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Cody Jinks Recalls Playing A Show In Front Of Zero Crowd: “Not One Person, Not One Single Guest Walked Through The Door”
The early days in most musicians’ careers are filled with trials and tribulations. They are trying to get their feet under themselves, find their sound, find their identity as an artist, and most importantly, turn their dream of playing music into a viable living.
It’s filled with the high highs of gaining your first fans and the low lows of vans breaking down and traveling around the nation to play in front of a handful of people who don’t care about your story or sound.
Cody Jinks knows all too well about humble beginnings in a career. The faithful road dog spent a little over a decade running around the country before hitting it big and making a career out of his music. While some country artists can swap stories about playing for a crowd of five or fewer in the early days of their career, Jinks has them beat.
Cody Jinks once played in a bar that was filled with no one. Well, besides the establishment’s employees…
The Western Side’s Andrew Thompson was told the story during an interview with their YouTube channel, highlighting it as a moment he looks back on with a giggle during his come-up story. Jinks tells it as follows:
“I can’t even remember what town in Indiana it was, a very, very small town. So, we get like two-thirds of the way through the evening, and not one person —not one single guest — has walked through the door. Not even strolling down the street and walked in. And we’re up there playing!
These people aren’t making any money, we’re playing for nobody, and the manager walks up, and we were going to make $300. There are four of us, and we are in freaking Indiana, dude. We live in Texas. We’re making $300. The manager walks up and goes, ‘Hey guys, if y’all just want to stop now, we’ll go ahead and pay you $200.’
And I look at the guys, and I was like, ‘Yeah, we really need that extra $100. We’re going to keep playing.'”
Woof.
I mean, looking at it from a half glass full perspective, at least the manager of the place still paid them for their time. And it’s impressive that the Jinks’ ego didn’t get in the way, and they kept playing for $300 instead of calling it quits at $200. While you think that might bruise some musicians, Jinks and his band saw it as part of the course and laughed it off in the hours to come.
“That’s one of the ones I look back and laugh about. And we were laughing about it, really, the next day. I think we got out there early and went to another bar. I think we crossed back into the state of Illinois and found a bar over there and laughed about it that night.”
Eventually, things turned around for Jinks, and he had a big break with “Hippies And Cowboys,” which was featured on his debut record, Less Wise, which emerged years before his famed Adobe Sessions record in 2015.
But the song that put Jinks on the map came out of a time of pure desperation for some bit of success.
“Hippies And Cowboys” Origin
On the Like A Farmer podcast, Jinks opened up that he was at one of the lowest points in his life when he penned that tune.
“My wife was pregnant with our first one. We were broke. I was p*ssed. Everybody was shutting their doors, you know. I was gaining a reputation at that point of being unmanageable, which I kept for a long time. I mean, you’ve got to be a pretty mad mother****** to write a song like that. I sing it every night, and I’m happy to sing it. And I’m very happy now, but that was a tough time.
Life was tough. Life was TOUGH. We were six figures in debt, with one on the way, a career that was taking me more in debt. But I was just doubling down… my wife thankfully was going along with the ride…”
Jinks shared that even in this dark, dark time, he never had doubts about making it one day. While the bills might not have been paid then, he knew it would come back around eventually.
“I believed that what we were doing was build a grassroots effort, and we were going to be fine, eventually. I never had a plan B.”
And he didn’t need a plan B because when he got his first publishing check at the age of 37, his life turned around for the better.
“I got my first publishing check and went from being $150,000-$200,000 in debt to, after all the taxes and everything, I got a $2 million check. After all the taxes and bills were paid and everyone was paid, and I finally got what was left, Rebecca and I had $600,000 or $700,000 in the bank… At 37 years old, it was like, ‘Hey, we’re not poor anymore.’ And that was kind of weird.”
By the time that first check rolled in, Jinks said he had been touring for 11 years, and because he was 37, still chipping away at making this dream a reality, they didn’t have much time to “blow” their money. He and his wife bought new cars, and then he went back out on the road to continue touring nearly immediately.
“We were forced off the road when I was 40 because of COVID.”
Cody Jinks is the real deal and has come a pretty long way since playing in front of zero in that Indiana town.
The post Cody Jinks Recalls Playing A Show In Front Of Zero Crowd: “Not One Person, Not One Single Guest Walked Through The Door” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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