This week he dropped “Nothin’ But Country," a hard-charging, Southern-fried anthem that teams him up with longtime friend and hip-hop legend Petey Pablo. It’s a genre-bending, high-energy declaration of identity, heritage, and the music that raised them both. But as powerful as this single is, it’s just the beginning. Jason is preparing to release his brand-new album Anthem in early 2026, a project he describes as the most personal, most authentic, and most defining of his career
Across Anthem, Jason takes listeners on a journey stitched together with classic country, honky tonk grit, gospel heart, Southern rock swagger, and even unexpected hip-hop flourishes. It’s an album full of redemption and self-discovery, yet it also celebrates the joy of family, the influence of heroes, and the power of storytelling that has always been the backbone of country music. With over a billion career streams already to his name, Jason is proving that independent country music can be bold, fresh, and unapologetically real.
Today, I get to sit down with Jason not just to talk about the single or the album, but about the journey that brought him here, the struggles he’s overcome, the family that surrounds his music, and why he believes Anthem might just be the most important work of his life.
Ken: Jason, first of all, do you have a firm date yet on the album release?
Jason: We do not have a firm date, but we are looking at February of 2026 as the actual full album release. Leading up to that album, I think we're planning on talking to my publicist and the team. I think we're looking at three singles released before then, so I'm really excited about this album. I'm so happy that we're finally here. It seems like it's been a long time putting this project together, but I think that the overall result of the work that we put in, the picking the songs, writing the songs first, picking the songs that we did afterwards, and I think that really led to what we've got here is, I think, my best album yet.
Ken: I'll probably start the album first, and then we can maybe chat about your first single towards the end. I'm always an album guy first, so I always love the storylines and the themes, and I think you've done that so tremendously well on this new album, Anthem. It being your eighth studio album, and at this point in your life, I feel like it's maybe your most introspective and most self-discovered album that you've written thus far. Do you feel that way?
Jason: I do, and I'll be honest with you. The fact that – I really appreciate you pointing that out, because I've really not had the control or the ability to make the album that I've always wanted to make. Usually, there was always influence in it somewhere, from managers to labels, and I'm not necessarily knocking that, but that was always somebody else's input. This record right here, I picked the songs, I knew what I wanted to say. And when people hear the title out, Anthem, no doubt that some of them know where I stand on certain things, but I think that that title does drive a certain political motive, but it's really not. Anthem is your story, the way that you were raised. I think that the person you've become, it plays out to be your anthem in life, and that's where I got the title Anthem.
The album artwork is actually a picture of me sitting behind a photo that has the main focus. It's me sitting behind a chair or sitting behind a photo that my mom got years ago, she won this prize from JCPenney or Ames or somewhere. She said it's a free family photo from Olan Mills, and I don't know why they always book those in the shadiest hotel in town, and they slid all the furniture up against the wall and put a really beautiful backdrop and said, smile like you're about to get shot kind of thing.
So that's what my mom won, and not only did she get the free 8x10, but she got it up on the way from church that day to go to this place. My dad screamed at us for five minutes all the way there. From the church to the parking lot of the hotel is five minutes, and my dad yelled at us about something all the way there. So, in the picture, all of us have bloodshot eyes, our faces are red. You can tell we've all been crying.
And my mom not only got the free 8x10, but she bought the big 34, 552, whatever photo. I said, "Mom, why'd you buy that?" And she said, "I don't know." And I said, "You know what, I don't care what you leave me in life, but I want that picture." And I've said that for years, even before I had this idea to make that my album cover. And she said, "Why?" It had this really cheesy brass frame on it. And I went and spent $400 on a really beautiful frame to have this thing framed in perfectly.
And so that is now the album cover of Anthem. That's my story. That's where it started with this picture of this family photo from when I was, I think I might've been nine or 10 in the picture. And my brother and my sister and my mom and my dad are all in this picture. And that's what the focus of the album cover is. My dad and my picture is sitting in a chair behind it. It's out of focus and it's intentional.
Ken: Wow. I think what I love about the project is that it's, you know, knowing you a little bit as I do and you being very public with your journey over these last few years, it's this fascinating combination of stories about redemption and forgiveness and self-discovery but then also with you being a bona fide rock star and playing music for a living. And those two things aren't opposites of one another. They're one in the same storyline.
Jason: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.
Ken: Yeah. I think those songs that are towards the back half of the album, those little more mature themes, I think, are relatively new for you. And for me, those touched me the most as you were writing them. Was that a conscious effort, or did it just come, you know, did it kind of pour out of you?
Jason: I think that really songwriting has always been something to me that sometimes those moments, you have to capture them and I think the way you deal with yourself, which was not something I was ever really good at before. It's kind of crazy, talking about my addiction and things like that that I'm very open about because honestly, I was very open about my addictions in public before I started, when I was still doing them.
I think that one way to handle that and to recover is to address those things head on. It's kind of like the reason I didn't put out the gospel record until after I got sober. My mom always wanted me to do that record, and I never thought I would because I was still the guy playing the honky tonks and drinking beer and stuff like that on the weekends. And that was, you know, I didn't want to be a deterrent to what the actual message of the song was supposed to be. So when I did that, when I got sober, I felt it's finally time to start doing that. It was because I was addressing those issues that I had.
Ken: When you're putting together songs like “There Goes God Again” and “Sober” and even a little bit like “Whatever Happened to Heroes,” is that a hard reveal for you, or are you viewing it more as therapy and a relief as that gets written down on paper?
Jason: You know, it was funny you said that, but “Sober” in particular, that was a song that I was – when I wrote it – I write songs all the time for, you know, they're for me. They're really not for anybody else. And I've always used songwriting as therapy.
I remember when I was eight years old, the first song I ever remember writing was when I was dealing with some things at home. I was stressed out about a few things. I wound up getting an idea. I couldn't sleep one night. I remember I got up in the middle of the night and no one told me to do this. I don't know where the idea came from, but I got this idea to kind of put some thoughts down on paper.
So at eight years old, I got up in the middle of the night. My brother and I shared a room in the trailer we lived in. I grabbed my notebook out of my backpack. I walked down the hallway to the bathroom, shut the door, turn the light on, sat on the edge of the bathtub, and started writing my feelings. When I started doing that, things started making sense. And the more they made sense, I remember I wrote and wrote and wrote. So I didn't really have anything else to say. I shut my notebook. I turned the light off. I put my notebook back in my backpack and I slept like a baby.
I kind of started playing it. It all started coming back to me when I played it. I played it with my eyes closed and you can actually hear my voice breaking in the interview because I hadn't played it in forever. And I kind of brought back those feelings that I felt when I wrote it. And when I did, my buddy, I opened my eyes after I played the song and he was in tears. And he said, “Don't stop playing that one.” And I thought that was a really cool response. And because of that, it gave me a little more confidence to put that on the record and be a little more open with what I was doing.
Ken: They come from discovery. So with “Alyssa Lies,” obviously a very heavy topic, but what came out of that was an amazing sense of conversation and lots of personal stories that offline you have shared with me over the years of, you know, amazing impact that that song has had on people in helping them deal with feelings and all that kind of stuff. As you're doing some of these more highly personal songs, and even sharing your own personal story, the transparency that you've had, are you seeing similar reactions, or are you hearing from your fans similar type of things where these, you know, like “Sober” with your friend, with your podcast friend, that it's having an impact on their lives?
Jason: Yes. And the crazy thing is in a program I'm in, they discuss anonymity being something that's important and I do respect that. However, again, back to the point that I wasn't very anonymous with my drugs and my alcohol usage and it wasn't that I was out there advertising it, but I think my reactions and my actions were different. That being said, I think that my platform was more of an opportunity to share with folks that I've been through this and that, you know, if I made it out of something like this then so can you.
I'll be honest with you, when I wrote “Alyssa Lies,” Ken, I didn't think anybody [would] want to hear it. I thought that was one of the ones, like I just told you, that I was writing for myself, just to get something out, put it down on paper and leave it alone. In one of the groups I'm in, they say to write down your process, write down your feelings. And once you get it out, don't just think about it. Don't put it in your phone and type it on a digital outlet. Write it down, physically write, paper to pen. Get it out. And when you do that, you find some healing for yourself.
And that was kind of my purpose with “Alyssa Lies.” And when I start seeing that coming around, it's amazing that I've had so many people, so many walk up to me and tell me that they watch my morning videos on Facebook, saying your daily readings are inspirational or the fact that you're tackling this head on.
I had a guy come up to me in a builder supply store a while back that told me that because of my morning videos, he thought he recognized he might have a problem and he started looking into it and he just – just personally, I cannot give his name, but he personally crossed a year sober just – he doesn't go to meetings. He doesn't do any of that. Just watching my videos, he just crossed a year sober.
And I think that is so awesome that when I wrote “Alyssa Lies,” people were coming up to me and telling me how much the song impacted them and how their lives had changed because of it. And I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't expecting that. And it's kind of the same thing with these morning videos that I was doing. Just to be 100% honest, I was doing it because if I didn't make a commitment to somebody to stick with these readings, I knew that I had my personality, I would create a reason not to read them myself. And so that's why I did that.
Ken: Wow. I know there's an old quote by Paul McCartney that I've loved that he always says that music is like a psychiatrist. You can tell your guitar things that you can't tell people, and it will answer you with things people can't tell you. And I've always thought that's such a great quote and I think relevant to our conversation here.
What probably surprised me a little bit about this project is the diversification of production and all of the genre influences that are in there. There's some hip-hop influence and some Tom Petty influence and certainly honky tonk, which is something that you've had on previous albums, and Classic Country, and then even some very traditional old school with steel guitar and all that kind of stuff. Walk me through kind of where all these different influences came from and how they impacted the album.
Jason: So I love country music. I think that country music was one of those formats. I grew up on southern gospel, so that I think country music and southern gospel is not too much of a disconnect there. And I think that the storytelling in country music is what made it now, in my opinion, I think, it's arguable, the most popular format in the world. That's why you have all these hip-hop and other genre artists jumping to country music.
But I also don't – I'm careful with what I say when I say people that want country are coming country. I think country music is not a genre. I don't think that it's fair to classify it as a genre because then you start getting division. You start getting musical segregation, which is when people start thinking that, oh, well, that guy is not country. You know, his music isn't country. Well, hold on a second. People may say that about me. I grew up on an 82-acre tobacco farm. Okay, so that checks the box for you. You think I'm country. I appreciate your approval. But you would be surprised to learn that the surrounding towns that the only things we had to do on the weekends besides hanging out on the farm would go to urban towns.
So Oxford and Henderson were very predominantly urban towns. And all my friends, you know, white, black, doesn't matter, we would drive from the car wash. We would cruise the strip from the car wash down to Bojangles gravel parking lot at the time or to Walmart and blasting everything from George Strait to Tupac. I mean, that was my country. And I think when people hear that, they might even say, well, he's not country. I don't think country music was ever a format. I think it was a lifestyle. And I think that's something that really, honestly, I lost sight of for a while. And so that really influenced me.
If you go back and listen to this record, you'll hear influence from, like you said, you'll hear classic country. You'll hear some modern country. You'll hear some of the honky tonkers that I cut my teeth on when my band first started playing in honky tonks and we were the house band for Long Branch for a long time. You'll hear some hip-hop influence. Now, another thing that people might not recognize from this record, the hip-hop influence that they hear in a song, sure, but the interludes in this record were actually hip-hop influence.
One of my favorite records in the '90s was a band called Jodeci. They had a record called The Hotel, The Show, The After Party. And if you listen to that record – Jodeci, by the way, gave us great break-off bands like Devonte was a good artist at the time. And then the most popular out of that band was K-Ci & JoJo, who had some hits on their own and they did a lot of showcasing with Tupac and things like that. But anyway, I digressed.
They had interludes on that record. So you'd be listening to the album, you'd hear a song go off and then you'd hear bottles clanking and people partying in a hotel room and things like that. That was an interlude. And what it did for me was it carried me on a journey. It wasn't just song, song, song. Okay, thank you for listening. Have a great day. You're bringing somebody with you on this project. Songs are put in place for a reason.
And so now you're listening and hearing, oh, so he's leading from – he came out and cranked his truck in the morning and this interview is on the radio. This is his anthem. Well, what's his anthem?
Okay, well, then it starts with a country music, you know, kind of Tim McGraw '90s kind of – well, it starts with hip-hop beat first and then goes into the Tim McGraw kind of style solo from the '90s, you know, then goes into the song “Go to the Bar,” followed by Tom Petty, “Pretty Wild Thing,” the Tom Petty influence that I had, which really is a heavy influence that I had leading into something in my life that I wasn't prepared for years later, dealing with something my daughter and something that – the difficulty she faced.
During that time, she wasn't speaking to me and there was – there's reasons why I could go into, but for the most part, the main point was that I really didn't know how to handle not being able to help my daughter. So, I sat back in my chair and I'm thinking about life and what I'm doing. And I'll be honest with you, at the time, I probably had a rocks glass and Crown sitting in front of me.
And a buddy of mine called me up. And I remember I was sitting in my office and he said, “Did you hear about Tom Petty?” I said, “No. What happened?” He said, “He died.” And dude, it was like, just, you know, whatever wind I had left in my sails was taken away. And I kind of sat back and said, “Well, damn!” I remember sitting back up in my chair and thinking about those bracelets. I don't know what drew my attention to this, but those bracelets, What would Jesus do? you know, people wore all the time. I sat back up in my chair and I said, “What would Tom Petty do about this?” And I said, “He'd write a song about it.”
And so that afternoon I wrote the song “Pretty Wild Thing.” I didn't realize years later that I'd meet Steve Ferrone from the Heartbreakers, who played with Tom Petty for over 25 years, and let alone have the nerve or the courage to ask him to say, “Hey, would you mind playing on the song for me?” And definitely didn't know that he would say yes.
This record is put together the way it is intentionally, from the interludes to everything else. And there's so much influence from rock to country, to hip-hop, to everything that made me who I am, which is why I call the record Anthem.
Ken: Yeah. I would encourage anybody that's, when it's time, when this comes out, to listen to it from start to finish because I agree with you, it has a storyline. It has a road trip vibe- this is an album you want to put in and listen intentionally from beginning to end. And it even has a couple radio interviews in it from some people that had big influence on your career, didn't it?
Jason: It does. The very first interview that's on there – and again, I started all of these as faux interviews. That's not what my intention was, to make these somewhat comedic and have that kind of thing. And what we got when we stepped in the studio, because none of us had really done this before and country music didn't really have this in its format to this point, in my opinion. Some people did in the woods, but they weren't as like this. And when we went in the studio and started doing these, they actually turned into real interviews.
I remember when I did mine with Pat and Tom right there in Sacramento, by the way, and those folks have been a big part of my career and big supporters of my music, when we did them to be a part of it. One, I didn't know that Tom would be retiring, so that was a shock to me. And it makes me even more grateful that I asked them to be a part of it because now I have that as a memory for myself.
And then having them do the interview, I remember when we did the radio part, because I wanted theirs to be, like the first one with Mike Wheless, he was my very first radio interview ever as a local band. I mean, we did it. He actually called me in with Neal McCoy and that was the most crazy thing I've ever done in my life. I thought I was scared to death that I'm sitting here talking to Neal McCoy on the phone. I'm like almost jumping up and down on my end of the phone.
Ken: Now that has to be about 20 years ago now, right?
Jason: That was back in – that was in 1998, I think.
Ken: Wow. Time flies.
Jason: Yeah. So Mike Wheless has been a friend of mine for a long time. He was one of the first people I asked to do this interlude kind of thing with me. I actually did that interview in studio with him. So, the two of us are together staring at each other, which was really cool after I did a morning show with him.
When I asked Pat and Tom, I actually wanted it to sound like I was on the phone because for the most part, that has been our experience when we would do interviews. And so they were so gracious enough to record it for me, chop it up a little bit with their parts, and then I actually had to go clean up some of my uhs and things like that out of it.
But then I remember when we called and they went through the script that I – I remember Pat said, “Hey, can we actually do a real interview with you?” And I was like, “Yeah, please. Absolutely.” So the interview you hear on the track, he makes a joke at the beginning of donating to my record, so don't ask, which is so those guys, but that was an actual interview. That was one we used. It wasn't the script I used.
And so we actually used that and I'm so grateful they asked the questions they did. And it really placed itself on its own. I had an idea where I wanted the tracks to sit and the interview placed itself in front of “There Goes God Again,” which was the subject of what interview was about.
Ken: Beautiful. Well, before I leave, I do want to touch upon your first single release off of Anthem and it's a single called “Nothin’ But Country.” It's a featuring Petey Pablo. And this is one of those songs that is going to sound unlike anything that you've heard from Jason Michael Carroll. It's a little bit genre bending, but it's along those themes of building upon all of those country themes that have kind of built to you as a person, right?
Jason: It is. It's crazy. Petey and I have known each other for probably 20 years now. We met at the Ale House in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and we exchanged information that first night. The crazy thing was I remember when Petey Pablo and I became friends, every time I'd see him, he'd be like, “Let's do something, dawg.” I'm like, “Yeah, I'm down. Let's do something.” And we would always say that. It was almost like the Nashville goodbye. We should write some time, you know? So I was like, “Yeah, man, let's do something.”
Well, we never did anything. We would always see each other. Twenty years' time, we would call each other on the phone. I mean, at first, when I got his number, the funny thing was I must've been the top of his call list because you'd be gone for two weeks, come home in bed at night, like 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, my phone would ring and Wendy's like, “Who's calling you?” I'm like, “What do you mean?” She'd wake me up and tell me this. I'm like, “What are you talking about?” She's like, “Somebody's calling you.” And I wouldn't even look at my phone. I'd say, “It's Petey.” She's like, “What?” I said, “It's Petey.” She's like, “No, who's calling you?” I said, “Baby, I'm telling you it's Petey Pablo.” And she says, “Why? Why is he calling?” I said, “I don't know, baby. He'd bug me all the time.” And she's like, “Uh-uh.”
So finally, I reached out, I fumbled through the door, like I find my phone, I grab it and I open it. And what she would hear was… And I'd be like, “Petey! Petey!” And finally, he'd pick up, “What up, dawg?” And I'm like, “Dude, you called me.” That's how our conversations would go.
And the crazy thing about asking him to be on this record, it was so organic. It wasn't intentional. It wasn't forced. I thought I had done – I thought I'd finished the record with the song that you and I were talking about off interview, with the song “Whatever Happened to Heroes.” And I thought that was going to be the end. I wanted the record to fade out into the abyss with the last line of the song people heard and got people thinking, you know, because all you hear is my vocal asking.
And I remember I asked a guitar player, after we finished this record, real quick, I asked a guitar player, a very prominent guitar player in Nashville, very famous, to be on this record. I reached out to their day-to-day person. They got back to me and said, “Yes, he would love to do it.” I said, “Awesome.” “He can't do it right now. He's got things coming up. He's got projects. Can you hold off a little bit?” “Yeah, sure.”
So every two weeks, I'd call, “Hey, has he been able to do it?” “No, he's got this.” Okay. Two weeks later, “No, he's got this.” Two weeks later. “No, he's got this.” Christmas. No. February, the first week of February, I called, “Hey, has he been able to do it yet?” He can't do it. And I was so disappointed.
But I'll be honest with you, my mind went straight back to the fact that that waiting time, I would have finished the record had he been able to do that sound, that solo for me. In December, I started writing another song that the more I wrote it, the more it turned into what modern country seems to be today. I even called my wife up to my office. I said, “Hey, can you listen to this? Tell me if it's cool.” And I said, “I'm thinking about sending it to Petey and ask him to be on it.” She said, “Do it.” So I did.
He actually agreed to put bars on it. He did a great job. One of my favorite lines is “I feel like Petey Timberlake. I'm out here bringing country back.” What a great line.
But when we tracked it, man, this song organically just became something so cool that I was like, man, I thought I was done with “Whatever Happened to Heroes.” I thought it was gonna be it. Now we need to segue into this song because I didn't want to change the rest of the rhythm for the record.
So I actually had my buddy Eddie and Amanda Fox down in Asheville, North Carolina. Eddie has been a very big supporter of mine and a good friend for years. I actually reached out to him and said, “Hey, can y'all do another interview for me?” So that's the only interview that turned into this photo interview where they – I didn't realize. They sent me their idea and next thing you know it was like the comedic bit. I love this. So I edited it all in my studio, put it down together, and they're like banging on asking for one more track and this is the one we give them. So I love that. I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to put this out the way I wanted to.
Ken: That's great. I'll just maybe finish up with just, you know, from your perspective, is there anything else that's from your heart you want people to know about this project that's coming up, Jason?
Jason: This album is not only my opus. I hope it's not my last one, but I think it's, to this point, I definitely believe it is my staple. It is my favorite album I've ever done, but not only that, there are things in this record that I think people, little factoids about this. My grandbaby is on two tracks, on the “Pretty Wild Thing” song, which I told you I wrote because I was dealing with some things with my daughter.
Fast forward, I didn't know that I would be friends with Steve Ferrone years later and he would track on it. But I also didn't know that my daughter and I would mend our relationship. I was there for her when she needed me and I always was and I always will be. And the reason I wrote “Pretty Wild Thing” was whether they speak to me or not, whether they're talking to me or not, they would know how I felt about them and either spiritually, physically or not, their dad would be there for them. And that's why I wrote “Pretty Wild Thing.”
I didn't realize years later that my daughter that inspired the song that I wrote about, I wrote for all my kids, would actually be singing with me on the track. I told you about the Tom Petty influence on “American Girl,” you remember Tom Petty does this “ah” kind of thing in the background that he does that throughout the entire song, I actually looped this “tah-tah” thing in “Pretty Wild Thing.” And I got the idea to add Nugget, my grandbaby, one of her first coos, one of her first laughs. So in the song, the entire loop of the song you hear tah-ah, and that's Nugget and myself that are looped through the entire song. So another Tom Petty nod.
And then, lastly – oh, not lastly, I actually had my family singing all the gang vocals on “Go to the Bar” and on “What I Know Best.” So my mom, my kids, my grandbaby, they're all singing on every one of those gang vocals. And my daughter's story, lastly, is singing the harmony with me on the song, which was very traditional, very country sounding.
Ken: That's going to be a big bus when you have to take them all out on the road to do those gang vocals when you go on tour, buddy.
Jason: (laughter) No kidding, right?
Ken: Well, for anybody that's out there listening and/or reading this, I'd encourage you to get this in your ears as soon as it comes out, hopefully early in February 2026. It has the early song of the year on my choice for next year already for “Whatever Happened to Heroes.” It's got some amazingly personal and really fun songs. Jason, I just want to tell you, thank you for pouring your heart out for all of us fans out here.
Jason: You know, independent music is alive and well, so go out there and support an independent artist, myself or anyone else. But I really do think that if people give this record a shot, they'll not only know more about myself, but they'll be really happy with finding some more about some things out about themselves.
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