Whey Jennings‘ debut full-length album, Jekyll & Hyde, is out. After releasing a series of EPs, the 12-track project is Jennings’ first complete record, a full-circle body of work that Jennings poured himself into, ready to make his permanent mark in country music.
“I put out a lot of EPs in the past,” Jennings tells Everything Nash. “I’m the kind of guy, when you look back at my career, you’ll see that I did everything three or four different times, and all three, four times I did it wrong. I didn’t spend a lot of money on my career, or time. I just put out EPs for a lot of years. And then I started really taking this seriously, and trying to build a career out of it. This year I felt like I needed to do a full album. It was in my wheelhouse to be able to do so, so we gathered about 22 songs, and then we narrowed it down to 12 that meant the most to me, and we put out what I think is one great album.”
On Jekyll & Hyde, the grandson of Waylon Jennings didn’t hold back, whether it was songs about his faith, his sobriety, or anything else personal to him.
“I can’t sing songs that don’t have to do with me,” Jennings explains. “A bunch of these songs, most of them have a lot to do with me. Whether I wrote them or not, they’re in my area of life. They all mean something to me special, and I’m really proud to have them all on this album.”
When crafting his first complete record, Jennings considered trying to focus songs around a specific theme, until he realized that the focus needed to be on him, and his music.
“I realized I needed to be the theme,” Jennings says. “All these songs need to mean something to me, whether they be something that makes me laugh, something that makes me feel good about where I’ve been, something that makes me think about where I don’t want to go back to. I just wanted to use this album to not only give myself the ability to heal, but also to let people know that healing is possible.”
Included on Jekyll & Hyde is a song called “10 Day Run,” honoring long-distance truck drivers. It’s a song that is important to Jennings, and one he hopes inspires others to honor some of the country’s hardest workers.
“I feel like there’s always been a place in country music for trucking songs, and for some reason, nobody’s put one out for a long time,” Jennings shares. “Trucking has been a big part of my life. My stepdad was a trucker, all my uncles were truckers. I’ve known truckers my whole life. I just felt like this country is still thriving because of truckers. Why are we not paying respect to them like we should be? So I put out a rocking country song, and I just added in a crazy wife for spice.”
Jennings laid his soul bare in all of the songs on Jekyll & Hyde, a cohesive project that, appropriately, ends with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” It’s a record that is meant to show Jennings has staying power in country music, on par with some of his musical heroes.
“My goal with this project is to show up, put my foot through the door, and let everybody know that I’m here,” Jennings explains. “My whole life, I’ve always had one album out there that I’ve heard, that I wanted to do that, and that was Jamey Johnson‘s album, That Lonesome Song. That album had an effect on me like nothing ever. I loved my grandfather, and all his music had a great effect on me, but when that album hit, I wanted to do that. The way it flowed, it wasn’t even necessarily just a song, it was the way the songs flowed into one another. It was almost like the whole album was one big song. It was one thing. And I was like, ‘Man, I gotta be able to do that.'”
See a track listing for Jekyll & Hyde below. Find Jekyll & Hyde and all of Jennings’ music and upcoming shows at WheyJennings.com.
Jekyll & Hyde Track Listing:
1. “Jekyll & Hyde” (Whey Jennings, Wes Shipp)
2. “One of These Days” (Whey Jennings, Sam Lowe)
3. “Girl On A Fast Horse” featuring Charity Bowden (Whey Jennings, David Wade, Shane Grove, Taylor Hughes)
4. “Hotter in Texas” (Whey Jennings, David Wade, Shane Grove, Chris Foust)
5. “One Folded” (Michael Anthony Curtis, Gordon MaGee, Marlon L Raybon)
6. “Caught Up” (Whey Jennings, Wes Shipp)
7. “Sleeves” (Whey Jennings, Wes Shipp)
8. “Home” (David Wade, CJ Garton, Shane Grove)
9. “10 Day Run” (Whey Jennings, Wes Shipp, Sam Lowe)
10. “I Would Die” (Whey Jennings, Michael Curtis)
11. “Billboard Jesus” (Whey Jennings, Wes Shipp)
12. “Hallelujah” (Leonard Cohen)
Photo Credit: Courtesy of JWA Media / Jonathan Galletti