Los Angeles is where Michigan Rattlers singer-guitarist Graham Young finds himself based these days, but home will always be Middle America. That much is obvious from the punchy Americana he specializes in with bandmate and childhood friend Adam Reed. If song titles like “Illinois Sky” don’t give you an idea of where he sometimes dreams of being during his more melancholy moments, then consider the driving love letter that is “Brutus Road”. Over country-punk guitars that suggest a deep appreciation for Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne, Young wrings every bit of emotion out of lines like “And the stars ain’t like I remember them/Out Brutus Road in northwest Michigan.”

“It’s definitely a bittersweet relationship with Los Angeles,” the singer says, reached at home in the City of Angels. “I think all of us in the band definitely miss living up north in Petos­key [Michigan]. It’s a case of missing family, and missing friends. Still, I completely dig Los Angeles. You can always find something to do, and you can’t beat the weather.”

The singer was the first to move to California, with Reed following him after wrapping up his schooling.

“I lived in Chicago for a while and loved it a lot—I was there for three years,” Young says. “After playing in a band there, it kind of ran its course and I was looking for something new. Los Angeles seemed like an option despite being far away from home. It somehow seemed more accessible than New York City.”

It would be hard to imagine Michigan Rattlers setting up in NYC, mostly because the group seems to have deep roots in Californian soil, despite Young and Reed being transplants. Michigan Rattlers sound as comfortable turning Leonard Cohen’s “On the Level” into an overproof roadhouse rambler as they do injecting heartland rock with an extra layer of Americana twang on “Strain of Cancer”. Whether intentionally or not, 2016’s eponymous Michigan Rattlers EP came across as part of a lineage stretching from the legendary Flying Burrito Brothers to the underappreciated Long Ryders.

What stands out is the attention to little things, whether the band (which includes multi-instrumentalist Christian Wilder) is celebrating Michigan’s Brutus Road, or name-checking the Mustang Lounge in the stardusted “Sweet Diane”. Sure enough, those places exist, proof that while Young might be on some level loving L.A., that doesn’t stop him from thinking about his real home.

“I guess what I set out to do was write songs for myself,” says the singer, who’s just finished a full-length with his bandmates. “That meant writing about things that were personal to me. It’s kind of strange, but when you do something that’s super personal, it can also be super relatable for a lot of people. Even if only about one percent of the people who’ve heard ‘Sweet Diane’ have been to the Mustang Lounge, they’ve got their own Mustang Lounge that they can plug in.”

Michigan Rattlers play the WISE Lounge on Thursday (May 10).