Cody Johnson released his latest studio album, Leather, in 2023, following with the deluxe version in 2024 to create a double album. The 38-year-old country star is now working on his next project, and it seems he’s pretty far along.
Speaking to Katie Neal on Audacy’s Katie & Company, Johnson revealed that he recently spent a week in the studio recording vocals for his new album.
The Texas native indicated that his next project won’t be another double album, since he feels “like a lot of songs don’t get the light of day that they deserve whenever there’s that many songs,” but he did take a “half and half approach to this record” as far as its sonic direction.
“Some of this stuff is, like, so stone-cold country, or it’s, like, so left Motown, or it’s, like, really leaning rock, or it’s really leaning bluegrass,” he revealed. “I don’t have a radio agenda with those songs. It’s just I recorded these songs because I love these songs, and I wanted you to hear me sing these songs. So you can take about half of that and put it over here, for this is who I am. And then you’re going to hear certain ones on the record where you’re like, ‘Okay, that’s going to be huge. That’s going to be a big song, and you’re going to hear that one on the radio.’”
Some of those big songs may be duets, as Johnson shared that there will be a couple on his new project, including collaborations with Luke Combs and Brothers Osborne, the latter of whom also asked him to appear on their upcoming record.
“That was kind of a last-minute deal,” Johnson revealed of his collaboration with the duo. “I heard this song, and I was like, ‘Man, this sounds like John and TJ.’ And they had happened to be reaching out at the same time of like, ‘Hey, when we do our next project, would you do this song with us?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely. Would you do this with me on my project?’ So it was kind of a trade-off.”
There are also a few collaborations on Johnson’s new album that are still falling into place, including one artist he was on a phone call with just prior to his interview with Neal. “That person is in to do the collab so far,” he confirmed. “So there’s going to be some cool surprises on here.”
When it comes to narrowing down the tracks for the album, Johnson said he brings in his friends to help by getting their ears on his new music.
“I have a trick that I do, and I put them all in a Dropbox, and I’ll just listen, especially for my friends that don’t play music or don’t know anything about music,” he shared. “I’ll just ride around and just listen, get their reactions from the song. And after about a month, I’ll notice there’ll be two of them that I haven’t clicked on in a month. And if I haven’t clicked on it, I don’t think you’re going to click on it. It’s not that it’s a bad song, It’s not that we did a bad job, It’s just maybe it’s not flowing with the rest of the songs on the project.”
Cody Johnson has yet to confirm a release date or title for his next album.
