Jelly Roll released his debut country album Whitsitt Chapel in June 2023 and it changed his life forever. Since then, he’s been riding the high that the album brought him. It brought him a pair of No. 1 singles on country radio, a trophy case full of awards, two Grammy nominations, and a level of fame he never imagined he’d reach. Now, he is ready to turn the page on that chapter of his career and start a new one.
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Jelly Roll’s first awards show was the 2023 CMT Music Awards. During that show, he won three awards and performed “Need a Favor” on national television for the first time. Earlier this year, he received Performance of the Year for that outing among other awards, and closed the show with “Halfway to Hell.” His return to the CMT Awards was, in his eyes, the end of the Whitsitt Chapel cycle. He’s currently chomping at the bit to share the next chapter of his journey with the world.
He recently shared his plans for the future on the Country Heat Weekly podcast.
Jelly Roll Is Already Writing the Next Chapter of His Story
During his conversation with hosts Amber Anderson and Kelly Sutton, the topic of new music came up. They recalled that he’d announced new music coming in April at an event at the Tin Roof earlier this year. He noted that he was wrong about that. However, new music is on the way.
“I haven’t said this publicly, I alluded to it at the CMTs but God willing, going into the ACMs we’ll begin the new chapter,” he said. “I think the Whitsitt Chapel era ended at the CMTs,” he added.
“It’s the longest chapter I’ve wrote ever, maybe in my career. I wrote a hundred and something songs last year,” he revealed. “I don’t know how many of them I’m actually going to release this year. Last year, I did a really tight small package with Whitsitt Chapel,” he added. “I told my wife I’m fighting the urge to start getting on TikTok like an artist that never made it and start dropping songs and see what goes. I have that many songs.”
The New Album Will Be Crazy
During the conversation, he also spoke about his upcoming album. “I’ve got crazy in-genre collabs, I’ve got three crazy out-of-genre collabs. Like, when you look at the tracklist finally and it says who it’s featuring, you’re going to be like ‘What is happening? What kind of album is this?’ I’ve got a gospel singer on this album, I’ve got rappers on this album, I’ve got a pop singer on this album,” he revealed. He went on to say that he has two rock bands and “three or four” country features on the new record as well.
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