Jon Pardi’s Honkytonk Hollywood album took three years, a few significant life changes, including fatherhood, and a rock and roll legend’s influence to come to fruition. The 17-track record, his first since Mr. Saturday Night in 2022, is also his first with producer Jay Joyce, a dream come true for the country singer.
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Pardi happened to watch a documentary about Tom Petty making his iconic 1994 Wildflowers album, which Petty did alongside Rick Rubin. The documentary became an unlikely but pivotal impetus for what became Honkytonk Hollywood. The timing felt providential, as Pardi was ready to make a change, this time by working with Joyce.
“Every three or four records, I like to switch it up and use new producers because I feel like I grow as a songwriter, musician, producer, and just an artist,” Pardi remembers Petty saying. It was a lightbulb moment for Pardi.
“I took that to heart because I was at a point where everything was great, but it was time that I needed something,” Pardi tells American Songwriter. “I can’t just do the same thing. I’ve been dreaming about a Jay Joyce record for so long. And Tom Petty, from rock and roll heaven, kind of made it happen. I always shout out to him. He’s always been an influence since day one. But this one really moved the needle. And it worked out because Jay had a whole month available to do the record. And I had a whole month available, and it just worked out.”
Pardi has always had a bit of a rock edge in at least some of the tracks on his albums, all the way back to Write You A Song, his freshman record that he released in 2014. But with Honkytonk Hollywood, and especially adding Joyce to the mix, it became the record Pardi has always wanted to make, even if he didn’t always know it.
“I’ve always been influenced by Tom Petty,” Pardi concedes. “And I feel like all my records have had a lot of rock in it, but all my records have been a lot more polished than this record. This record has a lot of grit. And that’s where you get a lot more of the rock and roll vibes, I feel like, especially with Jay Joyce as a producer and the way we recorded this. It was not all studio musicians. It was me and my band, Rob McNelley and Jeff Hyde. We recorded this record for four weeks, which, in Nashville terms, is like, ‘What? You did it in four weeks?’ It’s usually two days, two or three days of tracking, and then we’ll sing the vocals. We lived in that world, and I feel like that’s where those sounds and stuff, especially the rock vibes, come.”
Honkytonk Hollywood is Pardi’s fifth studio record, not counting his 2023 Merry Christmas from Jon Pardi project. But aside from it being Pardi singing the songs and writing eight of the 17 tracks, everything else about making Honkytonk Hollywood is much different than anything Pardi has done in the past.
“Time,” Pardi says, is the biggest difference. “We had time. Jay owns the studio, and he’s very into taking his time when making records and not working with everybody in town. I think the biggest change of how this one was made, and how I will change how we do records from now on, is we sang final vocals right after we got done tracking. You’re still in the magic of brand-new songs. You still have all of that … that magic is captured on my vocal performance on this record. I think it’s some of the best singing I’ve done on my records. I have to thank Jay for putting me in that moment.”
Now that Pardi has done this record with Joyce, it’s unlikely he will ever go back to the typical way of making an album ever again.
“I’ve done records where it took six months to sing vocals,” Pardi shares. “And since it was four weeks in the same spot, I wasn’t bush-hogging. I wasn’t mowing the lawns, weed-eating, or feeding the cows. I wasn’t working my allergies up. I was just in the studio, and it worked out.”
Honkytonk Hollywood might have a rock vibe, but it still reflects the place Pardi now calls home and the city that helped make his country music dreams come true.
“It’s totally Nashville,” the California native says. “From the downtown lights, the record labels, the songwriting, and the music business. It’s getting more glamorous than it used to be. It feels like there are more hotels and publishing houses. It’s kind of turned into this thing that was a little more than just music.”
Included on Honkytonk Hollywood is Pardi’s current single, “Friday Night Heartbreaker,” written by Jessie Jo Dillon, Ryan Hurd, Josh Miller, Daniel Ross, and Chris Tompkins. Not since “Your Heart or Mine,” out in 2022, has Pardi had a hit that resonated so well and so quickly at radio.
“‘Friday Night Heartbreaker,’ it’s a spooky kind of vibe to it, and it’s just a hot-girl anthem, I feel like,” Pardi says. “I just saw girls getting ready, like, ‘I’m gonna break some fool’s heart tonight.’ I don’t know, I’m not a girl. But that’s just a little part. It’s got an infectious melody. I love the darkness and the minor chords. The swift and fast melody at some points, but I thought it was a hit. It sounds like a hit. And it’s very contemporary. But I like taking something that’s very contemporary, and then we’ve got fiddle and steel. We try to morph it into this really country thing. I thought we did a pretty good job.”
Pardi also released another song on Honkytonk Hollywood, the tearjerker “She Drives Away,” written by Zach Abend, Jimi Bell, Seth Ennis, and Jordan Minton. The father of two young girls, Pardi immediately gravitated towards the song, also feeling a bit of relief that others so clearly articulated for him the joys and pains of fatherhood, so he didn’t have to write it himself.
“As a songwriter, I’m always celebrating the songs I get on my own record,” Pardi says. “Because, when I heard ‘She Drives Away,’ I was like, ‘Don’t have to write about that topic no more,’ because it was just too good. I’m pretty sure it was Ronnie Dunn that said, ‘You can’t out-write Nashville.’ And this is proof of the talent of songwriters in Nashville, with ‘She Drives Away.’ It’s a topic that’s been sung about, but this is a very manly, ‘I meet your daughter. I ask for her hand. And then I have a daughter.’ It’s such a great story and a beautiful melody. I honestly feel like Jay—nobody else could do it better. He just made it so cinematic. You’re there, the space of recording, the melody, everything. It’s really pretty, You hear and feel the emotion, and I know girl dads out there are gonna love it. When I first heard the final version, I was like, ‘This is gonna be on some father-daughter dances at weddings.’”
“She Drives Away” might be the only direct song about fatherhood, but the influence of him being a parent is evident, in some way, on all of the tracks on Honkytonk Hollywood. For the first time, Pardi has fewer songs about partying and a few more celebrating his current status in life.
“I guess it’s a little more where I’m at, just life in general,” he says. “Having topics I haven’t been able to sing about. Not that I didn’t want to sing about it, but being a dad and going through the whole asking Summer’s father if I can marry her, you kind of live that song to where you really put that emotion in that recording and feel it when you sing it. It’s not all the time you get a song like ‘She Drives Away.’”
It’s understandable that fatherhood has changed Pardi. He and Summer welcomed their first daughter, Presley Fawn, on February 18, 2023. Seventeen months later, they added to their family with Sienna Grace, born on July 16, 2024. There were a lot of adjustments that Pardi now sees have already impacted every area of his life.
“[I’m] a little more cautious,” Pardi admits. “A little more trying to dodge death, more than I used to. A little more careful and patient. Patience is definitely a big thing for fatherhood and marriage. There’s definitely growth and learning. I think parents learn. They figure it out. What does it mean to be a parent? It means you figure it out.”
Pardi dug a little deeper, in every way, with Honkytonk Hollywood. Whether it was one of the songs he wrote, one of the songs he recorded that he didn’t write, or the way he sang all 17 songs, everything in some way points back to working with Joyce.
“That’s the beauty of taking a chance with Jay,” Pardi says. “I knew Jay was going to be the guy. He’s always been my guy, in my head. We’ve always tried to do something like Jay Joyce. Even way back on the first record, with ‘Empty Beer Cans,’ I was like, ‘We gotta make this like a Jay song.’ It’s never like he’s not been in my records. But now I got to work with him, and I feel like we knocked it out of the park. We vibed really well. It’s like two worlds coming together.”
Pardi paid attention to every detail on Honkytonk Hollywood, including the sequencing. The hitmaker begins the record with the rowdy “Boots Off,” which Pardi wrote with Luke Laird and Wyatt McCubbin, followed by “Friday Night Heartbreaker,” and ends with the Marv Green, Hyde, and Brice Long masterpiece, “Kinda Wanna Keep It That Way.” It was an intentional bookmark to what has already become the most pivotal project of his career.
[RELATED: Jon Pardi Doesn’t Know What Country Music Is Anymore—and That’s “Awesome”]
“I love where this record’s at, and I love that I’m not afraid to make a change,” Pardi says. “I’m not afraid to say how I want to say my dream of getting a Jay Joyce record. I want to keep it that way. This record means a lot to me, and I want to keep it that way. I want to make this on the next record.”
Indeed, it seems that wish is already at least in the beginning stages of being granted. Now that Pardi has experienced the beauty of working with a producer like Joyce, it’s unlikely he will ever go back to the way he made records in the past.
“We do have time booked with Jay in November,” Pardi reveals. “I’m really trying to get onto not taking three years to make a record. It’s not my fault … it’s just I’m on a big label, and everybody likes having their windows of when to put records out. It’s just a goal. Now, will I reach it? I don’t know. To reach goals, you gotta start. Just being the best dad, raising a family, making great music, and keeping fans happy. A little less beer and a little more diet.”
Photos by Jim Wright
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