The Nashville husband-and-wife group pay tribute to their songwriter friend, who died in 2022 from a fentanyl-related overdose
Since musician Luke Bell died in 2022, his friends and family have worked constantly to make sure that his memory, artistic spirit, and legacy will continue on.
First came establishing the Luke Bell Memorial Affordable Counseling Program, where royalties from his works are filtered to make mental health treatments more readily accessible in his home state of Wyoming.
Then The King Is Back, a collection of previously unreleased tracks, shepherded by his mother Carol and sister Jane. And on Tuesday, two of Bell’s good friends, the songwriters Zach Schmidt and Jackie Berkley (a.k.a. the husband-and-wife duo known as Golden Everything), release their new single “White Buick,” a tender tribute to a man gone too soon. From their forthcoming EP Down Time, out July 17th, it charts Bell’s joy, talent, and enduring free spirit: “You’re not afraid of a hard day’s work, or howling at the moon,” they sing in gentle harmony.
“His energy was infectious,” Schmidt told Rolling Stone about Bell in 2025. The two met shortly after Schmidt moved to Nashville from a stint in Pittsburgh, and they became fast friends and collaborators. “It was kind of unrivaled in everything he did, and it translated to his music.”
