Brian Raleigh reminisces about a special moment in the not-too-distant past.

The Television City frontman reflects on a chance encounter with a woman in the U.P. and relishes that random connection on the band’s latest alt-country-rock single, “Lost in Arkansas.”

“It was a very innocent sort of meeting where we talked, we got to know each other, and we felt a very strong connection. That’s all there was,” said Raleigh, the Detroit band’s vocalist, guitarist, and keyboardist.

Backed by nostalgic electric guitar, pedal steel, and drums, Raleigh sings, “And in the blink of an eye / She was gone as quick as she came / Back to the wind, the Great Lakes / The trees and the rain / And I don’t think I’m ever gonna be the same again / As I was before / But I can remember when.”

“It’s about being lost in that moment,” he said. “It was a few years ago [when I met her] … and we’ve kept in touch a little bit.”

Raleigh wrote the track shortly after that encounter and shared it with his Television City bandmates.

“I might have written the song the day after that occurred or not too long after. And I put it away, and I thought, ‘I don’t even know if this song is any good or not,’” he said.

“And then I brought it out when we were looking for songs to record this next batch, and [guitarist] Garret [Bielaniec] said, ‘That’s the one.’”

Now, Raleigh is celebrating the release of “Lost in Arkansas” with Television City during a September 28 show with Jim Roll, Mike Galbraith, and Courtney Hurley at Ghost Light in Hamtramck, Michigan.

To learn more, I spoke with Raleigh about the band and single ahead of the show.

Q: How did your musical journey start while growing up in Howell, Michigan?

A: It started as a direct result of moving to Howell in 1980 when I was 10. We moved from a typical ‘70s neighborhood in Brighton where I had lots of friends. My life consisted of baseball, football, Star Wars, and BMX, and music wasn’t a big deal to me. But once I moved to Howell … out into the boondocks in Marion Township, I didn’t have any friends, and I turned on the radio. I said, “Oh, what’s this?” Whatever was on the radio in 1980—like Van Halen, The Clash, and AC/DC—I immediately became obsessed with music. That took hold for the remainder of my days.

I got a guitar early on from Schafer’s House of Music—it was an old Harmony Bobkat. I had one lesson and I never went back. I got a Mel Bay songbook from the lesson and then I started putting my fingers where Mel said to put my fingers. I started listening to AC/DC records, and I said, “Oh, yeah! I can do this.”

Q: How did your musical journey progress from there?

A: After that, it all can pretty quickly. I was never good at learning other people’s songs; I could never make it sound like that. Once I heard The Ramones, I said, “Oh yeah! I can do this.” Then I started making my own Ramones songs. I also had the requisite terrible high school bands; we were a cross between R.E.M. and Echo & the Bunnymen. I was fortunate enough to play with folks that were much better than me and that I could learn from.

Q: How did moving to Los Angeles help shape you as a musician?

A: I eventually moved to LA and played out there with various bands. Nothing too serious—LA is a weird town to be in a band. Everybody’s trying really hard and I think I almost had an attitude of trying hard is not cool. But I also learned a ton from some great players in Los Angeles.

Q: What was it like to come back to Michigan and form Porchsleeper?

A: I came home because I burned myself out in LA. I worked myself to the bone and to a point where I needed to get out of town. I eventually came back to Michigan and moved back to Ann Arbor. I had a bunch of songs that I had written and that I had been playing around town in LA. I needed a band to play them, and I formed a band in Ann Arbor called Porchsleeper. We put out a couple of records and played a bunch of cool shows. Porchsleeper lasted about eight or nine years.

Q: How did you come to form Television City? What did you learn while working on the band’s self-titled debut album in 2018?

A: About three or four years after that, I had a bunch more songs that I had accumulated and got the band back together. I got Garret [Bielaniec], Dave [Feeny], Kristin [Von B], and Jim Faulkner. We put out the Television City record and I’m really proud of that record. It’s hard to write a good song and we wrote—if not—a whole album of them, so it’s pretty dang close.

That’s where my songwriting started to evolve from the stuff that I was doing in Porchsleeper, which was much more the whoa-is-me, typical drunk-country kind of stuff to something that’s more introspective. In 2016 and 2017, we started working on that record and it was when we got the gumption up to get into the studio and get it done. It was a fun record to make.

Q: How did you arrive at Television City for the band name?

A: Television City is actually a television studio in Los Angeles that’s owned by CBS. Most of the old sitcoms and [shows] that appeared on CBS, like All in the Family and 60 Minutes, were all filmed at Television City. And I used to drive by it every day in LA and thought, “That’s a good name for something someday.”

Q: What does the current lineup of the band—Garret Bielaniec (guitar), Sam Vail (bass), Dave Feeny (organ, pedal steel), and Steve Bekkala (drums)—help bring to its overall sound?

A: [Bassist] Sam Vail is a great guitar player, but we already have a few guitar players in the band. Sam has been playing bass and he brings a different perspective to it—maybe a little bit more melodic. He’s super fun to play with. [Drummer] Dave [Below] recorded two songs on the first record; he was on “Mudface Down” and “Month of Sundays.” Steve Bekkala is our drummer now. 

Dave [Feeny] also is one of my favorite people in the whole world. He’s shaped me in a lot of ways. I’ve known and recorded with Dave for 25 years. When I’m writing a song, one of my first thoughts is “Is Dave gonna like this?” And if my brain says, “I think Dave might like it,” then I don’t think I’ll get the stink eye if I bring it to the studio. He’s a wonderful guy and a heck of a pedal steel player.

And Garret [Bielaniec] is maybe one of the best guitar players I’ve ever met. Garret definitely contributes the rock and he gives us the punch in the arm that I feel like I need. Sometimes we’ll be playing a song live, and he’ll start soloing and I’ll just lean into him. I’ll say, “Keep going.” He’s one of the most soulful, skilled rock players in town. We’re very lucky to have Garret.

Q: How does “Lost in Arkansas” serve as an ode to living in the moment and celebrating the random connections that we make with people?

A: In the course of our lives, we interact with random humans on a daily basis. Some of those humans make an impact on you and some of them don’t make an impact whatsoever. For whatever reason, at that point, that was an interesting interaction with a person that I had not ever come in contact with that was like that. It’s those kinds of random moments that make you appreciate interactions with human beings. The more time we spend in front of phone screens, the less we have of that. I think it’s important that we have those interactions.

Q: Tell me about your creative process for “Lost in Arkansas.” How long did you spend writing the track and recording it at Ferndale’s Tempermill Studio?

A: It was another one of those that took about as long to write down as it did to play. That’s one of the things where I’ve been trusting myself to go with it and not think too hard about it. And then I didn’t do anything with it for a long time—life kinda happened. I didn’t show it to the band for a little while; we were still playing shows around the first record. And then I showed it to them when we went into the studio to do this last batch of songs. They pointed out that they thought it was better than I thought it was.

We started basic tracks in 2022 and then we finished it up this summer. Drummer Jim Faulkner brought a great beat to it, and he came up with that beat with Dave Feeny. It really transformed the song from this acoustic ballad kind of thing and then they said, “No, put this beat to it.” The beat that Jim put on it was this Cars-like, very steady, but strong backbeat. It transformed the song from what I thought it was to what it is now. As far as our studio stuff, Jim has done most of the [drumming] there.

Q: What plans do you have for your September 28 single-release show at Ghost Light in Hamtramck, Michigan? What will Jim Roll, Mike Galbraith, and Courtney Hurley help bring to the show that night?

A: We’ll definitely play “Lost in Arkansas.” There are a few other new ones that we’ve been playing lately from the last batch that we’ll definitely work in there. There may or may not be an old Porchsleeper song, we’ll see. We’re a spontaneous live band so anything could happen … We’ll see what feels good.

I’m so happy to get Jim out, and I can’t wait to play with him. I’ve known Jim for what seems like forever and he’s a great friend. I can’t thank him enough for doing this. I’ve known Mike for a long while. We have a lot of friends in common … and Mike and Courtney have been playing a ton of shows. I’m excited to see those guys, too.

Q: What’s up next for you in terms of new material?

A: We’ve been working on a new batch of tunes—which seems like forever—but the working part seems to be in fits, stops, and starts. We just do this for fun; we’re not in it to make a million dollars over and over. We’re all buddies and we like making music together. We have a bunch of stuff in the can—maybe we’ll put some singles out and eventually put them on an album. We’re working on the next [single] right now, trying to get it wrapped up, and hopefully, get it out by the end of the year.

Television City performs September 28 with Jim Roll, Mike Galbraith, and Courtney Hurley at Ghost Light, 2314 Caniff Street in Hamtramck. Doors at 7 p.m. and music at 8 p.m. For tickets, visit Eventbrite.com.