Somewhere in Louisiana there is an airboat captain who, in 2019, gave a swamp tour to a woman who turned out to be Lana Del Rey. He married her five years later, on the water, near the same bayou. And now, I am delighted to report, he has a job in the biggest video game of the decade: playing an airboat captain, in a swamp, in love with a country singer. Rockstar Games revealed the radio stations of Grand Theft Auto VI on October 8, 2026, and Back Country Radio, hosted by Lana and Morgan Wallen, comes with Jeremy Dufrene as its resident swamp weatherman. Here is what Rockstar actually announced, what Lana has said, and the small part that is still guesswork.
What Rockstar announced
Rockstar’s music page for the game lists six stations, and Back Country Radio gets a single line of billing: “Airboat-ready renegade country from MW and Delta Dawne.” According to Rockstar’s announcement, MW is voiced by Morgan Wallen and Delta Dawne by Lana Del Rey. The station broadcasts to the Grassrivers and Port Gellhorn, the swampy, small-town corners of Leonida, which is what the game calls its version of Florida. If you have ever driven the back roads between Tampa and nowhere, you know the vibe.
The third voice on the station is Mud Dog Mike, the roving reporter and swamp meteorologist who checks in from his airboat in the Grassrivers. He is voiced by Jeremy Dufrene. Rockstar’s own description goes one step further and calls Mike “Delta’s not-so-secret lover”. So a married couple is playing a couple, and the game is in on the joke before any of us got to make it.
Why the casting is a wink
I cover relationships for a living, and I can tell you that most celebrity love stories do not survive contact with the details. This one gets better with them. Lana met Dufrene in 2019 on one of the airboat tours he runs through the bayou near Des Allemands, Louisiana, and married him there on September 26, 2024, weeks after they went public, as Billboard reported at the time. He still runs swamp tours; marrying a Grammy-nominated singer did not change his commute. In the game, he plays a man on an airboat in a swamp, reporting the weather to a country DJ who happens to be his partner. Typecasting is usually an insult. Here it is a love letter.
For Lana, country is not a costume either. She has been drifting toward it for a while, singing at Stagecoach and talking about a country record that, per Stereogum, is still coming. Sharing a station with Wallen, one of the biggest names the genre has, puts her squarely inside that world rather than visiting it. My read: the game got the casting right because the couple got there first.
What Lana has said
Lana, who posts the way the rest of us check the weather, teased the news on her Instagram Story on October 7, the day before the reveal, according to Stereogum. Speaking to Rolling Stone, she called the role “super special and a privilege” and added: “Can’t wait to get into the game and start playing.” She also recalled that some of her family first got to know the roads of Los Angeles by playing an earlier Grand Theft Auto, which is set in a version of LA. I love that detail more than I should: a family learning a city from a video game, and then one of them ending up inside the next one.
Jeremy Dufrene and Morgan Wallen have not made public statements about their roles so far.
@morganwallen “Last Thing You Need” for Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album. Out now
https://twitter.com/RockstarGames/status/2108310216609558531
What plays on Back Country Radio
Rockstar’s preview of the station is three classic outlaw-country tracks with the two hosts talking in between, and the picks are not timid:
- David Allan Coe, “Need a Little Time Off for Bad Behavior”
- Loretta Lynn, “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)”
- Hank Williams Jr. and Waylon Jennings, “The Conversation”
Wallen also has a new song, “Last Thing You Need”, on Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album, a separate collection of 34 original tracks that comes out the same day as the game. No new Lana song has been announced for the album, which feels like a missed opportunity until you remember how she treats release dates.
Who else is on the radio
Lana is in loud company. Bad Bunny and RaiNao host the modern Latin station Cocoteo as El Martillo and La Gata. Robyn and model Alex Consani run the pop station Flash FM, a name longtime players will remember from Vice City. Burna Boy and DJ Palms Trax host AfroBank FM, Trick Daddy and Trina play Dirty South Classics, and Kerry King and Tom Araya of Slayer run the metal station The Chamber. Somewhere in that lineup is a swamp weatherman from Des Allemands, and he belongs there.
When you can hear it
Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled for release on November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Rockstar has put short previews of each station on its website, so you can already hear Delta Dawne and MW before launch.
The part I keep coming back to is this. Celebrity marriages usually get announced, photographed and then quietly managed. This one got written into a game, by people who, I suspect, read the same story we did and decided the airboat was the point. For the full version, from the 2019 boat tour to the wedding on the water, see our Lana Del Rey dating history.
Sources
- Rockstar Games: Grand Theft Auto VI, Back Country Radio preview
- Rockstar Games: Grand Theft Auto VI radio stations and The Album
- Consequence: GTA VI radio stations and hosts (October 8, 2026)
- Stereogum: Lana Del Rey, Morgan Wallen and her husband will host a GTA VI station (October 8, 2026)
- Rolling Stone: Bad Bunny, Lana Del Rey to light up the Leonida airwaves as GTA VI radio hosts (October 8, 2026)
- Billboard: Lana Del Rey marries airboat captain Jeremy Dufrene in Louisiana (September 2024)
- Holler: Morgan Wallen, Lana Del Rey and Jeremy Dufrene set to co-host Back Country Radio
