Cody Jinks Announces New Album, ‘In My Blood’: ‘It’s as Pure a Piece of Art as We Can Possibly Put Out’

Country-rocker Cody Jinks is set to release a new album, titled In My Blood, on July 25.

He recorded the upcoming project, which will come out on his own Late August Records, at famed The Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, and worked alongside musicians David Colvin, Joshua Thompson (also a co-producer on the album), Jake Lentner, Chris Claridy, Austin Tripp, Matt Nolen, Drew Harakal and Lenny Castro.

Produced by Thompson and Charles Godfrey, In My Blood follows his 2024 album Change the Game which landed in the top 30 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and featured songs such as “Outlaws and Mustangs.”

“I think that Change the Game was the final chapter in part one of my writing and I just opened up part two,” Jinks told Billboard via email. “Kind of like how an author like Stephen King has part one that has 10 chapters, and then there’s part two. So, I think In My Blood starts part two. That’s how I feel about this record. It’s a very, very reflective record, and hopefully optimistic about the future as well.”

While Change the Game centered on lessons learned through his journey of sobriety and maturity, the new album finds him in a further reflective mood on songs such as the road-dog song “In My Blood,” the nostalgic “When Time Didn’t Fly” and the hopeful “Found.”

The album features a mix of songs written solo by Jinks, as well as songs he co-wrote Ward Davis, Tennessee Jet, Ray Wylie Hubbard and Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr, among others. Each song features Jinks’s fearless, unapologetically honest style of songwriting and hard-charging musical style, adding to his storied canon of music.

His debut single from the album, “Found,” will be out May 2, while he is also slated to launch his headlining Hippies & Cowboys Tour in Columbia, Missouri later this month.

Below, Jinks details the making of In My Blood to Billboard.

You recorded this project at The Sonic Ranch. What do you love about recording there?

I fell in love with the Sonic Ranch during the recording process of [2015’s] Adobe Sessions. I love having nowhere else to go but to the studio to make music, because there’s nothing out there. You’re completely isolated in the desert, and it’s 45 minutes to the next town. I’ve recorded a lot of work out there because of that very thing, and Tony [Rancich] has created a magical place like no other that will ever exist.

Was there a particular song that really sparked the beginning for this project?

Not really. There was a song [“Better Than the Bottle”] that was one of the last ones written that became the first track, because it really set the tone for what the record was going to be. So that was fun. I love how records take shape like that on their own often time.

The title song was co-written with and features Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr. How did this song come about?

Charlie and I wrote this song while we were on tour together, last year, and debuted it the day we finished it in Canandaigua, New York. Obviously, since then, we recorded it, he came out to the studio and sang and played on it. We just got done doing a bunch of promo for it in Nashville, as well. He’s a great human being, and it’s the perfect song for him and I to have written together.

There seems to be such a synergy between what you do and what the guys in Blackberry Smoke do. Why do you love performing and creating with them?

That’s how that song really came to be. I love those guys because they aren’t in the music business. Blackberry Smoke is just a kick-ass band that’s been doing it the right way, the honest way, the hard way, the pure way, for a very long time. They are a very important piece of American music, and I’m thankful that we get to play with them. The friendship is more me and Charlie having hung out more than anybody else. When we were playing with those guys, there was always some of their guys watching our show and vice versa.

So, I think the mutual respect was there, and we see everybody in catering, and hang out, and guys would chat here and there. I think Charlie and I have found out we have a whole lot of things in common in just doing it the old school way, just the get in the van and go. And being thankful to still having a place in music.

“When Time Didn’t Fly” is really poignant. What is the backstory?

I wrote that song with Channing Wilson and Kendall Marvel on a Zoom write, four years ago or so, during COVID. I think at that time a lot of people were given time to reflect. All being at the age that we’re at, and given time to think about time… where did it go? Just the joys of childhood, how fun was it to do those things? The true joy that seems to not happen as much, the older you get. It’s a beautiful song, my mom loves that song, it’s the best on this new album. I really, really love that song. It’s a longing for innocence that only the youth are capable of having.

What is the story behind “The Others”?

We are the others. Everybody’s the others, actually. We all like the same things as everybody else, and we all like different things than everybody else. I wrote it with Ray Wylie Hubbard and Tennessee Jed. [After we were all at a festival], we ended up writing a song via text. “The Others” is just a cool tune written by two really, really cool guys and me. It’s one that we’re going to make a music video for. We’re really, really excited about this one being a single because at the end of the day, everybody’s just everybody. We’re all just people.

What do you most hope fans take away from this project?

I hope that if you really dive into the lyrics of this record, you find yourself, you find people, and you find letting go of the past and the things that hold you down, and looking forward to the things that are good for you. It’s about finding yourself, about being thankful, about becoming more reserved, and growing up. It’s a pretty wild ride, so the record reflects that. Our band made this record sound like it does.

They did a great job taking the simple songs that I brought them and making amazing pieces of music out of it. Josh Thompson, producing with Charles Godfrey, and our band having the freedom and the leeway to go in there with thoughtful and creative pieces that weren’t just laid down because they sounded all right, they were really crafted. It’s as pure a piece of art as we can possibly put out, as any band could ever possibly hope to put out. This is as pure as it gets, and I’ve often said that I’m thankful that the fans have grown up with us, and grown up with me, and here’s to looking forward and making it better.

In My Blood tracklist: