Cody Jinks

Cody Jinks has always built his career on his own terms. Growing up near Fort Worth, Texas, he cut his teeth in bars and honky-tonks, where he learned to disrupt the status quo with an industrious, do-it-yourself approach. Look no further than the independent label he owns and operates, Late August Records, which was launched as part of an unprecedented partnership with The Orchard.

Jinks’ latest studio album, 2024’s Change The Game, reflected the notion that the rewards from working hard are great—especially when you’re staying true to your beliefs and vision. “I’d say this is the most vulnerable record I’ve ever written,” Jinks said. “Kind of a shedding of the skin for me.” Accordingly, Change The Game’s themes looked inward: The narrators held themselves accountable for their flaws and bad behaviors—and took responsibility for their actions with humility—to illustrate the idea that redemption is possible.

It's fitting that in fall 2024, Jinks revisited and reissued another album that marked a turning point in his career, 2012’s fan-favorite 30. “I was coming into my own as a songwriter with that record,” he says now, “and I felt like I really turned a page.” Titled Backside of 30, the remixed and remastered record made its debut on vinyl, and also included a new song, “When the New Wears Off.” Jinks wrote the heartfelt anthem about everlasting and unconditional love 20 years ago, right after he got married.

“Out of anything I've accomplished, keeping my marriage together, with a lot of hard work from my wife and myself, is probably the most fulfilling thing I've ever done,” he says. “What was in that song is what I wanted to see. When you stick things out like that for all those years, you do make those things possible.”

On the heels of Backside of 30, Jinks also reissued “Same Kind of Crazy As Me,” originally on 2019’s Wanting, as a duet with the song’s co-writer and artist, Ward Davis. And in December, he released Cody Jinks Sings Lefty Frizzell, a reverent collection of covers of songs popularized by the Country Music Hall of Famer. The collection holds special meaning to Jinks: At age 15, the first song he ever learned to play was Frizzell’s 1959 hit “Long Black Veil,” taught to him by his dad. “If I trace my lineage in terms of the people that I love the most,” Jinks says, “the singers are cut out of the Lefty Frizzell cloth.”

Having previously sold out shows at some of the largest venues in the U.S.—including the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre—Jinks supported these releases by embarking on a co-headlining tour with Turnpike Troubadours and supporting Luke Combs’ stadium tour. Along with these bigger shows, Jinks made appearances at festivals like Bourbon & Beyond and Zakk Wylde Presents’s Berzerkus—and booked headlining gigs that stretched over two hours.

“When the crowd knows that we're going to play 28, 29 songs a night—put your seat belt on,” Jinks says. “We have a lot of shit to cover.” With these longer sets came a bigger stage configuration with three tiers and décor like neon signs that was designed to look like a gritty honky-tonk bar. In the hands of other bands, such a huge set could feel isolating or create distance between performers and fans. But Jinks and his band—guitarists Chris Claridy and Jake Lentner, bassist Josh Thompson, pedal steel guitarist Austin “Hot Rod” Tripp, organist/keyboardist Matt Nolen and drummer Dave Colvin—went out of their way to engage with the crowd.

“We set our bar a little higher this year,” Jinks says. “And knowing that the crowd loved what they saw is the greatest thing for us as performers, and as the guys up there that are recording the songs that you're listening to. For us, that's the coolest thing.” Jinks is looking forward to another ambitious stage setup as he embarks on a 2025 North American tour, the Hippies and Cowboys Tour. Fans can also expect the same kind of big tent, inclusive environment for which Jinks is known. “It’s a really divided time in our nation,” he says. “But we've always been the type of band where we’ve wanted everybody. And so next year, it’s going to be a statement of, ‘Man, we're just an American band.’ That's what we are. We're a honky-tonk band. We're American music. You have country rock, rhythm and blues, all in one. We're hippies, we're cowboys—and we're everything in between.”

Before he heads back out on the road, Jinks and his band are taking off the first part of 2025 to “hole up at an undisclosed location in Colorado” and finish work on a new studio album featuring brand-new material, slated for release in summer 2025. He’s confident things will run smoothly. “We try to get in the studio every two or three months,” he says. “I never want myself or the guys to get too comfortable with being in road mode or studio mode. The old school guys used to do that all the time—you'd go out on the road and play and stop somewhere and record. We still do it the old-school way.”

As far as the new songs he’s putting together, Jinks can already see thematic threads starting to emerge. “People hate when guys in their 40s start saying, ‘I'm starting to write like an older person,’” he says. “Well, guess what's happening to me? I'm lucky; I'm getting older. And so my writing is more reflective of my upbringing than it ever has been. I've found more of a voice in what I'm trying to say now.”

The clarity he had on Change the Game is also even sharper, he adds. “Looking at the world going on a year-and-a-half sober, you start seeing things differently when you're my age,” he says. “And at this point, there's some deep subject matter that I'm probably going to have to really pull forward.”