Cody Hibbard is happy to make new music on his own terms. The singer-songwriter just released his first full-length album, Long Ride In A Short Bed album, which follows two previously-released EPs, ten songs all written or co-written by Hibbard.

“I’ve always said I wanted to put an album together when I feel like all the songs made sense,” Hibbard tells Everything Nash. “I’d write some stuff and think, ‘Maybe it fits on the EP, maybe it fits as a single.’ With the streaming game these days, you can do whatever you want. And for me, it was time to put an album out, and this tells a story from front to back, of where I was, where I am, and where I’m going.”

Hibbard might be relatively new to country music, but his songs portray both wisdom and experience that far exceed his years as a rising star. Hibbard wrote three of the songs by himself, sharing writing credits on the other tracks with hit tunesmiths like Rivers Rutherford, Rose Falcon, Graham Deloach, Bill Satcher, Tony Lane and more.

“I’m a songwriter first, and I think people don’t always understand what I do, and that’s fine. I like to keep people on their toes … I don’t care about social media. I don’t care about the other stuff you see. I’m country. I do it because it is part of the job, but I think there was enough confusion about who Cody Hibbard is, so I hope this album gets people to understand.”

Hibbard’s path to country music is far from ordinary, which is only part of what makes the stories he tells in his songwriting so rich. Adopted from South Korea when he was 13 months old and raised in Oklahoma, Hibbard attended the United States Naval Academy, until a shoulder injury forced him to pursue another path.

“I was adopted when I was 13 months old,” Hibbard says. “I grew up on a farm. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was more of a physical kid. I enjoyed being outdoors. My grandad was a Recon Marine Officer during Vietnam. My other grandpa was in the Korean War. I always had a huge love for the country, so I applied to the Naval Academy, and I got in. My shoulder messed up. I always said I did the two hardest parts; getting in and the plebe year, and I did both of those, and they sent me home for my shoulder.”

Hibbard went back to college for one semester, but soon realized that he had to conquer perhaps his hardest obstacle of all: his addiction to opiates.  Hibbard struggled with his addiction, which resulted in a lot of losses in his life, before he quit cold turkey ten years ago.

“I was addicted to prescription painkillers at the time,” Hibbard recalls. “I went back to college, didn’t know what I wanted to do, and a buddy asked if I wanted to pipeline for the summer.”

Working on the pipeline, Hibbard quickly discovered he not only liked to work with his hands, but liked the lucrative paycheck his new job offered, and he made the decision to drop out of school and work full-time on the pipeline. Hibbard worked on the pipeline for nine years, until 2019, when he stopped at a restaurant to eat on his way to another job, and had a life-changing moment, even if he didn’t necessarily realize it at the time.

Hibbard was told by his waiter that he didn’t sound like he looked, thanks to his Asian heritage. A friend of Hibbard’s commented that he sounded even different when he sang, and Hibbard got up and played three songs, a small step towards the beginning of his career in country music.

“it was definitely a very, very unorthodox path to where I’m at,” acknowledges the singer. “I’m the type that, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to give it my best shot, not change for anyone, and see what happens.”

Included on Long Ride In A Short Bed is Hibbard’s current single, “Backroad to Heaven,” a song he wrote with Wesley Davis and Reid Morris. Hibbard vividly remembers waking up at 6:00 in the morning with the title “Backroad to Heaven” in his mind. He jotted down the title in his phone and went to a songwriting session, where he, along with Wesley Davis and Reid Morris, brought the song to life. Hibbard intentionally made “Backroad to Heaven” the final song on the record.

“If you listen to the whole album, I start the album off with a song called ‘Kill The Messenger,'” Hibbard explains. “I grew up in church, just like about every other artist, and some stuff had happened that made me kind of irritated. I wouldn’t say question my faith, but it was hard to understand it sometimes. I’ve always been a country boy, and ‘Backroad to Heaven,’ I wrote that song knowing that I put my trust in too much, in people. I should have put it where the Bible tells me to put it in.”

“It was one of those songs that, right when you write it, you want to record it, and when you record it, you want to get it out as quick as possible. That’s why we dropped it two weeks before the album came out,” he adds.

Find “Backroad to Heaven,” Long Ride In A Short Bed, and all of Hibbard’s music and upcoming shows at CodyHibbard.com.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Elicity PR / Brooke Stevens