The Outlaw Cody Jinks

It’s a rare occurrence to see Cody Jinks without his tried-and-true black hat — as much a staple of his wardrobe as a pair of sunglasses for Roy Orbison — but sans hat is how he shows up to greet me at the gates of his sprawling North Texas ranch.

Don’t worry, his beard exceeds 12 inches, his knuckles are tattooed, and he’s wearing a lot of black. I got the right country star. But on this day, Jinks isn’t in, what he calls, “rockstar mode.” No, he’s in full-on homebody mode. Jinks is doing what any husband and father would do on their day off: taking it easy.

Despite Jinks’ current devil-may-care, to-hell-with-a-hat disposition, the Haltom City native is in the middle of a nationwide tour in support of his latest album, Change the Game. In two nights, he’ll be taking the stage and getting in “rockstar mode” at Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas — a show I’m excited to attend — so he’s taking advantage of a few days at the homestead before heading back on the road. And without cheering crowds, fog machines, a mic by his lips or a guitar in his hands, the hat comes off and the guard goes down. Or, at least, I hope.

Jinks is a man of few words. According to his friends and bandmates, he only speaks when he feels the need. And when that feeling suddenly emerges, he delivers his thoughts with a surprising amount of candor — no mincing occurs. But this bluntness also comes with a healthy serving of North Texas manners. Since our initial greeting, he’s been kind, patient, and charming. This despite my crashing in on him during his downtime between gigs.

Truth be told, my meeting with him is a stroke of luck. Earlier this year, Jinks parted ways with his longtime manager and took on those duties himself — about the most outlaw thing an outlaw country music artist can do. Thus, Jinks is now in charge of, well, everything, including dealing with persistent and inquisitive reporters like me. While he isn’t sporting a hat at the moment, metaphorically, he’s wearing many.

When I say Jinks lives on a ranch, I don’t mean he lives on a few fenced-in acres that grants little noise from neighbors.

No, I’m talking acreage in the triple digits complete with horses, a pond, and a few ranch dogs to boot. One of them, Jinks refers to as a “big ol’ ranch dog” and recommends I not touch him unless I “wanna have that stink on [me] the rest of the day.”

To get around this giant plot of land requires riding around in a four-seat, all-terrain vehicle on impromptu dirt roads. And that’s precisely what we do.

During the drive, Jinks begins talking about his music career the way Tony Romo talks football.

 “I’ve been doing [the music thing] 25 years, and I’m having so much fun right now,” Jinks says. “I’ve learned how to enjoy it. I guess the years of touring have given me an appreciation for it. I don’t have to [tour] 200 days a year like I used to, but that’s how we built what we’ve built. We wouldn’t be where we are unless we stayed out [on the road] as long as we did.” 

Jinks’ first foray into the music scene was as the lead singer of a Fort Worth-based thrash-metal band. For those unfamiliar with the subgenre, a quick Google image search might shed some light. At the time, Jinks was in a band called Unchecked Aggression, a name that could double for his attitude toward what he calls the “mainstream country music machine.”

While, yes, Jinks would eventually go country, he’d refuse to bid adieu to certain thrash metal sensibilities (e.g., a rejection of the establishment). And this rejection has come in the form of remaining untethered to record labels, record deals, or recording contracts. To put it in country music terms, Jinks is outlaw country in the truest sense of the subgenre. Spearheaded by the likes of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson in the 1970s, the outlaw country movement fought for and won their creative freedom from the influence of the Nashville establishment.

Whether purposeful or not, Jinks is one of modern country’s biggest adherents to this movement. From the get-go, he’s been giving the proverbial middle finger to conventionality and remained staunchly independent.

And, as an independent artist, he’s done what the industry once thought impossible: earning two Certified Gold Singles for “Loud and Heavy” and “Hippies and Cowboys” in 2020. Just a few months later, Jinks went platinum for sales and streaming equivalents of 1 million units, which made him the first independent country artist to do so in the modern era. In August, he was given a plaque from the Pandora streaming platform for achieving over 2 billion streams. That’s billion with a b.

There’s a bit of sweet irony in “Hippies and Cowboys” achieving platinum status. It’s a tune from his 2010 album, Less Wise (rereleased as Less Wise Modified in 2017) and recorded before one would say Jinks “found his sound.” It’s a biographical song that perfectly encapsulates his refusal to compromise or kowtow to media, magnates, or industry professionals.

“I never ask for anyone to say they like my sound / I’ve never been a part of any musical scene / I ain’t just talking Nashville, if you know what I mean / They don’t write about me in their magazines.”

“I have had labels talk to me before, but I’ve never wanted to be told how and what I can and cannot do,” Jinks says. “I’ve always been proud of being an independent artist. How I’ve conducted myself and how we’ve conducted this country band has very much been in the DIY attitude of, say, a punk or a metal band. I do everything with the diehard aggressiveness of a metal band that feels like they’re going to take over the world. I mean, the ferocity is still there, and that comes from my years of playing that kind of music and really having to be more of a DIY kind.”

He eventually gives in a little bit, telling me he’ll “never say never,” but he’s just “never been offered the right record deal.” Four words immediately come to mind: When hell freezes over.

But if Jinks were to sign a record deal, who would the ideal record executive be? Who would respect an artist’s independence while fostering growth? Perhaps even being a role model, of sorts. Why himself, of course. Though he’s shunned the traditional way of being a recording artist, Jinks launched his own record label, Late August Records, in 2021. But don’t worry, it’s no RCA or Capitol or Sony or any other big-name label that dictates to its artists or signs off on cover art. As Jinks puts it, and as is Late August Records’ motto, they’re “a record company for misfits.”

“I didn’t want to be on the road as much, but I still have to work,” Jinks says of starting the label. “I work constantly. I love to work. As hard as this business is, I love what I do, and I love helping other artists. So, being on the road less enables me to dive into a different part of the business that I’m really trying to learn more about. And I’m loving it.”

In April, the label announced the signing of Josh Morningstar, a frequent collaborator of Jinks’. “I write a lot of songs with [Josh]. He wrote ‘Must Be the Whiskey,’ and he wrote the title track ‘Change the Game’ with me, and he’s about to drop a new record.”

When the ideal home doesn’t exist, build one your damn self.

Meredith Cody Jinks was born to Steve and Gayla Jinks on a particularly hot late August (remember the name of his record label?) afternoon in 1980.

While Gayla was pregnant with Cody, Steve worked two jobs, pouring concrete during the day and spending nights working in the meat freezers at the Kroger distribution center. Jinks says his father did this so Jinks’ mother didn’t have to work while pregnant.

Though he grew up in Haltom City, Jinks refers to himself as a North Fort Worth kid and even has “FWTX” tattooed on his knuckles, leaving no doubt he takes pride in place. Regardless, in the very nearby suburb of Haltom City is where Jinks would have what he describes as your typical lower-middle-class upbringing.

“We grew up like most of the kids we knew,” Jinks says. “We had what we needed and most of what we wanted but sometimes couldn’t afford to do the extra stuff.” 

Eventually, the family fell on hard financial times, forcing his parents and 12-year-old sister to move to East Texas. But Jinks, then 18, would stay behind.

 “I stayed where I’m from,” Jinks says. “I had my girl [who is now my wife], had a band, and I had plans to start at my local junior college. But having a job, a girlfriend, and a band, I had a lot on my plate, so the college thing had to go.”

Like his father, Jinks worked freight docks. Work he says was “hard, but it was my higher education, and I would never change a thing.” From there he’d graduate to working at a steel shearing plant, a place that taught him more than he could have imagined.  

“It was hands-down the hottest — and hardest — job I have ever had,” Jinks says. “In the warehouse, it was me, one other white dude, and probably 50 or 60 Mexican dudes. I was the minority, and it was great. It was great after I proved to the other men that I could hack it, and I earned their respect as a hard worker.”

He still gets chills thinking about the day his co-workers first invited him to eat lunch with them — for hard laborers, the ultimate sign of approval. “They sat down and ate family-style, sharing with each other. It was like a buffet of homemade Mexican food every day, and it was amazing.”

Jinks was also hard at work with his thrash metal band, Unchecked Aggression, practicing multiple times a week and playing live gigs for $50 a pop. After several years of grinding, Jinks and his bandmates parted ways during a tour that went off the rails in 2003.

What followed was a year of transition, a year of figuring things out. Gone were the facial piercings and regalia of the heavy metal world. He’d trade in his electric guitars for a more unamplified sound and started writing new tunes. Whether inspired by his roots — the first song he learned to play on guitar was Lefty Frizell’s “Long Black Veil” — or an itch to try something different, every new song he wrote was a country song.

Like every bona fide North Texan, Jinks had been exposed to his fair share of country music. And, like most bona fide North Texans, he liked it. In fact, when he was younger, you’d be just as likely to see Jinks in line for a Metallica concert as you would a George Strait show. He even recalls being extremely moved when he first heard “Pancho and Lefty” at the age of 3. With this in mind, the move to country was not so jarring a transition. Country was always in his blood.

Jinks would take his new tunes on the road and self-release his first album, Collectors Item, which, no, is not on Spotify. It was around this time that Josh Thompson, the man who would become Jinks’ long-term bass player and co-producer of Change the Game, says he first heard Jinks sing at a gig in Oklahoma City. Thompson was attending college in Oklahoma at the time, but is a West Texas native, and both musicians were on the bill that night.

“This was back in ’06 when Cody had just started out,” Thompson says. “The first time I ever heard him sing, even back then, I thought, ‘Wow, this is special,’ and if I ever have the chance to play with him, I would really like to.” 

Such an affinity for Jinks’ voice is understandable; it’s a strong timbre that straddles that line between tenor and baritone with hints of Merle Haggard and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ronnie Van Zant. Not bad company.

Thompson’s band would eventually move to Fort Worth, but the group split shortly thereafter. As Thompson was now friends with the man he once hoped to someday share a stage with, Jinks was quick to offer him a job.

“He said, ‘Hey man, I need a bass player.’  And I said, ‘Man, I need a gig.’ And that’s kind of how it started.”

Jinks is all smiles as he shows me his pride and joy: a yellow 1976 Ford F-250 pickup, which he keeps in a garage to avoid the ranch elements and Texas sun.

It’s the kind of vehicle you’d peg the man who wrote a song called “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” to drive, and it makes plenty of appearances in his promotional materials, including the music video for his latest single, “Outlaws and Mustangs.” And, like a good ol’ friend, he refers to it in feminine pronouns.

“She’s a bit cold-natured,” he says as he gives the truck a few turns to wake her up from her slumber. After several pumps on the accelerator, a cloud of exhaust shoots from the tailpipe.

He could have a brand-new truck, one that doesn’t spit smoke from its tailpipe and has power windows and a tip-top A/C, but such luxuries don’t interest Jinks. Besides, this is his buddy.

It doesn’t take long for Jinks to shed his rugged exterior to reveal a family man through and through. In fact, our photo shoot with him, which is why we’re at his ranch, revolved around his daughter’s soccer practice. Like a tried-and-true soccer dad, Jinks explained the practice was of high importance on his schedule for the day.

More than a country artist or a staunchly independent rebel rouser, Jinks is a family man with his two kids and a wife, Rebecca, whom he’s been with for over 25 years. For a man I earlier labeled independent, he places an awful lot of importance on family. Perhaps this is the sole way the word “independent” does not apply to Jinks.

And his family extends to his bandmates and many of the artists with whom he collaborates. He counts the likes of Nikki Lane, Paul Cauthen, Tennessee Jet, Wared Davis, and Whitey Morgan among them. Once you earn Cody’s trust, and earn one must, you’re in like Flynn.

And no one knows this better than Joshua Thompson.

Jinks’ bass player since 2008, Thompson would slowly expand his role in the band. Having Jinks’ confidence, Thompson would produce or co-produce seven straight of the outlaw country artist’s albums beginning with 2015’s Adobe Sessions.

“Adobe Sessions was my first dip into the world of producing,” Thompson says. “I never meant to be a producer. It just kind of happened with Cody. I knew we’d been together for so long, I kind of knew what he wanted before he almost knew sometimes. And so, I found myself really enjoying the process of recording and the detail that goes into recording, and so he kind of just let me take the lead on that.”  

Thompson and Jinks’ relationship has always been organic without any preconceived producing plans, and their mutual understanding of one another’s creative preferences makes the music-making process seamless.

“There’s a lot of times where I’m asking, ‘Hey dude, what songs are we going to record?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh, I’ll let you know when we get there.’ But we have this thing, where I kind of know where he’s going to go with his songs before he even gets there.”

Theirs is the kind of kinship and symbiosis that developed over time. And for bandmates who travel from gig to gig crammed in a Dodge pickup pulling a single-axle trailer packed to the hilt with precious musical instruments, it’s a bond earned through experiencing the same type of misery.

“We paid our dues,” Thompson says. “I mean Cody and I were sleeping in the same bed for 10 years before anybody knew who we were.”

They’re in the trenches together. And for members of Cody Jinks’ crew, these trenches are even more daunting. An ambitious outlaw, Jinks wasn’t satisfied sticking to regional shows or exclusively playing cities off major interstates. If there was a venue in the far reaches of a northern state, Jinks and the boys would play it in the middle of February if they had to.

According to Thompson, Jinks not caring where he went on the map is what put him on the map.

“That’s just one small way that we changed the game. We went places that no one else would go, and that’s how we built [our following], especially that Midwest following. Yeah, we’d go up there in the winter months, who cares? Yeah, something might get snowed out, but if you don’t try, you’re never going to get there.” 

It’s nearly 9 p.m. when Jinks takes the stage at Dos Equis Pavilion. As he bursts through a set of saloon doors to a cheering crowd, I see it’s not the same man I met two days prior.

Donning his signature black felt hat, chrome rimmed sunglasses, and a black tee to go along with his black jeans, he’s in full “rockstar mode.”

Rain begins to fall almost as if on command as Jinks and his band play “Holy Water,” a song that highlights the dangers and despair of alcohol. “I been wandering like a fool too blind to see / Maybe it ain’t the bottle that I need / I need a shot of holy water.”

The song was released in 2018, but it was only a year ago when Jinks quietly decided to sober up. In fact, in a coincidence that seems almost by design, the epiphany came in late August. A rebirth.

“I just decided I had drank enough, man. I drank it all. I really did,” Jinks says. “I woke up one day, and I just looked at my wife, and I said, ‘I’m done.’ I was drunk for 24 years, so it was time to put that down.”

After all, country music and drinking go together like mashed potatoes and gravy. Whether it’s beer or whiskey, alcohol — both its rollicking social side effects and its negative personal ones — is a common subject in country songs. And Jinks was always happy to lean in. Kicking off his show by walking through saloon doors was by design — it’s classic country.

“Music was the first thing that I ever did or ever heard or ever experienced that gave me a high,” Jinks says. “And what a lot of touring musicians find is that the high we get on stage is unmatched. But, oftentimes, you fall into the trap of wanting to continue that high when you walk off the stage. So, what do you do? You drink and sometimes you do drugs or whatever it is. But we have addictive personalities.”

Contributing to his sobriety was Jinks’ recent decision to start managing himself. He was now directly in charge of 30 people and, with a year-long tour looming, as Jinks puts it, he “needed to be really, really with it.” Such responsibility becomes far more burdensome under the influence of whiskey.

“It’s interesting going through a lot of firsts [while not having anything to drink],” Jinks says. “From playing your first show to taking your first airplane ride to going to your first concert as a spectator. Hey, we’re learning. We’re growing.”

Though Jinks has been relatively quiet about being on the wagon, his sudden abstention from alcohol came during the recording of his new album, Change the Game, and no doubt influenced the final product. Hell, the opening track is called “Sober Thing.”

“I think he sort of went [to becoming sober] over the course of doing the record,” Ryan Hewitt, co-producer of Change the Game says. “And, honestly, I did the same. I think it brought a lot of focus and clarity to the record. There was no longer the distraction of going out and getting f****d up or somebody not showing up to their greatest ability. And when the leader is showing that purpose in his life, then I think it’s up to everyone else to follow suit, not necessarily by being sober, but by being respectful and showing up in a new and elevated way.”

Still experiencing a high from making music, Jinks admits the sobriety made him immerse himself even more in the craft. “I just had to make a decision to go back to my first drug, and that’s music. It’s a lot healthier that way.”

For the new album, Jinks partnered with the Grammy-winning Hewitt, whose resume includes Red Hot Chili Peppers and Little Big Town. He also previously worked with Jinks on Jinks’ 2016 album I’m Not the Devil. Hewitt would share production duties on Change the Game with Joshua Thompson.

“I have a different approach where I like to get people in the room together and learn what everybody’s strength is,” Hewitt says. “And once we found that in each other, we just kept rolling. I think we recorded 25 songs for the record and then chose the best 12 that seemed the most appropriate for the statement he wanted to make and the face he wanted to present in this collection of songs.”

The result is the most reflective and varied album Jinks has released to date. It manages to convey middle-age contemplation while keeping your pulse up. And his use of string arrangements and surprise, and wonderful, Faith No More cover signals some outside-the-box approaches.

“At the end of the day, making a record with him involved a lot of trust,” Hewitt says. “Cody and I think the results speak for themselves.”

Cody and I have one last chat over the phone, a quick catch-up to fill in any holes.

I can’t help but wonder about his going so long, 25 years now, rejecting the influence of the establishment. Going whole hog into country with his moral compass couldn’t have always paid the bills. I ask if there was ever a time, maybe even a specific moment, when he realized it was all worth it? That sticking by his guns paid off?

“I was 37,” he says. “We had gotten our first tour bus. I was actually able to sign for a house and a car, something I wasn’t able to do the first 13 years of mine and Rebecca’s marriage. She was the breadwinner back then.

“While I was out on the road on that tour bus in 2017 is when it hit me. That’s when I realized, ‘Hey, we did it. We’re here. We’re on a bus.’”

That same year is when Jinks and his wife bought their ranch, his favorite place to be. It is a working ranch, but Jinks doesn’t want anyone to have the impression that he’s “riding horses around separating cattle and whatnot. I hire people to do that.

“So, my job is to come home and piddle. I’ll go fishing or just drive and enjoy my kids, my wife, and my life. And I’m excited to come home. And I’m also excited to get back on the road. I’ve worked a long time to try to find a sense of balance, and I feel like I’m at least closer to that now than I ever have been.”

Yeah, it was all worth it.