BOBBYCAST: Cody Jinks on Why People Think He’s Mean + The Reason He Quit Drinking + From Playing 200 Shows a Year to Spending More Time with Family + How an Identity Crisis Led To a Big Mistake

I went and did a show in Alabama for seven thousand people the next night.

Nobody knew it was me when I walked down on stage.

It was the weirdest thing I can ever remember happening in my life. Because I was already messed up. I just thought, Oh my god, what am I doing? Who am I like?

Who is this character?

Welcome to episode five twenty eight with Cody Jinks. He's a native of Haltham City in Fort Worth, Texas, and he still lives in Texas, right yep. So when he comes around, he's just like coming up to do all the Nashville stuff.

Then heading back home knocks it all out.

That's kind of the dream, Like if this is not your home, then you don't have to like move somewhere, because a lot of people they have to. We had to move here, and I like it here now. But it's kind of the dream to be Texas and stay in Texas. I mean, Parker McAll him, just moved back to Texas living back there?

Would you do that?

Like with Arkansas? You just come here like once a month.

I need to come here, though once a month. I don't think just stay there. I think this now is home. But I would move to Faetteville. Probably when did it feel like home to you? Because it's like just started to feel like home to me in like the last one or two years. Yesterday, Yeah, yesterday it did. For the first house, like dangs feels like home. Uh, probably whenever Caitlin moved here, because then I had a reason

Oh, I do know the drums.

Thinking about Cody though, he's made his own path, he's kind of killing it and we spent an hour talking about that. He has a new album out that is called In My Blood, just came out on Friday. He is on his Hippies and Cowboys tour that kicked off at the end of May, and you can go and watch him. He's also doing two headlining shows at the Chelsea at the Cosmo in Vegas, December twelfth and thirteenth. Here he is Cody Jinks.

Cody, good to see you.

Likewise, thank you, thank you so much for having me and hosting.

Do you feel like people?

And I'm going to ask this because my answer to you is yes, and I feel like the answer to me is yes. But do you feel like people get the wrong impression of you before they meet you?

Yes?

Because I did, because you've done the show before and I found you quite delightful, which is not what I thought I would think about having you.

Say can I say diddo? You can say whatever you want.

I actually, after the first time we spoke, I've left going I was like, oh man, I like that guy same.

And it's not that I didn't expect. I didn't expect you to like me. And because I didn't expect you to like me, because you're Cody freaking Jinx right, and you got a big beard and it's like you're independent f everything, And I'm like that kind of dude doesn't know my story, so he's gonna think he doesn't like me, so I don't like him. That's how I felt the first time I met you and you left. I remember telling everybody like, that's my new best friend, Like I love that dude.

So that's my takeaway from the last time.

I agree. No, I appreciate that. No, I did.

I liked you and and God and this is so bad man. And I'm just being completely honest. In this business, so oftentimes it's not that you want to like, I'm not even gonna want to lock that person or dislike that person or whatever.

But you you're like, oh, I was surprised.

Again.

I've been doing this twenty five years and it's like, oh, yeah, no, he was cool. Okay, good, good, awesome.

It's cool to me when a preconceived notion that gets very conceived because I'm jaded a bit by the industry good and bad ways. You meet so many people, and there's a reason cliches are cliche for the most part, because things in this world that you think of one way usually end up being.

That way, usually not always.

And No, I found you to be really cerebral. I found you to be quite generous and kind with your time, and you just don't look like you'd be It's the tattoos and the biker beard and your story.

You know, it's it's funny that you say that, and I do get that quite a bit. My daughter is a teenager, and recently, within the last few months, you know, she said, I've been I've been home.

We just started our tour, but I've been home a great deal of time.

And she's been in dance competition season, and she thought that I was not enjoying going to these dance competitions because I stand there like that, Yeah, just just straight yeah.

And that's that's just that's just me.

So whenever this guy is just standing there like this, and she goes, dad, you look mad and pissed off all the time. And and and I think that the other young lady she dances with her, he's used. They're used to me now, but the parents are as well. But I guess it just looks like I'm always pissed off. And she goes, you just look mad all the time. And I was like, Casey, Casey, I was just talking

I'm I may look like that or you know this.

I was like, but I'm watching you do your solo and I'm trying not to tear up.

I was like, did you just need to hear me say that? Like does that help?

And yes it did.

Actually, So I was like, I'm not talking to people because I'm enjoying watching you perform. You know, it's beautiful and I love it. And I've been gone on the road for a lot of my kids lives. So the baseball games, in the ballet recitals, the parents are all nice, they're all great people.

Kids are great.

You know it.

Just after a while they realized, oh, you can go talk to him.

And it may take halfway through the season because I don't talk. I don't just sit down and talk to people. Dude, say, you know, if if.

Somebody walks up and says something, I love it.

Intelligence If you walk up and you want to talk about fishing or Hey, what do you walk up and ask me what book I'm reading?

Bro Like, I'll be like, let's go, let's.

Talk, you know, but yeah, it's it's I don't seem approachable oftentimes, but I enjoy a great conversation. I'm far better one on one than I am in social scenarios.

I'm very socially awkward.

Same weird because we both have jobs that are The job itself is that of an extreme extrovert, the job on the stage. I would find that people at times would send me a DM going, hey, I saw you so and so, and you just weren't that nice. Now, I have never not be nice to anybody that appreciates what I do. If it's right books, if it's do podcasts, if it's too stand up. I've never, ever, ever not been nice. And I'd be like, well where was I, they would say, and I said, why did I talk

I assume deep down nobody wants me there anyway. Part of my job as an entertainers, as the gester is I've I've earned my way through life entertaining well.

The gest are part of me too.

I'm I have great confidence in that part of me when I'm there to do that, specifically, when I'm to be a normal human, I feel like I have three arms and four eyeballs me too and so, and because of that, I don't go I'm just not I won't say not friendly, but I'm not bothersome. It's what it feels like to me. I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna bother anybody. So people will go like, man, what a dick. I'm like, I know, just say something.

Isn't that funny?

I'm the same way, and people are like I think people are. It's it's off putting to people because they assume, yeah, what a dick, and like and I've been in scenarios.

Worth man, I don't remember anybody saying anything.

To me at all because I've, like you said, while ago, I've never I've never not been if some of it is not being mean to me. I've never not been nice intentionally to somebody just for the sake of not being nice or we all have our days and things of that nature.

But like, dude, I don't say mean things to people.

I actually appreciate when people appreciate what I do, because it's that's what I work so.

Hard to do.

I am the first one to if you walk, I love any It never bothers.

Me with people at airports wherever. When I'm eating, Oh no, I don't want to. I don't want that.

I don't want it. But I never see anything mean.

I may say fair enough.

I may say, hey, man, I'm trying to have a meal with my family. I'd love I'd love to give me, give me thirty minutes, dude, you know, let me have I'll do that and and I'll go over and what interrupt his meal later.

But you know, uh, that's a general role too.

I'll share with people that, hey, if somebody's creating something, they like to be appreciated for the creation. However, the two times that I would not go up to a celebrity if they're in public is when they're eating or with their kids.

Kids.

Those are those are universally the two that I say, don't do it.

Me neither me, neither not.

Everybody can control themselves. And I think that you've probably run into that too. People like kind of they just kind of like oh, and they just gravitate to you, and all of a sudden they're there and they're and then they're having a moment where they're saying, I don't

Have a good day. I don't want this to come off.

And I think both of us are coming from the same place, like I couldn't appreciate more when someone relates and enjoys is entertained by something I do. And we don't have kids yet, but I do eat, and it's like nobody wants to have somebody come over the top of them and like spit in their food, but we do appreciate when someone comes up. I've never I'll say it this way, I've never met somebody who creates who doesn't appreciate somebody coming up to them and saying, hey,

Yeah, and the people, like you said, the people that create, even if they're maybe because oftentimes, you know, people will walk up and they may get nothing more from me than a handshake and a thank you very much.

I really appreciate that.

But I'm saying that because thank you very much, because I really appreciate it. Maybe all I have to say about it, but I love to hear that. And even if you just get a thanks man like No, that's like our guitar player Chris from Walks a Hatchie, that's where That's where Mike's from.

Yeah, yeah, we.

Were just talking about that and uh and and then the fort work for for I came to my hometown for Worth. But our guitar player Chris, he's one of those guys people obviously, he doesn't say anything. He's been with us years and years and we've had like four conversations, and he's one of those guys that he's like thanks man, and.

That's he's he loves it. You just made his whole day.

But all you get is thanks man. You know he's up there talking with his guitar.

So that's value. Yeah, especially if Mike doesn't talk, not a whole lot. Yeah, I mean doesn't talk.

Yeah, well it still waters man.

I'm not sure why doesn't talk, because he's a brilliant.

Guy, but yeah, smart dude gotta like pull on it and be like hey man, so you won.

Those are the best kind of people though. I've found, like my wife is is like that not I mean, you know, it's it's I've been captivated by her because there's so much more going on than I know. And so that's why I still want to be around hers, because like I'm still I'm still trying to solve that that thing because she's she's very much that kind of character.

Are you are?

Are you a Capricorn?

Cancer? You're cancer? Okay?

Yeah, man, I don't know any of that means.

You know, I don't either.

I don't, but I know my wife's a Capricorn.

So I was just throwing darks there got it?

What Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I know, mention of music.

What are three things that you are super interested in and you love No music, no, no music even nothing could be even music adjacent?

Yeah, no, no worries.

No, I got I got the hunting and fishing fishing first, you know, but I'll categorize those as as the same thing, the hunting and fish, and that would well, that would be the second thing. Family has been a super huge focus for me the last couple of years.

I've really spent.

Time and focus and and effort and h and trying to be a better husband and father, hunting and fishing after that, and I think, I think thirdly, you know, I'm I'm taking better care of myself mentally and spiritually and physically as well. That's that's become a big focus for me. I spent a lot of my life in a haze, and so I'm able to to take care of I have more bandwidth now and so I'm able to to take care of everything better, including myself.

And so I think my family and.

Taking care of myself being getting out into nature, you know, getting a rod and reel and you know, that's that's that's a really spiritual thing for me, and outdoors people get.

That, what is your favorite kind of fishing?

I grew up bass fishing. I grew up in a john boat on stock tanks, and I remember my dad got his first bass boat. We got a seventy nine Skeeter whenever I was fifteen, and an old tryhole, tryhole skeeter, and that's when we started fishing big water. We got into striper fishing, and uh that all everything spawned from bass fishing, though, but I I fish all the.

Time still still.

If I'm at home, I'll fish at least twice a week. But I'll fish for everything I usually I love. Well, I was just cat. I was cat fishing with my buddy before I got here, before I left on this trip, and then I was fishing with my I was crappie fishing with my dad, and so I planned on doing some bass fish when I get home.

My stepdad was a striper guide.

Oh gosh, yeah, man.

To me the best, and I spent all my kid life in the woods or on the water. I know you're watching this and judging me of I'm a nice card again that I wear now, But I'm just a redneck from Arkansas. My stepdad though, was a striper guide after he worked at the mill, so on the weekends in the evenings he was a striper guide, and then when he retired, he continued to be a striper guide. To me, that is the most fun because those are the biggest. But for my mom died and we still

I don't know anybody that's ever caught a forty two I know guides that don't have.

I mean I know a guide my step who doesn't have a for it. Yeah, my mom freaking caught it before she died.

My uh.

And and so we do a bunch of hybrid Did you ever catch shad?

Uh?

You know, no, we used them, but we would pay for a guy to give us the shad.

So I had to because we would catch our own shad and then keep us throwing the net yep and and keep onlightbl they'd only stayed alive for twelve hours. Sure, so there, but so you'd see him flicker on the top and I'd have to drive the boat sometimes before school to catch the shad.

It's hardcore.

It's hardcore, especially when you're like twelve and he's on the front of the boat with the net that throw net that you it's hard to throw because that's spread perfectly, sink down, you pull it back up and catch the shad. He's going to use those throughout the day. And but when you're twe A many times I dumped on the water.

You know what's.

Funny that you say that is because I'm just having my dad being in the front of the boat on the flipping deck saying all right, boy, back up just.

A little bit and in him, you know, because I.

Just want yeah exactly, You're like, there was no moderation for us and that young in a boat.

It's funny.

I just had that that menage that mental image.

Uh that So we did one and then hybrids were fun because white bass dripper they fight hard.

Even not as big.

Absolutely, the white bass kind of sucked a lot of a lot of bass fishing, which is the you know, black bass, depending on a large mouth. But we lived near a ramp, and when the trout truck would drive by, and I went to school. I graduated in ninety eight, so in probably like ninety six, we'd see the trout truck drive by. That would stock and our school was just like, yeah, we understand, just leave whenever you see a drive back.

I used to skip school to go fishing.

Not skip, it wasn't skipped. The school would know. The school would go, oh, you guys all the trout truck just can your car and go.

So we would go.

And then as soon as they would dump, just ripping off yep. So that and then the best eating.

Was crappy, for sure.

Absolutely crappy is the best.

It's the best eating.

Absolutely crappy is the best for eating fish. The trout in Texas, see, you guys were a little you guys could get more. The trout would stay longer after they were dumped, probably because y'all's waters were a little cooler than ours, because very cold right by the damn yeah yeah, whenever they drop in the I guess the DFW experiences. They'll stay alive for a little while and they'll drop

So I never did this as a kid. But did you ever fly fish?

No?

No.

My dad got into it after I was out of the house, and he said that he loved a brim fish.

We called him perch perch, yeah, we called him perch jerkin. Yeah, we'd go do the perch jerkin.

Yeah. And he learned.

He taught hisself how to fly fish. And I have never learned it. And I know to me the people that do it and have dedicated their self to the art of it.

Have you done no? Now?

I Johnny Morris, best pro shop owner, invited us to come up to his property once and he let us go on what he calls his his honey hole and it was with fly rods. Yeah, and didn't know how to do it. We were still yanking him out like crazy. But that's my only experience. But I didn't grow up around that. I wondered if you did, though, Like, well, first of all Zepko as a kid, yeah, and the thirty three Yeah, and then it just, you know, slowly elevated itself.

But I never I don't think I I would have the patience or.

The because I feel like fly fishing is almost like you were talking about, it's almost a meditation of sorts because you have to focus on the fly, putting, creating the fly, using the fly, so all of that.

I think the whole process is beautiful.

I would It's kind of like I tried playing golf and I'm no good at it, but I tried it and I gained an.

Appreciation for it that I didn't have before.

I'm not fly fishing, but I.

Love all the.

Process of it, like you said, preparing the flies.

And then I think that fly fishermen are going out there and working on just their technique and having the mental thing going on there. I think that's probably as much, I'm guessing, as much to do with it as anything. I don't know, I could be wrong, but I just I think it's a it's a focus thing. It's a just standing there and making sure your swing is correct. It's you know, doing your scales on a guitar on it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.

Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

When you talk about reading books, what kind of books do you like to read?

I read a.

Little bit of everything.

Right now. I went back and I'm reading my buddy.

Tennessee Yet gave me East of Eden. Probably give a buddy named Tennessee Jet.

Yeah. What's Tennessee Jet do? Because he sounds like he's making moonshine.

He's a songwriter, buddy of okay, all right?

Yeah?

And he might be making a boo shout.

I don't know.

But he gave me a copy of East of Eden years ago, and I'm finally getting through it, and I think I've found the most horrible villain I've ever read about in any book in East of Eating. Her name is Kathy. She's like the most vile thing I have ever read about. I'm reading that one right now.

Is that true?

The story?

It's a fiction story.

Yeah, it's a Steinbeck book and it's a classic. I'm revisiting. So I do fun stuff with my wife and I read a whole bunch both of us, and so she's usually she reads a bunch of different stuff than I do, but we kind of trade back and forth, and I've usually got a physical book going and an audible book going. I don't listen to as much radio anymore, listen to my stories, my programs.

The problem with Audible and reading. I tried to do the same book, reading it and listening to it. Yeah, I just simultaneously or differently, well at different times. So in my car, I would try to listen to the book and then if I was back home, I read it. The problem is I wish they would tell you page turn and Audible what page number it was on, because then I can't find it in the book, and if I do two books and once again my stories mixed up.

I've had that problem.

I was reading a book recently and there was a part in the book that I flagged on Audible, and then I had the physical copy of the book and it to me forever to find it because I was going to like circle littery.

Yeah, that's I just like would like to use that time to continue, Yeah, chasing the story, which I'm totally into, or if it's a nonfiction book. But I can't do I can't do two books because my stories mix up in my head. And then if I try to do one listening and one read but the same book, I can't ever catch up. I can't find the spot O. There are bigger problems in the world, but not many.

Exactly And I feel you, man, No, it's it's it's a it's a it's a good problem to have in it.

What kind of teenager were you?

I was probably weird, weird.

Or problematic or both.

Yeah.

I walked right up to the edge of going to jail now.

I mean I went to jail once for stealing street signs and it was dumb. I was sixteen with some of my buddies. But I was mischievous. I wasn't bad. I was mischievous and it was anything for a laugh.

Everything was a good time. So it was it was.

I was quiet at home, and I'm still quiet at home. But when I was because my dad was very, very strict.

That was a hard dude.

When we were home, when I was a kid, so it was kind of like what kind of moods? Dad and everybody else was really quiet. So my mouth got me into a lot of trouble at school because everything that I wasn't.

Able to do it.

I was like what to school?

And I got in trouble for you know, I skipped class a lot, but the teachers loved me, so it was kind of like, mister Jenks, go back to wherever you're supposed to be and quit disrupting my class.

It was that kind of thing. It was. I played sports.

I was I was a below average athlete, but I played sports all through high school. I worked from the time I was a freshman all the way through high school. And so if I wasn't working or playing sports, I was at home playing guitar.

I didn't go to parties. I wasn't a part of that group.

Where'd you get the guitar?

I picked my dad's up when I was fifteen.

Where'd he get the guitar?

My dad bought a nineteen eighty one Takamini right after he and my mom had me, and it was a lost TAKAMENI was one of the Eel three forty nine's the name looked like the Martin name, and you'll hear people talk about the lawsuit talkomenis and that's those. So Dad bought one of those, and I grew up around it, but didn't pick it up until I was fifteen, and

Because your dad was, as you described him, either quiet, I don't know if he was unpredictable.

My dad was unpredictable.

We found out what bipolar was in nineteen ninety four.

So prior to that, he was just unpredictable.

Yeah.

Yeah, my mom was bipolar two and an addict.

So definitely similar vibe where everything was kind of on our backs because we did we didn't trust it enough to be on hers. Yes, if he's playing guitar and then you start playing guitar, was a bit of you playing guitar to I won't say b like, but to show him, hey, like, pay attention to me.

I'm doing what you like to do.

No, Because I remember him, I remember him.

Being I'd be like, hey, Dad, check this out.

And he always had so much on his mind, you know, and I just it was kind of like, yeah, that's that's cool, you know. And it wasn't that I wanted him to be proud of me for it. Now, after I got older and I was started making a living in the bars and Dad really softened up. You know, Dad'll tell you. You know, he's living both of our dreams. You know, Dad wanted to do this. That's what Dad wanted to do. You know, didn't work out in his

He's still alive, he is, Yeah, he is.

Mom and Dad fortunately are both still around him.

Wow.

Did you feel like playing the guitar later on brought you guys closer? Did he give you a conduit to actually talk and like open up it all?

Phishing was our first and really one of our only conduits when I was a kid. That's really why I loved fishing with my dad because that's we didn't really talk. And that was the funny thing. We would sit in the boat for hours and hours and hours and talk a little.

Bit and Dad.

Dad and I always had had a good relationship. I have always had a good relationship. We've always been able to talk despite him being a He's a very loving man in spite of being very difficult and very hard and not understanding what mental illness is.

And like I said, until the nineties.

And the guitar has really I wrote a song on the new record, you know, and I'm talking kind of about that top thing about Dad used to sing the cats and the cradles when I was a kid, and now we're living that, and so I make mention of that. And now I'm on the road working and providing for a family and have been for a long long time and trying to to balance, you know, son, when you coming home soon? You know, Dad, I don't know when.

So it's it's why I don't to quite as much anymore.

My children are getting older, our parents are getting older, and our band, most of our band is all this hell Man, hot Rod are still player.

He just jumped back on the road. He just lost his mom. So our band is entering that phase of.

Our life, you know.

So it's that's a kind of a kind of a weird place to be. But to answer your question, Dad just he loves what I do. He still loves it.

To just expand on that for those lest things.

So Cat Stevens had Cats in the Cradle and the Silverspoon, the little the whole song is really about the dad being gone doing his thing and the kids like where. Yeah, like I don't get to see you know. It's that vibe. Yes, And you say you live in that now, but I feel like you're from what I've learned from you, like you're trying not to live that as much now.

Yeah, we had we hit the brakes Man, We really did. I had to for my mental health. You know. I know that the band is enjoyed spending time with their family, their families respectively, and it's it's important we stayed gone for a very very long time.

Well when you say stay gone, because here, even if I'm torny stand up, I'm doing maybe Thursday night, but Friday night, Saturday night, I'm back Sunday, I gotta feeling that ain't what you're doing or wasn't what you were doing?

No for man.

For thirteen years from seven to twenty twenty, when COVID hit, I was gone nine to ten months a year gone gone, I would come home. I would be gone three to four weeks, come home for one or come home for two on a long one't be gone three to four weeks, come home for one or two weeks. So yeah, it worked out to where, you know, some of those years we were playing over two hundred shows a year, or I was acoustic in full band, and there wasn't coming home for weeks at a time.

This may seem like an odd question, and it might be stupid, but did it ever feel less comfortable to be at home?

Yeah, freak.

That's why I stayed gone a lot.

That's why I drank so much, And that's why me and my kids are making up for not making up, but are spending more time together now. Because I didn't talk to my kids a lot because it was too painful whenever I was on the road, you know, So when they were young, you know, uh, it was just you know, dad was gone and sometimes you didn't hear from him for days at a time, and I was just on the road and sad and drunk and playing shows and and COVID hit and that was a forced

You know, I was like, man, I have just been a real.

You can say, otherfucker, yeah, you know, and I still am, but you know, it's uh, it's it's gotten better.

So the focuses have changed, Like I said, well go it's been you know, family, family has has uh. I Man, I did a lot of damage. I did a lot of damage and so we're we're working on it.

The kids are working on.

It too, because they've had to get used to two different guys because I'm like how everybody perceived me to be for all those years. I was that guy at home too, like it that wasn't an act, man, I was a fucking asshole.

What was the goal just at I was mad at the world, dude, I'm just what was the goal to fucking punish the world?

I don't know, at let's do twenty five year old Cody, What's what was the life goal, sing.

About how pissed I was, sing about how eft up everything was, you know, I mean, in your.

A perfect scenario, where was the apex of your career?

What was the biggest thing? What was the goal there?

Did you want to do play on top of the moon, just stadiums? Did you want to make a living?

Just make a living?

Really?

I never I never wanted to be a whatever kind of band, stadium band I wanted to.

It was more important to me to go out as an artist.

That was like, oh God, that hurt, Like as an artist's artist, as somebody that it was like you look at somebody that maybe you wouldn't have had I don't know, Well, you wouldn't have had any You wouldn't have had a Metallica or anybody else without Sabbath, you know, like you might not have had Shanaia Twain without Reebash and I, you know, blew the doors off everybody. You wouldn't have had, you know, maybe George Straight without Meurle or Lefty Frizell and look what George has done.

So being an artist like, but those artists still have their favorites.

And knowing that I made a mark was more important to me than the size of where I played.

Did you ever? Did you ever?

When did you start writing songs that you felt were more personal in music than you actually would ever share with anybody in real life.

My junior year I was really when I think I started writing. Well.

I had been dabbling in writing since I had been like seven years old, and I remember writing metal songs when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old, and some of them were good stuff, and then we're really horrible, I would imagine. But I think really, when I was probably sixteen seventeen eighteen, I started kind of and I gained the confidence from a teacher that I had. I'll tell this story yesterday about a teacher that I had

And I was like, huh hmmm, I don't think.

Thanks, I don't.

I don't even know how to take that. You know, I've never been great at anything. I've been pretty good at some stuff, you know, But I don't know.

Maybe I can do this, I don't know. Who knows.

The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast did.

You and were you able to use music as a bit of a cape or superhero costume and it was the truth, but you were able to use that as a way to say it when you wouldn't say otherwise.

Yeah, absolutely, under because you can say anything through music. Nobody wants to hear your opinions if you want to get off politically or on a spiritual thing or whatever. You know, people will listen to your songs all day. They do not want to hear you talk about it. When you're a songwriter, and that's your job. Yeah, it's you can say anything you want a song, you know so.

And I learned that very quick as a guy who and I'm gonna throw a big blanket over this, who did it all yourself? Independently? And I know there's a lot of nuance to that, and you didn't do it. Nobody does it all themselves. But sure you understand what I'm saying for the.

Sake of that whenever.

You started to grow, because I know what it's like to go at it really hard for a long time and have almost no traction. And I my first I built my own syndication company with my own money that I didn't have that I didn't have, and then all of a sudden, I'm creating traction and it's like, Wow, this guy's kind of an overnight success. And I'm like, you have no idea, Like I've been killing myself for fifteen freaking years.

Your story is a bit different. But you did do it yourself.

A lot of parallels though, and when you start catching on. Is that weird because you did it a long time and you were and you were doing wonderfully as compared to what you wanted to do with your life. But there was a time where you started to pierce the consciousness of a casual country music fan.

Was that a weird time?

Yeah?

And it happened when I was thirty seven, and.

I feel like you weren't doing anything different too. I think that's what was weird about it.

I remember being thirty seven years old and thinking, I guess I've air quotes made it when I started really gaining traction, And then also remember thinking, huh, wow, feeling different to me, you know, And so yeah, it is.

It is weird.

And did you really have to create the art differently or did you even think should I create the art?

I got impressed, I got depressed.

Man, I went into a really deep depression from about thirty seven thirty eight, thirty nine.

I was on those seventeen eighteen or nineteen, and I was on.

The road really really, really hard all three of those years, and I was not taking care of myself.

I was I was really drinking too much, and.

Well I had impostors syndrome and was and went through an identity crisis. I remember being on a tour with Jamie Johnson and shaved my beard off. I got really drunk, shaved my beard off because I hadn't seen what I looked like. So what's the best thing to do? Shave your beard off? Pissed drunk at three o'clock in the morning.

Obviously, Yeah.

And then my wife walked in and I'd been off the road, and she's like, what are you doing. I was like, I shaved my beard off. She's like, wow, I want to see what it look like. She goes, what do you think? I go, I don't like it. And I grew my beard. But I went and did a show in Alabama for seven thousand people the next night or two nights later, something like that.

Nobody knew it was me when I walked.

Out on stage.

It was the weirdest thing I can ever remember happening in my life because I was already messed up and then I just walked out.

On stage and nobody knew who I was.

It was almost like like the dream where you don't have pants on and the like, that's as close to that real life situation.

I just thought, Oh my god, what am I doing? Who am I?

Like?

Who is this fucking character that I've created? Like I don't even know who I am? You know, Like I've been drunk my entire adult life. I've been on the road continually, you know, and like I had just start figuring some stuff out. Man. It's so yeah, COVID hit forced time home, man, and really a lot of introspection at that. And then last couple of years, I hadn't been drinking so at all. No, not at all, well,

Just not touring as much.

Did you have concerns that if you didn't drink you wouldn't be the same.

Yeah.

It was a weird thing because when I was a kid, I remember watching an interview with George Jones and here, and I remember him talking about when he quit drinking, he goes, I didn't think I could walk on stage without it. I had to learn how to do everything over. I took my first sober plane ride when I was forty three. I did everything. I did everything over it. I had to learn how to walk again. I had to learn how to talk again. I had to learn how to do everything I'd learned to write.

At the height of your drinking, what we're drinking and how much to day.

The height of my drinking, I was drinking a bottle of whiskey and a twelve pack of beer golly every day.

Could you still get drunk?

Yeah? Oh yeah, I'd be hammered.

Yeah.

At what point of the day i'd be hammered by? I'd be hammered by five or six.

Were you completely functioning? Yes? Functional?

Yeah.

Did it feel like if you weren't drunk you wouldn't be as functional? Yes? Because that was.

That's what addicts do though, Yeah, that's that, that's the attic thing. That's like, No, I didn't know if I could do without it, and then you know it's like, well, doing with it is really starting to screw things up, dude.

You know, did you have with draws when you start drinking?

Yeah?

Yeah, night sweats and about for how long.

I had night mayors And I really had really bad sweats for the first week, and then night mayores went on for a couple of weeks, and then I started sleeping really well.

And you'll hear you'll hear addicts.

Talk about that, like you'll as we like, you're sleeping better, and you'll know when somebody's kind of turned that corner, because you know, that's something that starts happening. Your natural your chemicals start to rebalance.

My So I tricked with my mom and rehab a few times, and I don't know, my dad a biological day left when I was five six, and my mom was an attic and from a very small rural town.

So it was meth.

It was it was it was all alcohol is weird. It was everything, but the meth. That's that was the big getter. Yeah, and then opioids because they were so easy to get and so cheap to get, so and then it would turn into mouthwash. Right, it was anything with alcohol, sure, So multiple times I would check my mom in, but she could easily check herself out because it wasn't a hold, and she would constantly check herself out, and I would be upset and I wouldn't understand. I

I feel it.

So we went for like a year a week experimental with things, and finally he was like, hey, look you're gonna be You're getting sick because you're not sleeping. Because I wasn't sleeping at all, and so I took a sleeping pill and I took it for like two or three months, but I found myself tethered to it, and I'm hyper aware of it. And I try not to say addicted, because I've seen real addiction and I don't think I was addicted, but I was.

I was very dependent.

And I just stopped taking it one day and I had some minor withdraws and like my eyes were black, not physically, but like I would open them and it was still black, and I would sweat and it was very minor. And I remember going through that small, small withdraws, and it gave me the greatest understanding, except I had no idea of what my mom went through because her was a thousand times worse. And it was the only time in my life that I or it was the first time that I actually went.

I get it.

I get why she couldn't quit because it had to be hell for her who was basically addicted to anything and everything. And my tiny dependence on sleeping pills and the tiny withdraw that I had hurt me physically so bad that I related to my mom more in that situation because I didn't really have a real relationship with her than any other time while.

She was alive. Yeah. Wow, Yeah, And.

That's why I ask about that with the withdraws. If that's if physically you know it hurt you after that long of drinking that significant.

Yeah, that's no, that's incredible. That's that you that you that you felt that.

And I'm proud and I love that I felt it, even.

Though I was gonna say, man, I'm kind of.

Glad you went through me too, Yeah, because I think it would have just been misplaced anger instead. Now it's a more of an empathetic understanding.

Empathy is the word.

It's a bit of perspective and perspective. We never get perspective because we want it. No, I mean, that's a tool that we get because we didn't want to have to earn it.

But once you have it, it's so valuable. We don't want to have We only get perspective. It's crap happening.

That's real life stuff, man, that is that is real stuff.

Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

You ever talked to artists about that?

New artists about role all the time, all the time, Because I want to hear from somebody and I don't I'll tell you a story.

I want it. I don't want to go to it.

By the way, if I talk to somebody about marriage, I want to talk to somebody who's been through some crap. Oh yeah, like my wife and I went to there. But I want to go to somebody wh's been married, been through some crap.

I don't want.

I didn't want to go to a preacher but who's never had an issue or a priest who's never been married, because I want to hear how hard it is and what you went through and lead the artists come to you for the same.

Absolutely, absolutely tell me a sorry.

I'll tell you two.

I'll tell you two young guys.

That one is Jake Worthington.

We played the Grand Ole Offre together a few months ago and his little.

Baby, Whitley, his little baby girl, Whitley was.

And his wife were in the dressing room, and it meant the world to be the day. And I had my wife and kids with me and we went to their dressing room and said how to his family, and he called me soon there after he said, I want you to know how much that meant. You know to me and my wife, it can be done in this business.

You know, to see you and.

Your grown kids and my wife and I've been together twenty eight years and that it can be done.

Said, absolutely, it can be.

Done, buddy, I said, it takes a lot of work.

And your wife's going to go through as much as you do because you're going through it. So remember that, you know, just just and so things like that that happened a few months ago. Played a festal with Bailey' Zimmerman the other day. He's one of those guys that I met him. I was like, I could not help but like the guy same and he has a ball of energy.

He's twenty five years old. He's a young man.

And I got to spend about fifteen or twenty.

Minutes with him, which was mostly Bailey.

Talking about his his ride up, his rocket ship up, you know, and he's he's got a really great foundation morally. And at the end of the conversation, you know, I guess, just being one of the older guys, now, I was like, dude, you know, I said, you know, he's got faith in the Lord. I said, just keep putting God first, man, I said, I said, do that and stay true to yourself.

And that meteoric thing.

You know, what a ride, what a case of whiplash you must have from that, you know, I am going to pull for him. I like the guy, you know, put the Lord first. Keep doing that, young man. And then you know, Jake On like, hey man, newly married, new kid, it can be done.

Yeah, so it's it's good.

I guess I kind of wanted to be one of the guys that could look at the younger guys and say, you know, it's might not be the exact right way to do it, but.

You're trying.

You know, I'm trying, and I'm glad we get to talk about things like that.

Bailey's interesting because Bailey and I have similar backgrounds, and when Bailey came to town. You're right, he has been on a rocket at times and wo but can be unfair to the kid because he knew how to sing. But he did know how to sing, and I think someone like you would know. You grind it out night after night after night. You learn how to sing regardless

That's the record labels. I don't you know.

I say this all the time, and I've said it recently interview.

I don't man the artists or the artists, the record labels or the record labels. That's I never dog artists, man, I never, there's I don't care if I like your music or not. That's things like that are the fault of the record company.

Yeah, the people looking out for him, for sure.

You know. And that's something that I tell people a lot.

I learned how to play for five people, man, not five hundred, not five thousand. I learned how to play in front on a Tuesday night in a smoky ass barroom, trying to keep If you can keep five people interested on a Tuesday night in a codunk bar for four hours, you can keep fifty thousand people interested for ninety minutes, you know. And that's in what a crash course in learning all that that young man has had.

Were you ever resemful that people wanted to talk to you now.

Like young artists, no, like or just anybody.

Let's just use me as an example.

Yeah, because I would have known about you had your music not started to come to me through friends. Yeah, And they would have known about you had to not started to road to a place that was larger than what and excuse the term of your cult following was and so at times I'll get a request to do a big interview or something, and I'm like, you only want to talk to me, Like I'm popping off right now

No, I had such a bad attitude for so long.

I didn't, dude.

I went through like a five year period where I didn't really do any interviews, like not maybe one or two, just because I felt like it. There's a vast, a vast section of my career that there's just no interviews. Man, I just didn't do them because I didn't want to.

I didn't I didn't want I was in a bad mood.

I guess I was always on the road, so anytime off the road, when I was on the road, I didn't want to do interviews because I was just tired of being on the road all the time, and then I'd get off the road and it's like, I don't want to do them at home. I'm at home, so I just I didn't. I was like, have him come to a show, and right about that, you know. But now it's so much more a part of my job because we're twouring thirty five to fifty dates a year

The patience for it, and.

Just things are better in my own head now, and I do like to I do enjoy sitting down like this and talking shop and things of that nature. Yeah, just things change, you know, older, and I'm yeah, probably a little bit softer of a human, little more softer of a human than.

I used to be. Think COVID force that, Yeah, a lot of it did.

It was really weird, as bad as it was, and I would never hope wish for it again. Like I said, you know, it really started the process where I started to get to know myself and get to know my family better.

And but here's here's a funny thing.

When COVID hit, we'd been on the road, on the road, on the road, on the road. We panicked, like everybody else did, and there was a lot of bands that lost everything, like people stopped getting paid, crew stopped.

Getting paid, everybody.

Honestly, when COVID hit, we got about two months in and nobody band, crew, nobody missed a paycheck. We knew we were gonna be fine. I didn't realize how much money we had in the bank.

I had no dude.

It sounds funny to say this, and it's not like it was ten million dollars in the bank or whatever. It wasn't, but I had no idea how much money we did have in the bank, and that like, we were fine and nobody missed a paycheck, and then coming out on the other side, it was like, we don't have like we don't have to work as much.

We don't have we work.

As hard always we always work hard, but we don't have to work as much. And I might not to learn that lesson as quickly without COVID.

Who are your favorite for artists? Mount Rushmore All Time.

Answered a similar question to this recently, and I had kind of two answers. If you had to put your if, like, if we're just looking at the founding fathers, you know, obviously I think you'd have to put Jimmy Rogers, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizelle, and then just because he's the best that God ever created, Merle Haggard. But I'm just gonna say that as as country music historian Cody.

My personal favorite. What did I say?

I said it would oh, h Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and George Strait.

Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, George Straight. Hey, you got two of the highwaymen there.

Yeah.

How about ever see that show?

Yeah, you know, one of the funniest things ever.

I did a show with Chris Christopherson no way, Yeah, six or seven years ago, and we're standing in the green room and Chris and Lisa, his wife, were so cool and so gracious with their time, and Chris was just in there drinking beer with everybody, and my dad walks up to Chris Krosto. My mother's I've never seen my mother swoon. My mother swooned when Chris Christofferson walked in the door. And my dad walks up to Chris Christopherson and goes, hey, Chris, how about you call?

Will you up and me and you and Willie get the highway back together.

And it's one of the only times in my career I really remember looking over and goes, oh shit, and Chris looks over, and I don't know if Chris heard him.

Ride or didn't hear him ride or whatever, but it just was just because.

That's the perfect response to that.

Yeah, I don't even know if he heard him misunderstand because Chris was like have deaf at the time, anyone almost.

It was funny.

That is funny that guy Rhodes scholar. Yeah, veteran, like and not just a veteran, but like legit. Yes, yes, great actor, Yeah great, I mean he wrote me and Bobby McGhee, Yeah, aside from other songs. But he really doesn't really get the credit for that because Jannah Shchoplin, you know, is the one who made that song famous.

Like he did it, he did it all.

Yeah, Sunday Morning coming Down.

I mean, like, I don't know if there's a more multi dimensional It was also great looking too. It's like it's just weird that he had everything God and not that he didn't earn everything.

I'm not joking, man, Like he was eighty three whenever we did a show with him years ago.

And like the dude looked good then.

Yeah he was.

Yeah, he was. He was the whole package.

Just brilliant, handsome, funny.

Yeah.

I didn't know that part of him, you know, like just I don't know any part of him.

Quick quit man, you know, just man.

Just yeah, was in a Starsborn, right, Mike, Yeah, the second that not the very very first one, but the second one was Barbara Barbara.

Yeah, that's it.

He did it all.

Yeah, I mean he was Jennifer Lopez.

Yeah.

Hey, he walked so she could run. That's what I say.

He was. He was. He was awesome.

He was awesome, and uh, it was so nice being able to It was me and him and Ward Davis on that Bill and Ward got out and did Bobby McGee with him.

That's really that was.

That was to watch, and I got up and did Sunday Morning Coming Down with him, and it was just so special man being able to do that, because he's one of those guys, he's one of the greatest we've ever had. And now people are like, man, you got to play with Christopherson, right, And I'm like, well, as a matter of fact.

I did, you know.

It's like I get to tell some cool stories.

I want to ask about the record, speaking of you and Ward Davis wrote Monster together. Yeah, And I think that's just because a lot of the I'll say a lot a lot of songs wrote by yourself, but you and Ward wrote that one together. What about that song stood out?

That was the last song we wrote on the record. Actually, the band was doing pre production for the record, and Ward came to Colorado where we were hold up working and just stayed with us for about a week and Ward and I wrote and we ended up writing that song, and so that song was the last edition that song. Ward and I both gave up drinking, so for us, that song was talking about it. The thing about that song, though, is I had when we wrote that song, I wanted

So I had that picture kind of painted.

And Josh, our bass player and producer, he was like, dude, you got to sing that song, and Ward was like, dude, you got to sing that song. And so everybody's got a monster, and monsters are real and they're they're out there and everybody's as different. And I think that that's what's kind of cool about that song. It's got such a swing in almost disco kind of chorus. It's really weird.

Lived in Texas for twelve thirteen years, lived in Austin, and so growing up in Arkansas, I wasn't I didn't know much of the Texas music scene. When you live in Austin, you are quickly baptized into the Texas music scene. And that's where I learned of Ray Willy Hubbard.

Yeah, so.

You him and your Tennessee jet.

Yeah, talk about that song for a second.

The others.

It was so cool.

I was playing a festival in Oklahoma and Ray was on that festival, and TJ came. TJ and I've written so many songs together. I mean, probably that's.

What you call Tennessee Jet TJ.

TJ.

Yeah, his name's Thomas Thomas James McFarland. And that's not a secret. I'm not giving anything away.

But his social Security number is yeah, his social is.

He lives in.

He came to see me that day because he was he lives not far from where that festival was, and I was like, man, yeah, of course he's going to get up and do some songs with me.

And he knows Ray better than me.

I met Ray for the first time twenty plus years ago, but Ray and I hadn't seen each other reconnected since then. And he said, hey, let's go say how to Ray. So he calls Ray up. He said, hey, I'm over at Jinks and this and that. So we ended up going over to Ray's bus and hanging out with Ray. And Ray is the coolest guy in music, just in a genre, just the coolest, coolest human ever. And he's just such a nice and sweet and kind and generous man.

And he said, well, you know, guys, I think.

Maybe we ought to.

Try to write one and that's all we needed to hear. So TJ just that day ended and TJ starts a text threat between me and him and Ray and t The whole song happened on a text message. TJ goes, hey, guys, what do you think about this? Bam, there's the first verse. Ray fires right back with the second verse. I was like, what do you guys think about this? For a chorus, and then TJ goes, oh, what about this for the

Of people out there.

We had cowboys and freaks and goths and punks and business people all in the video and just fire breather and people swinging from stunt people swinging from sandaliers, and you know, it's it's because it's a song for the fans, and we're singing for everybody out there, and it's a it's a it's a it's a love song to the fans, hippies and cowboys.

Tour all the way until the end of the year.

You're also doing the acoustic shows with Ward Davis, and I mean, for the most part, they can just go to your socials.

You got all the dates up there.

Yeah, yeah, I.

Mean it's the easiest thing to say now, just it's all on the all on the socials.

Man.

Everything. I've really enjoyed this. Thanks for giving me an hour.

Thank you for the hour. I appreciate it. And uh yeah, a great way to button up the trip.

I'm when do you go home?

Now? From here? From here?

From here, I'll be on an airplane in a couple of hours, and so I'm I'm about to go to about to go to.

The airport and and uh head back to the head back to the DFW area.

Well, listen, I really enjoy as a person.

Thank you likewise, man, I really.

I used to be.

I'm scared of you still maybe like one person still scared because you know, you know, you could stab me at anytime, and I'd be like, yep.

I thought so. But other than that, like, I really like hanging out with Thank you much.

I really, honestly, Bobby, I didn't want to like you.

I'm glad you said it.

Really.

Yeah, I didn't want I agree, And now it's kind of like step brothers, you know, It's like, now it's like, did we just become friends?

Actually?

So no, thank you so much for your time and all the best. And I think that our story is probably parallel with one another, probably far more than either one.

Of us realized. That's so funny.

So yeah, you guys, go at Cody Jink's new album July twenty fifth, in My Blood, really appreciate the hour. Have safe trip home, and next time you're in town, let's do it again and talk about how we can't believe we like each other.

I know, you know what, we might as well because these keep getting better.

I'll grow the beard, you wear the card again.

We'll be all, yeah, I'm turning over all kinds of leaves man.

All right, there he is Cody Jinks.

Everybody, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production