Whiskey Myers Talk ‘Whomp Whack Thunder,’ Working With Producer Jay Joyce And The Song That Almost Got Left Out

Whiskey Myers just released their brand-new album, Whomp Whack Thunder. Available today, Friday, Sept. 26, via the six-piece band’s own Wiggy Thump Records, this independent release serves as the band’s first full-length offering in three years and seventh collection overall.

Opening up about the significance behind the title of the album, Whiskey Myers’ lead guitarist John Jeffers said, “We didn’t want it to be self-titled, but we wanted a name that would be remembered, for lack of better words. And Cody [Cannon] (lead singer) actually came up with that. We had a list of all kinds of names, just trying to brainstorm and come up with something that kind of described what we did. So it was like we kind of got in there and stomped on things and waxed some stuff, and it sounded a little bit like thunder.”

Renowned producer Jay Joyce was at the helm of the project, contributing keys, organ, and guitar alongside the band made up of Cannon, Jeffers, Cody Tate, Jeff Hogg, Tony Kent, and Jamey Gleaves. The album follows previous albums — 2022’s Tornillo, 2019’s self-titled collection, 2016’s Mud, 2014’s Early Morning Shakes, 2011’s Firewater, and 2008’s Road of Life.

Recorded in Nashville over three weeks, Whomp Whack Thunder captures Whiskey Myers’ signature genre-defying sound, as they fearlessly push their Red Dirt–meets–rock sound even deeper into the mainstream. In keeping with the varied blend of Southern rock, country, and blues they’ve been known for across all collections, Whiskey Myers proves itself a group that’s never trying to chase a particular wave or trend. Rather, they sit into what they do best while also managing to differentiate one album from the next, creating an evolution of the band that has known each other for years.

“We set out to make a Whiskey Myers record,” Jeffers shared, adding that “Our fan base always knows that there’s no telling what you’re going to get with our records. They all have a different flair; they’re all different from each other. And somehow we manage to still sound like us. And I think this record’s no different… I had a friend of ours listen to the record, and he’s like, ‘Dude. It sounds like the best of the best that y’all had yet.’ And, you somehow put together the old stuff that you used to do, and you mixed it in with the new stuff. And somehow you put it all together on this record. And I kind of feel the same way. It’s like we mixed in what we used to do and the smarter, older version of it somehow in the same way.”

This is the first time Joyce has worked on a Whiskey Myers album, but he had been sought out by the band, who have previously opened for the Rolling Stones, a few times. However, the timing didn’t work out for either party until it came time to create Whomp Whack Thunder.

“We’ve considered being with Jay quite a few times in the past on some other records, and it never really just panned out,” Jeffers said. “We kind of came off of a couple of records of producing ourselves, and we were satisfied with the last two records, but we just decided, okay, I think it’s time that we probably get a different ear in here just to keep us on our toes and not get really too complacent. So we went with Jay and then loved everything,” Jeffers added.

Joyce has built a strong reputation as a producer who is capable of pulling the edge and unpredictability out of every album, having worked with several acts, including country artists like Eric Church and Lainey Wilson.

Of the collaboration, Jeffers noted, “Jay was really excited about working with a band again instead of just singular entities, I guess, so to speak. He worked with us on our experience. He had a pretty light hand behind the board, so it was a pretty seamless thing. He really respects and likes what we do, and he just coached it. It was a team effort for sure, and we really thoroughly appreciate the way he produced it, for sure.”

Built around the band’s raw and unfiltered energy and hard-driving instrumentation, with all 11 tracks solo-penned by lead singer Cannon, Whomp Whack Thunder offers something for everybody. Jeffers, who is known for his guitar mastery, says all six members of the band work together as a unit to bring the lyrics to life, with each instrument filling out the sound of what the song will become.

“We just kind of bring everything together… We basically just sit in a circle, and we start playing the songs and somebody will say, ‘I like this song,’ or ‘I like this one,’” Jeffers said of the process behind building each song out for the record. “But we just kind of run through ’em. We try all of them as best as we can, and it’s pretty quick and easy for us to decipher which ones we’re good at.”

“The ones that make the record, they’re easy for us to play. They come naturally. It’s not hard, and there’s kind of a twinkle in everybody’s eye,” he added. “You can see it pretty clearly. It’s like, ‘Okay, well, that one’s going on there. So it’s always a collective way of picking out those songs.”

“Time Bomb,” “Tailspin,” and “Midnight Woman” served as preview tracks for the album, coming out ahead of its release.

The second track of the nearly dozen bangers, “Tailspin,” offers plenty of swagger with high adrenaline pouring out of each musician alongside Cannon’s raspy rock vocals. The tune hooks listeners with an ear-grabbing opening electric guitar lead that takes turns playing back and forth with another gritty guitar while lyrics unveil a hope for a soft landing during a time of uncertainty.

“I was cruising for a little while / But now I’m in a tailspin / If I’m going out, I’m going out in style / I’m headed for the bottom again,” the chorus goes.

“That was one that Cody was kind of reluctant about doing,” Jeffers recalled. “He didn’t think it was as good as we thought it could be. We all kind of gravitated towards that song pretty quickly and were like, ‘Nah, I think we need to do that. This sounds like a good rock ‘n’ roll song.”

“I’m kind of more of the composition type guy. That’s kind of my forté,” he added. “I really like to dive in and try to compose the whole song and put it all together. I really enjoyed doing that. So that was me on the guitar and me and Cody Tate, we call him Bill… There’s always been so many Codys running around our count. We always go back and forth on guitar, so it’s like you never know who’s playing what. It’s either me or him, or we’re both twinning, playing together at the same time.”

“I Got To Move” follows “Tailspin,” keeping up the energy of the first three tracks, but featuring a groovy guitar lick over a stomping drum beat. The tune, worthy of any road trip playlist, is all about living the nomadic lifestyle, not wanting to commit to one place or person.

The group slows things down with the reflective “Rowdy Days” and “Born to Do,” the latter of which paints the picture of a musician who sings and plays music simply due to the passion of it all.

“My best friends are out there with me / And they’ve helped me make it through / And said we were doing what we were born to do,” Cannon sings the closing lines of the track.

“Monsters,” the final track on Whomp Whack Thunder, Jeffers says, almost didn’t make the cut. “That was kind of a wild card. We were running back and forth and just digging in,” he explains of the song. “Cody and I were both digging into songs, and I had quite a few that we were thinking about doing, and we were trying to really just put the album together as a whole. And he actually wrote that, I think, before the last day.”

“We went in there with a handful of mine, and then he just, by chance, wrote that song with just enough time to add that to the record. That ended up being one of my favorite songs on the record,” he added.

Whiskey Myers has earned over four billion streams, and whose music was featured in the TV series Yellowstone, is currently on the road as part of their What We Were Born To Do Tour, which launched at the Lauridsen Amphitheater at Water Works Park in Des Moines, Iowa, on June 6. The trek runs through Oct. 10, where it will wrap in Greensboro, N.C., at White Oak Amphitheatre at Greensboro Coliseum Complex.