Cody Johnson recently headed to Australia to open for Luke Combs, and he had one thing on his bucket list for his time Down Under.
Speaking to KIX Country last month, Johnson revealed that he wanted to go team roping. “Anybody that you know that has horses that is gonna be roping somewhere, I’d like to go enter a rodeo or enter a team roping while I’m there,” he said.
Johnson added that he was a fan of Australian professional bull rider Troy Dunn growing up and knows how big bull riding is in Australia.
“I’m not sure how much team roping or any of that’s a part of it,” he continued, noting that “everybody thinks about New Zealand, they always want to go red stag hunting because it’s the quintessential thing for a guy to do over there.”
“I admit, I wanna go get on a horse at some point,” he shared. “I highly doubt that I’ll be able to, but if anybody’s watching this, or if you have any connections, you send them our way because I would really like to go.”
“If I won a buckle in Australia, I’d probably never take that off,” he added. “Just throwing that out there.”
As it turns out, someone was watching. Australian country singer and rodeo cowboy Wade Forster made a video in response to Johnson, letting him know he could help him out. “I see you want to go team roping in Australia,” Foster said. “I can help ya, I can get you out on any horse you want.”
TikTok Made Cody Johnson’s Dreams Come True In Australia
Thanks to TikTok, Forster and Johnson were able to connect, and Johnson shared a video on Instagram of the two roping together at an Australian rodeo, writing, “Australia, y’all surpassed my expectation!.” He ended the video with a photo of himself with Forster, with text over the snap reading, “Thank you, Wade!”
In his caption, he added, “Y’all on TikTok made this happen!”
The comments flooded with comments from fans and fellow singers, including Jelly Roll, Andrew Jannakos, Josh Abbott Band and more.
“International Cowboy! Love you bubba,” Jelly Roll commented, while Jannakos wrote, “I didn’t think you could get more badass hahaha.”
“This is fantastic,” Abbott added.
Prior To Becoming A Country Superstar, Johnson Was A Professional Bull Rider
Before he became a country star, Johnson rode bulls professionally and reflected on his time in that world in his emotional song “Dear Rodeo,” which features Reba McEntire. In a YouTube video talking about the track, which he penned with Dan Couch, Johnson admitted that it was a difficult one for him to write but effortless once he started.
“Once I started really thinking about it, I think the reason I never wrote about it, it really felt like a divorce. That was something I loved very much. To think on those hard times, and that made me a man, made me who I am, the ups, the downs, all the in-between, it was hard to address. It was hard to address that I had failed, I felt like I had failed at something.”
Johnson explained that even though he believes he was meant to be on the path he is now, it was still difficult to reckon with his feelings surrounding his exit from bull riding.
“Even though I think we all know that God kinda directs your life how he wants to and I’m here for a reason, it’s still hard to write about,” he said. “But whenever myself and Dan Couch sat down to write the song, it literally was written in 45 minutes. It was the easiest thing I’d ever written, because all I had to do was talk about my life and the love that I had lost. And whenever you really think of an aspect of a woman, or a divorce, it’s pretty easy to talk about love lost.”
“Y’all Surpassed My Wildest Expectations”
Additionally, Cody Johnson recently took to social media to share photos and recap his time in Australia.
“Australia, y’all surpassed my wildest expectations. It was a pleasure to meet and get to know our fans from across the globe,” he wrote alongside a series of photos. “Many thanks to Luke Combs and his team, first class all the way. I’d also like to shout out the Rockin’ CJB and crew for a job well done. Looking forward to being home with my girls for a minute.”
The country star is gearing up to release his new album, Leather, which he recently gave fans a taste of with the release of “The Painter.”
