Jamey Johnson Talks Future Plans in Music, Love for Zach Top

[Originally published for Saving Country Music]

[Jamey Johnson at the Master Musician’s Festival | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

Jamey Johnson is a man of few words—and over the last 14 years, a man of few new albums. But his recent release Midnight Gasoline (November 2024), was worth the wait, and was just the beginning of what promises to be much more new music coming from the award-winning songwriter in the upcoming months and years.

Ahead of his headlining performance at the Master Musicians Festival in Somerset, Kentucky on Saturday, July 12th, Jamey Johnson sat down with Saving Country Music corespondent Jason W. Ashcraft to talk about his new music, his take on new artists and the current direction of country, a new foundation he started, as well as how a few weeks difference might have kept the retired Marine in the service as opposed to saving country music as a songwriter and a performer.

“I definitely would have gone to Iraq when they went,” Johnson explains. “I don’t know how the story would have gone from there. I got my discharge in the middle of December in 2002. That’s because my eight years had run out. The eight years started in December of 1994. A buddy signed his contract ten days after mine. It was the first week of January for him. His contract was frozen and extended. He got activated and sent over. To me, it was a blessing, but also an indicator that my path was over here in country music, and not over there in combat.”

Though Johnson never saw combat, he saw plenty of the toll combat can take through his duties as a Marine. It’s what inspired one of his new songs, “21 Guns.”

“When I served, I attended my share of those funerals in full dress blues. I was the guy pulling the trigger on the rifle, or I was the guy posting the colors. So there’s been a long time place in my heart for Gold Star family members. How many times have I been to the same funeral? It’s just in a different part of the cemetery. This song was a way of giving a voice to every parent out there that’s lost a child in that way.”

[Jamey Johnson at the Master Musician’s Festival | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

When asked about the state of country music, and about some of the up-and-coming artists in the genre, Johnson had some sage advice of how to approach the question.

“You can’t go and confuse two things, because there’s country music, which is the music. Then there’s country music, which is the industry,” Johnson explains. “And you have to learn to separate the two, and know the difference. Fans are having to do that more on their own, but they’re also having to do that just by exposing themselves to other brands of country music. People weren’t really thinking about ’90s country, and now Zach Top’s come along and everyone’s so dead focused on trying to find all the greatest songs from this era and that.”

“That’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” Jamey continues. “That’s the tradition of country music. That’s how you pass it down. You take a song that people don’t get to hear anymore because so and so passed away. Start doing their song live, and watch what happens. You ought to see us do a song by Mel McDaniel’s ‘Louisiana Saturday Night.’ That’s the energy you’re trying to get out of every audience. Give them something that makes them appreciate it. That’s what we try to do.”

When asked specifically who Johnson thinks are some of the names doing country music right, he responds, “Certainly Zach Top, Ernest, Luke Combs—though I know he’s not exactly new. There’s just a ton of them out there right now that are doing great. I could sit here and toss names, and I’ll miss 15 or 20 of them. I like Gavin Adcock. I think he’s a brilliant songwriter.”

Touting Gavin Adcock might seem counterintuitive to the comparatively mild-mannered and sober Jamey Johnson. He even has a song called “Sober” on the new album. But Johnson explains he’s isn’t preaching to anyone but himself in the song.

“It was pointed more towards me than anybody else. I think that’s the whole perspective of being sober. You’re in charge of that vessel. I don’t know that it was as much a sermon to anybody as it was a confession from me. It’s hard. September will be 14 years without alcohol.”

[Jamey Johnson at the Master Musician’s Festival | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

According to Johnson, one of the things that motivated him to start writing more and releasing new music was the death of his friend Toby Keith. Toby’s passing woke Johnson up to how he still had things he needed to contribute in his time. When asked what Johnson misses the most about Keith, he answered,

“Dark humor. That’s the best way I can describe it. He had a uniquely dark sense of humor,” Johnson explains. “I miss his example more than anything. I was learning a whole lot, and he and I were talking about going on tour together. We’d also been batting around some song lyrics. One time on a golf course he ask me, ‘Why don’t we do 365?’ [meaning] 365 concert dates in a row. He was never going to give up. He was one of those guys who made you find the fighter in yourself.”

Jamey Johnson has certainly awoken the fighter in himself. After the extended dry spell in his music, he now has albums worth of material already saved up just waiting for mixes to be approved so it can get into the release pipeline.

“There’s another 50 songs by now,” Johnson explains. “I’ve got some songs in the pile that I’m just absolutely proud of. I’ve got this one I like called ‘Never Gonna Be.’ I didn’t write this song. Ronnie Dunn wrote it, but he wrote it about me in in 2009. It’s an aggressive track. I’m been working with numerous different producers. I’ve still got a bunch of tracks from Dave Cobb, and I’ve got a ton of tracks with Buddy Cannon, and I’ve got to work with Kyle Lehning. He produced all the Randy Travis stuff. And we’ve got some stuff from the Can’t Hardly Playboys (Johnson’s backing band).”

[Jamey Johnson at Master Musicians Festival | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

Jamey Johnson also recently started a foundation, which he’s planning to use to help the flood victims down in Texas.

“We started a foundation called Give It Away to deal with certain tragedies that might fall on people that are in our immediate circle, because it seems like there’s a need there on an annual basis. So this is a foundation that gives us the ability to put certain funds where they should be. Right now we’re looking to send some money to the Hill Country and Texas flood victims.”

Jamey Johnson will be performing with George Strait and others at the “Strait To The Heart” benefit on July 27th at the Thunder Valley indoor arena in Boerne, TX.

“I stay busy,” Johnson states.

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