It would be an understatement to say that a lot has happened since Whiskey Myers was
last in the recording studio. Over two whirlwind years, the gritty Texas band hit #1 on
the iTunes Country Chart with their breakout third album 'Early Morning Shakes,'
earned raves everywhere from Rolling Stone to USA Today, and toured the US and UK
relentlessly, slaying massive festival crowds and sharing stages with Lynyrd Skynyrd,
Hank Williams Jr., Jamey Johnson, and more along the way. You'd be forgiven, then,
for expecting things to work a little differently this time around when the band
reunited with acclaimed producer Dave Cobb for their stellar new album, 'Mud.' But as
it turns out, success doesn't change a Southern gentleman, and they don't come any
more Southern than Whiskey Myers.
Fueled by larger-than-life performances honed tight from countless nights on the road,
'Mud' finds the band scaling new heights of songwriting and musicianship, with searing
guitars, soulful vocals, and indelible hooks. While their approach to the music and
humble, hard-working attitudes may not have altered, there have been developments
in the Whiskey Myers world, most notably with the arrival of new faces. For the
recording sessions, the band's five founding members—Cody Cannon on lead vocals and
guitar, Cody Tate and John Jeffers on guitars, Gary Brown on bass, and Jeff Hogg on
drums—fleshed out their sound with the addition of fiddler/keyboard player Jon
Knudson and percussionist Tony Kent, who are both now full-time members.
"They bring a great energy, and I think it's really helped our sound and makes the band
more versatile," explains Cannon. "There's less room onstage now, but sometimes a
family grows."
A glance through Whiskey Myers' lyrics will show you that Cannon is a man who chooses
his words carefully, so it's little surprise that he describes the band as a family. The
tight-knit group's roots stretch back decades into the red dirt of East Texas, where
Cannon, Jeffers, and Tate first began playing together before rounding out their initial
lineup with the addition Hogg and Brown (who is Cannon's actual cousin). They built up
a rabid local following on the strength of their 2008 debut album, 'Road Of Life,' and
then notched their first #1 on the Texas Music Charts with their 2011 follow-up
'Firewater.' It was 'Early Morning Shakes,' though, that introduced the rest of the world
to what Texas already knew. The album cracked the Top 10 on the Billboard Country
Chart, a remarkable feat for a fiercely independent band and a testament to their
rigorous DIY work ethic and endless supply of passion and drive. Esquire called them
"the real damn deal," while Country Weekly said they combine "greasy Southern rock
riffs with countrified songwriting and Texas grit for something wholly unique," and
Playboy dubbed them "the new bad boys of country music."