Cody Johnson knows it’s not a bad problem to have, but it’s still a problem. More and more these days, the rising star is being swarmed by fans in everyday places — think airports and gas stations — when he’d really rather be blending in.
And of course he knows that his cowboy hat, which he loves wearing off stage as much as on, is only making him more recognizable. So maybe it’s time to cut back on the hat?
“Yeah,” Johnson says, drawing out the word with a mixture of misery and laughter that tells you this hat man would rather be saying just the opposite.
Oh, well. If occasionally removing his sartorial trademark is the price of fame, that’s a small price to pay, especially considering all the success Johnson has been having lately: a new album, Ain't Nothin' to It, that topped the country chart soon after its January debut; a single, “On My Way to You,” now in the top 15 and climbing; sold-out shows and swelling concert crowds, including the 73,000 fans who packed his RodeoHouston performance last month.
The 31-year-old Texan spent more than a decade building a devoted fan base, aka CoJo Nation, as an independent artist. Country radio finally began to take notice, and he signed a merger with Warner Music Nashville last fall. Since then, his career has shot out of the chute just like the rodeo bull rider that he once was — and Johnson is riding out the changes with the same intensity he gave to the bulls.
Yet he’s also determined to stay the man he was before this new recognition. “I think that’s where a lot of people’s downfall comes in,” he says. “You start to listen to that voice that says, ‘Everybody’s in love with you,’ and it’s where you can feed your ego a little bit. But look, I’ve made a pretty decent living and been in the public eye up to this point, just not to this magnitude. So I just remind myself that I am who I am. If I lost all this, it doesn’t define me. I’m not going to go home and cry about how I don’t have my music career anymore. My priorities are straight: my wife and my kids.”
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The new career growth spurt, though, has brought changes to Johnson’s family life. His wife, Brandi, and daughters Clara Mae, 4, and Cori, 2, used to tour frequently with the artist, but his current stretch has proven so grueling, they’ve been spending more time at the family’s 25-acre spread outside Huntsville, Texas.
“I knew I wasn’t going to be home much for the first three months of the year,” Johnson says. “Actually, I did go two straight months without coming home. And it was rough, but I was flying the family out periodically to see them.”
When he’s home, he says, he relaxes by doing chores around the house, riding his tractor, and going fishing with his girls. Out on the road, he’s full bore: concerts, meet-and-greets, and promotional work.
If anything, Johnson is efficient. He recently completed what amounted to a virtual radio tour, doing more than 30 back-to-back phone interviews in one marathon session, all on a day he was also performing. “I would much rather put myself through that than do a traditional radio tour,” he says.
The RodeoHouston appearance was another high-pressure event. Two years ago, Johnson was a last-minute replacement for Old Dominion, and in fairy-tale fashion, the crowd went wild for his neo-traditional music. He triumphantly returned last year, and that concert, he says, “felt like the culmination of 10 years of hard work. I felt like it was the end of a chapter.”
This year, he says, he surprised himself with a case of the nerves — “more nervous than I’ve ever been on stage,” he reveals. “And after the show I was like, what is going on with me? And it hit me. It was like, well, this is the first big show of your new chapter.”
His band, he says, never noticed. “I told them after the show, and they were like, ‘Well, you took all of our tension and carried it for us, because we were all like, “Man, he is just on, and follow him.”‘”
Johnson chuckles that he hid his jitters so well: “Fake it till you make it, baby!”
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Indeed, Johnson’s confidence is one of the most striking aspects of his stage presence. He says he has long taken his inspiration from fellow Texan George Strait, who “can stand in a three-foot circle and never get out of it, and he commands his crowd through music and his choice of songs and his style.” (Strait obviously has also noticed Johnson, who’ll be opening for the country king and Blake Shelton at a Gillette Stadium concert outside Boston on Aug. 17.)
The stage swagger, Johnson says, also comes from a strong sense of self. “Look, I’m not here for anybody in the crowd to tell me who I am,” he says. “I’m not here for anybody to validate me. I’ve got music in my soul, and I’m gonna sing it and play it. And if it ain’t your thing, you won’t come back to the show. But if it is, you’re going to have a good time. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not scared of much. Failure doesn’t bother me. I’m not afraid of rejection.”
Not that he’s in any danger of it. On May 4, Johnson will be achieving yet another milestone, headlining a sold-out show at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium. Perhaps by then, he also will reach one more goal, completing a long-desired tattoo sleeve. Crowds can easily notice part of it now covering the back of his right hand.
Johnson says he fell in love with the look years ago when he worked as a guard at the state prison in Huntsville. The words and images he’s picked tell the story of his life, his Texas roots, his high school years, his rodeo days, his music, his family. The same artist has drawn them all, with only two to go.
So why all this ink now? Before, Johnson says, he always resisted getting a visible tattoo because “what if I ever have to have a job interview?”
By now, though, he’s certain those days are past. “I’ll be honest with you, there’s no going back for me,” he says. “This is what I’ll always do.”
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