting. She’s also become more comfortable identifying as an artist instead of just “someone who plays music on the weekends.” These days, musicianship is her primary source of income, despite the fact that she doesn’t put too much effort into her social media presence and barely pays attention to her streaming statistics.
“It’s been a really weird space to navigate, to release a record in this day and age of AI and Ticketmaster and all that stuff,” Stockman said.
Her focus has been playing shows, selling merch and making in-person connections with fans and fellow musicians.
“(A fan) emailed me to tell me that he had to get an MRI. They asked him what he wanted to listen to, and he picked my music to help calm him while he was there,” she said. “That’s worth all the Spotify streaming numbers.”
Stockman’s work has been especially focused on her hometown. She started a house concert series as an incubator for local and touring musicians and hopes to launch songwriting workshops.
Stockman’s determination to move to Nashville a few years ago was driven by her desire to be part of its music scene and explore more of the world outside of Utah.
“I live one block from where I went to kindergarten. There were many times when I wrestled with the idea of feeling ashamed about living in my hometown still. It’s a pretty small town, or it was. So, 17-year-old me was really disappointed in mid-30s me for not going anywhere,” she said.
But Stockman has realized she doesn’t need to move to a music mecca; she can create one where she grew up.
“Once I embraced it, it changed things for me, and I started to build community in a way that I think I had been kind of avoiding,” she said. “I am on a mission to force my friendship any time I meet a new musician in the area. … What those cities have that we don’t have as well is that networking and that cohesiveness.”
Though Stockman has lived in Wasatch and Summit counties her entire life, it wasn’t until the last few years that she finally felt at home.
“The theme that I say about the record is, ‘Home is big enough to hold all the versions of yourself,’” she said. “Coming home, you can be who you were before and who you’ve become now. You don’t have to pick one or the other.”
Stockman’s next local shows are at Heber City Main Street Park on Thursday, and on Aug. 29 and 30, Le Depot Brasserie in Park City on Sept. 4 and St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Heber City on Sept. 12. Learn more at aliciastockman.com.