Texas has a long line of honky-tonk singers who built real followings without Nashville's blessing, and Cody Jinks is the one who scaled it up furthest. Raised near Fort Worth, he has put most of his catalog out himself, lately through his own Late August Records. His management at Red Light counts roughly five billion streams, eight songs certified Gold or Platinum, and more than five million tickets sold. Music Row named him Independent Artist of the Year in 2023, his second time getting it.
He came up through metal, not country. In the late '90s he fronted Unchecked Aggression, a Fort Worth thrash band, and he told Pollstar he figured he'd be in it for life. By about 2005 he was playing country instead. The Tone Deaf Hippies have been with him for years, and bassist Josh Thompson, who also produces, goes back nearly two decades.
I'm Not the Devil, from August 2016, was where it turned. Lifers came out on Rounder in 2018, and after that he went back to releasing records on his own terms.
In My Blood, his 11th studio album, landed July 25, 2025. Like most of his records since Adobe Sessions, it was cut at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, with Thompson and Charles Godfrey producing, and Blackberry Smoke's Charlie Starr co-wrote and sings on the title track. Jinks has called it the start of a Part II. Change the Game, the record before it, dealt with getting sober, and this one opens with a song called "Better Than the Bottle."