Outlaw artist Gethen Jenkins released his debut album “Western Gold” today. Jenkins, who served eight years in the Marines during Operation Iraqi Freedom, recorded the album in Nashville with Grammy-winning producer Vance Powell.
Although Jenkins resides in southern California, he said he decided to go to Nashville to record the idea because of Powell. “We went after a few different guys. Vance was the most excited about it,” he said, adding that he still wants to record an album in Texas and Los Angeles.
“[Powell] gave me the creative freedom to kind of do what we wanted to do and at the same time he would interject and put his genius all over the damn thing. It was cool,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins released an EP called “Where The Honkytonk Belongs” in 2017, which received airplay on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country channel and was one of the top-selling Outlaw Country albums on iTunes. In addition, Jenkins won Male Vocalist of the Year and Album of The Year honors at the California Country Awards in 2017. He thinks he’s grown as a songwriter since he released the EP about two years ago. “I definitely think the songs are better,” Jenkins said. “There’s a little more depth to these songs than the first EP, not to take away from our first EP at all because I think it’s great.”
Jenkins said he was pushed in different directions to grow with co-writing, which I’d never done before. Through collaborating with other writers, he said some beautiful songs out of it like “While I’m Away” came out of those writing sessions. “I’d definitely say that I’ve grown through the process in many ways,” Jenkins said.
He wrote “Basket Case” with Aaron Raitiere, who is one of Dave Cobb’s songwriters. Jenkins said Raitiere told him that their co-writing session was fun, but Raitiere said writing sessions can sometimes be staring contests. “Fortunately, I never had that experience,” Jenkins said, adding that he hit it off with the writers he got to write with and they got some really good songs out of it. “It’s all about your mindset. You’ve got to be positive and proactive and productive and all that.”
Jenkins said his songs are inspires by different things. “Mostly, what inspires me in people or places, different feelings I have when I’m around people or beautiful places I ride my motorcycle through or just sitting on the back porch,” he said. “Sometimes, it just comes to you like a flood and you’ve got to write.”
Jenkins said he thinks Sirius radio is very, very crucial to the underground outlaw country traditional honky tonk movement that has been coming back up. “Without Sirius Outlaw and other smaller stations that will take a chance on a new artist, it would be really hard to get our music out there,” he said.
Jenkins said he mainly listens to artists like David Allen Coe, Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. “Those are my heroes and there’s always something to be learned by listening to them,” he said, adding that his favorite current artists are Sturgill Simpson and Jamey Johnson.
Jenkins has a large fan base in California and he’s one of the only artists since Dwight Yoakum to develop such a following there. ” I think it’s just persistence,” he said. “People don’t realize that Californians love real country music.” Jenkins has toured across the country and he said there is a hunger for the music just about everywhere they play.
There has been a renewed interest in outlaw country artists “You’ve got folks like Cody Jinks and Whitey Morgan who lock themselves in a van for 15 years and drove all over the country playing, putting the time in, and now they are selling out theaters and playing huge shows,: Jenkins said. “I think Cody just got signed to Rounder Records and stuff. If that’s not an indication that this kind of music is coming back, I don’t know what is.”
More information about Jenkins and his music can be found at www.gethenjenkinsmusic.com. He can also be found on Facebook and Instagram at genthenjenkinsmusic.