Cody Jinks won’t make another album like his new effort, “Change The Game.” It’s not that he doesn’t like it; in fact, in a mid-February interview, he said he thinks it’s his most complete effort.
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Jinks just doesn’t see himself being in the same headspace and place in life again. And he wouldn’t want to relive the changes and struggles reflected in the new songs.
“This record, I was working on myself personally, exercising some personal demons and trying to live better, live healthier, be a better husband, be a better father, and that translates into being a better boss and putting on a better show,” Jinks said. “When you’re happy and healthy in your head and in your heart, that goes a long way.”
Self-reflection is featured on the album heavily; it was a purge of sorts, Jinks said, in order to move forward.
After the pandemic hit, it was Jinks first time stepping away from the touring grind in 15 years. He relished in the time spent at home with his family, including wife Rebecca. He said he began to take stock of his personal and professional life and while he refrained from too much detail about personal issues he confronted, he did quit drinking and smoking.
Today, he’s living a clear head and a better outlook.
“It really came down to my mental well-being,” Jinks said. “I wasn’t in a good place mentally. I knew that I needed to make a change — I didn’t know exactly what changes I needed to make or how to go about it. Setting some things down was probably a great place to start.”
He said one look at his daughter — now a teenager — prompted internal conversations.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh — dude, in the next decade I have to be a grandfather. I need to slow down,'” he recalled.
There were also issues with his music career, even though Jinks was playing the biggest venues of his career. He also was beginning to hear his songs on country radio, which for years had resisted his outlaw sound. But Jinks decided to go completely independent, manage his own career and set up his own record label, with a new distribution partnership.
“Let me put it like this,” Jinks said, addressing reasons he decided to self-manage and change aspects of his business operation. “A year ago if you had asked me: ‘Do you think you’ve hit the ceiling professionally,’ more than likely I would have said ‘Probably,’ which is fine and great, and where I’ve been the last few years on a professional level has been nothing short of amazing and such a blessing to have had the career that I’ve had thus far. But I just kind of thought that we were at that cap.”
Jinks’ tour schedule for 2024 is a healthy mix of headlining dates at outdoor amphitheaters and arenas and co-headlining shows with the Turnpike Troubadours. He also has some stadium shows opening for Luke Combs. He will be performing at Live Oak Bank Pavilion in Wilmington Riverfront Park this weekend.
Jinks said he’ll probably play three songs or so off of “Change The Game” on tour, including the first three singles from the album — “Outlaws and Mustangs,” “Sober Thing” and the title track. He’s also bringing out his biggest visual production; it’s set up in the place Jinks said he cut his teeth.
“I say I grew up in honky-tonk bars,” he said. “My mom and dad ran a honky-tonk bar so I love them. That’s where I came from. … So we made on stage look like a honky-tonk bar. And it’s cool as hell, man.”
A native of Fort Worth, TX, Jinks began playing guitar at age 16 and soon after started a heavy metal band, Unchecked Aggression. He went on to release an album, “The Massacre Begins,” in 2002 before the band broke up about a year later.
After taking a year away from music, Jinks shifted gears and started playing country music. In 2008, he self-released his first country album, “Cast No Stones,” the first of 10 solo albums. Along the way, Jinks built his career the hard way, with lots of touring and a substantial financial commitment.
Jinks credits his wife with helping him keep the faith even as his debt mounted to more than six figures and there was no guarantee his music career would work out.
“As long as she believed in me, I believed in me,” he said. “That’s really why I do credit her with so much because we’ve been together since we were 16 years old and she’s seen everything in this business, she’s in this business. I mean, she’s lived it with me. She’s lived every single bit of it. She helps me run everything. She’s a tough, tough lady.”
Things began to gain momentum with Jinks’ 2015 gold-certified album, “The Adobe Sessions,” and his audience kept growing as he released such recent efforts as “After The Fire” and “The Wanting” (issued a week apart in October 2019) and “Mercy” (2021). And as “Change the Game” arrives, Jinks has firmly established himself within the country mainstream and as an arena headliner — all while remaining an independent artist.
“Change the Game,” which was released on March 22, finds Jinks opening up lyrically and being more vulnerable than ever in sharing moments and experiences from his recent life.
A prime example of the honesty comes on “Sober Thing,” a rustic ballad woven around acoustic guitar, piano, strings and a weeping steel guitar, addresses his drinking past. That song sets the table for the rest of “Change the Game,” which offers a compelling mix of ballads (“Wasted,” “What You Love” and “I Would”) and twangy hard-edged rockers (“Deceiver’s Blues,” “I Can’t Complain” and the title song).
“Change the Game” figures to remain a standout album for Jinks regardless of how well it sells simply because it was a special experience.
“In the credits on the record I thank (producer) Ryan Hewitt and his staff and my band and crew because that was such a vulnerable record,” Jinks said. “There were several different times during the making of the record where there were tears shed, and I’m not just talking about me. It was a heavy experience for all of us, and everybody who was a part of that record, really in my mind, got to be a part of something really special because of how vulnerable it really was.”
Cody Jinks performs Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in downtown Wilmington; tickets are here.
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