Cody Johnson: ‘Not Just A Guy From Texas’
Cody Johnson is proud of his Texas heritage, but when it came to making it in Nashville, being from Texas made it harder for many to see him as commercially viable artist.
Cody is celebrating his 37th birthday today (5/21) as a bonafide Nashville country star as he is often nominated among the best in country music for CMA and ACM Male Vocalist categories and got a recent Album of the Year nomination for his Leather project from the ACM.
Cody performs at the ACM Awards in 2023 in Texas. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
Johnson told us that getting from Texas to Nashville stardom had some bumps in the road. He said, “I’ve spent so many years as an artist trying to prove to people that you could go from a Texas country artist and get a label in Nashville and not have to change your style, not have to change your producer.”
The Hat Stays On
He said they even tried to change his look, “One of the first times I ever came to Nashville, they asked me to take my hat off, and I’m like, ‘That’s not me.'”
Johnson concluded, “I think the independent spirit from that, I will always carry for the rest of my career where nobody’s saying, ‘You’re just a guy from Texas.'”
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Cody recently revealed a tattoo in an odd place, in a recent conversation with CMT.
He recently answered some questions for CMT and revealed the location of his favorite tattoo on his body. Johnson explained, “It is on the bottom of my foot. I had my tattoo artist come out with me on the road. All these (his many tattoos) have been done either at a venue or on my bus. I have done my entire right arm. I said (to my artist), ‘Have you ever done the bottom of a foot?’ and he’s like, ‘No, I never have.’ And I was like, ‘Tonight after the show, we’re doing that.'”
The Tattoo
Cody described what the tattoo on the bottom of his foot is, saying, “It’s a line, you know if you’re a carpenter, you’d say ‘One foot over a line’ and then the Waylon forever logo because my favorite Waylon Jennings song is ‘I’ve always been crazy with one foot over the line.'”
Johnson added of the moment, “I literally just propped my foot up there on the table and took a big ole pull off a bottle, and he (started), and I’m like, ‘It doesn’t hurt, It kind of tickled honestly, but I was about half drunk.”