Dustin Lynch on New Album, Working With Jelly Roll & Why ‘Country Music Is Wide Open’

Two years ago, Dustin Lynch deepened his collection of hits with the six-week Billboard Country Airplay chart-topper “Thinkin’ ‘Bout You,” a collaboration with MacKenzie Porter. On Killed the Cowboy, out Friday (Sept. 29) via Broken Bow Records, Lynch keys up another collaboration — this time with Broken Bow Records label mate and “Need a Favor” hitmaker Jelly Roll, interpolating the melody and groove of Dobie Gray’s 1973 hit “Drift Away.”

Lynch says that he and Jelly Roll met through a mutual producer, Zach Crowell. “Jelly and Zach started making music years ago, before I even moved to Nashville, when Zach was making beats for Jelly when he was rapping,” Lynch tells Billboard. “When we couldn’t tour for those couple of years around the pandemic, Zach and I were staying connected and heard this song,” he says, noting that he first recorded the song in late 2022.

Lynch tested out the song during Luke Bryan’s Crash My Playa festival in January, with Jelly Roll adding his vocals a few months later in Austin, Texas. “I related to the lyrics so much, and we get to name-check Brooks & Dunn in there, so literally, it’s a perfect scenario,” Lynch says. “And with Jelly, ‘Drift Away’ is such a classic melody, and we kept this super loose and had some grit and rough edges to it, and Jelly has the perfect voice for it, with the soul he has in his voice.”

With Killed the Cowboy, Lynch is six albums deep into a career that has earned the Tennessee native eight No. 1 Country Airplay hits, including “Small Town Boy” and “Where It’s At (Yep Yep).” He’s steadily built a catalog ranging from tender tracks such as “Cowboys and Angels” to more sultry fare like “Seein’ Red.”

Much of his new album delves into heartbreak, from the title track to “Breakin’ Up Down.” But it’s the meticulously detailed, small-town love story “Only Girl in This Town,” written by Devin Dawson, Josh Thompson and Kyle Fishman, that launched the making of Killed the Cowboy. “This was a song that my ears perked up on making another album,” Lynch says. “It was one of those songs that stuck around and stood the test of time. I kept finding myself coming back to it and loving it even more.”

Lynch is a writer on nearly half of the album’s dozen songs, including the evening romance-propelled “George Strait Jr.,” which nods to the Country Music Hall of Famer (though Strait’s son is named George “Bubba” Strait, Jr.). “He’s my hero, personally and professionally,” Lynch says of Strait. “He’s a class act. I wanted to tip my hat to him, but do it in a fresh way. I took us a while to really nail down how to do that without getting too heavy. We wanted to capture that late-night vibe.

“I think over the years I’ve learned to be in a present frame of mind and creative flow to really offer something to my co-writers,” Lynch adds of his writing process. “I’ve found a good balance of how much I like to write. I kind of need a break whenever we get done with an album to just reset a little bit. But then once I start writing, I fall back in love with the process of creating that magic that writing songs is and there’s no better feeling than getting in my truck and playing a new one and it making me feel something.”

Between tour stops on his 2023 Party Mode Tour, writing and recording sessions, Lynch has found that rejuvenation in the Rocky Mountains and in Canada, as well as on his farm outside of Nashville.

“I’ve learned that’s important for me as an artist to go out there on the farm and have that time to myself,” he says. “I’ve left a lot of it wild and continue to improve the habitat for the native wildlife there. I’m a nerd when it comes to animals and conservation.”

Lynch, who studied chemistry and biology in college, also runs a small cattle operation. “I remember my first job was in middle school, helping out and making $5 an hour working down the street from my house on an angus [beef] farm. It’s great to be back in the game, kind of relearning a lot about that world.”

On record, his sound may run from traditional-minded country to sleeker pop fare, but when he’s on his farm or in the mountains, his musical tastes run the gamut from rootsy to R&B. “I’m listening to Mount Joy, Noah Kahan, Colter Wall, but then also, I’ve been for a long time obsessed with H.E.R. and SZA. I love R&B. But musically, that’s kind of where I’ve been living, in that Americana space. It probably just stems from the fact that, this time of year, I love being in the mountains and that music goes well with it.”

Looking ahead to 2024, Lynch will launch his Killed the Cowboy Tour featuring pop/R&B/country artist Skeez as an opening act.

“He’s kind of been a chameleon and able to pull the country fans and some top 40, hip-hop type of collabs off,” Lynch says. “I know he’s going to bring a lot of his fan base, which are going to be new eyes and ears for our show. Country music is as wide open as I can remember it being. We’re in a spot right now where we can be in front of a lot of new eyes and ears and blend those lines in the sand of genre, and just go off of good vibes and good music.”