Cody Jinks joins Pat Green on Don’t Mess With Texas Radio on Apple Music Country to talk about doing live shows again, and his upcoming album “Mercy.” Pat also chats with Cleto Cordero and Jason Albers of Flatland Cavalry about their latest project “Countryland” and how they originally got together as a band. Listen live on-demand here.
Cody Jinks on being back out on the road, new album
When everything kind of opened back up. We started out, we warmed back up, four or five shows in April, which was awesome because that’s the first time we had played live in over a year. But coming back and seeing everybody smiling, the shows, people have been so freaking happy, everybody’s been happy from the security doing load in to the staff at the places, to the bands, to the crews, to the guys running the rigging. Everybody’s been in a great mood. We’re just glad to be back.
Cody Jinks on songwriting
I think I’m a writer first. I think that I’m more of a songwriter singer than I am a singer songwriter. When I’m on stage, I wear sunglasses because I have light sensitivity and I wear the big cowboy hat and dress in black, and that’s just become the image. Man, I started writing songs when I was seven. They sucked because I was seven, but that’s really when I started trying to translate feelings onto paper. So, that definitely comes much more naturally. I have stage fright like nobody’s business and a lot of people don’t realize all the time.
Paul Cauthen was doing a thing out there at The Basement. Chris’ country band came out and they’ve got some really cool stuff. So I got to see him that night and I re-apologized to him for being such a wreck on his podcast, which, I mean, he’s a musician, he knows how it goes. Fast forward during the whole pandemic thing, was doing a lot of Zoom session writes and stuff like that. And I write a lot with a guy named Kendell Marvel. He’s out of Nashville and he’s a great, great songwriter and he’s become a great friend of mine. And so he says, “Hey, I’m writing with Shiflett. He said that he knows you. You guys know each other you want to write with us? And I said, “I would love to. I’m surprised that guy even wants to write with me.” So we ended up doing a Zoom call and just wrote a killer. I mean, just wrote probably one of the best songs on the new record.
Cody Jinks on “Long Black Veil” / Lefty Frizzell
“Long Black Veil” was the first song that my Dad taught me to play on guitar, and it was Lefty’s version. There’s been a ton of great covers of that song from Dave Matthews to… I mean, everybody’s done that song. As a matter of fact, last year, I cut a record of nothing but Lefty Frizzell songs. It hasn’t come out yet. But, yeah, we put that one on there. So that’s been special, that was the first song I learned actually how to play on guitar.
So Jason [Albers] and I [Cleto Cordero] had been buddies since we’re in eighth grade. But same as you, that me and Jason find ourselves in Lubbock, going to school at Tech and just started, like you said, man, organically going out and seeking and going to open jams and to open mic nights. And that’s where we found our first bass player. Our guitar player, I met through my business fraternity, a compadre that I met and it was his little brother. And so, it kind of happened organically. And The Blue Light, man, was really the launching pad for us.
Flatland Cavalry on their new albums sound
In this record, we expanded on sound a little and serving the song with what it’s asking for. And the steel guitar seemed to be a calling, raising a tan. It’s neat. Cleto [Cordero] would always start picking something, and there’s a lot of train beats going on around in our sound and it just always kind of fit, but yeah, just an easy backbeat and well, I’m glad that you liked that I played behind the beat. I might get a guitar thrown at me sometimes here and there for the rest of the band though.
