On the Rise
Willy Cobb

Produced and co-written with Brent Cobb and The Cadillac Three’s Jaren Johnston, the EP’s five tracks offer up servings of ragged punk energy, fuzzed-out guitars, country grit and a touch of southern swamp - all things Cobb was surrounded by throughout his upbringing about two hours south of Atlanta, Georgia.

“Growing up I listened to country music with my dad, and then my mom was really into Nirvana and bands like that. But even though I've always been into rock music, I definitely thought I was going to be an indie artist, you know, like indie pop", he reflects.

"It wasn’t until I was riding around with my cousin Brent one day in Nashville, and he was just like, ‘Man, you know it’d be so damn cool if you did this whole punk rock country thing, ain't nobody doing it right now’. So it kind of started like that - we wrote “Cigarette Smell” and “Sincerely FU”, and the rest is history.”

Such open-mindedness to his artistic evolution has enabled Cobb to avoid creatively blocking himself in, creating a freer approach to his songwriting and output, something his fans admire.

“Man, I just sit down and write whatever I feel that day”, he says candidly. “I’ll be honest with you, I’m not really much of a lyricist. I can do what I need to get done, but I’m much better at vocal harmonies and coming up with the structure of the song first. I like to just jam out ideas - I’ll be riding down the road and singing to help me figure out some chords, and then later on I’ll go and fill in the blanks”.

“I also got lucky working with Brent and Jaren”, he continues. “It was really good to see how production should be, you know, where everybody's actually in a room all working together as a collective. I've heard horror stories of producers coming in and being all, ‘You need to do this, you need to do that’. I didn't get that feeling from Jaren at all. He was just like, ‘I like this. I think you could do this to make it sound better, but that's up to you’.”

But with such high expectations regarding genre conformity - both from fan and label points of view - does Cobb feel conscious of having to equally satisfy the quotas of both country and punk in his songs?

“Especially with this new EP that’s going to be coming out", he says, referring to the upcoming release of the extended acoustic edition of Country Punkin', "there’s a song on there that’s really country, even though typically I try to lean more towards the rock side of things”.

“But I’ve gotten a lot of comments recently from people being like, ‘This ain’t fucking country, you don’t know country!’ But I never said my music was country. The only thing that’s country about my music is me as a person and the way I grew up. That’s what makes me country. And it’s funny, because I see all these people saying all these things and they damn sure didn’t grow up in the country. They’re like some sort of czar telling me what’s supposed to be country and what’s not.”

Even though country itself is a huge and rapidly developing worldwide industry (2023’s best-selling album was Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time, the genre’s labels and artists are reaping financial profits not seen in decades, and everyone from Beyoncé to Post Malone are trying their hand at dropping Nashville-inspired records), it’s interestingly still perhaps one of the most fiercely gate-kept by its fans. “But so is punk rock!”, Cobb laughs. “I get it from both sides - ‘This ain’t punk, this ain’t country!’ I’m like, okay. I don’t care!”

Regardless of genre, Cobb's main hope is that his music can provide a means of “making people feel like they’re not so alone” and, in turn, inspire a change of perspective on the American south - even for some who call it home.

“I remember growing up in the south and being that weird kid in school - the kid that was really into emo music and the alternative side of things, the more liberal-leaning stuff. I remember the ridicule and feeling like you're outcasted. You just want to get the fuck out", he shares.

Going on, he adds, "But it's become sad, because there are a lot of people I've seen, especially up here in Nashville, who say stuff like, ‘Yeah, I'm from South Georgia, I'm from Louisiana, but fuck that shit. I don't want to be associated with that’. And I'm like, why? I get where they’re coming from, people can be backwards as fuck there, but we can change that. There's always going to be assholes, but changing the south and being proud of it starts with us. That's what I want those kids to gather from this. I want to make people proud to be from the south again”.

Looking ahead, Cobb is dedicating his time to being a new dad, further developing his name on the live circuit (his dream line-up would include MJ Lendermen and Dexter and the Moonrocks), and preparing for the extended drop of Country Punkin’, set for 16 August. It’ll offer fans five acoustic versions of the original EP tracks, of which three are as of yet unreleased: “Sincerely FU” (acoustic), “Burnin'” (acoustic) and” Daddy On Drugs” (acoustic).

He may still be freshly starting out in the industry, but Willy Cobb’s insight resonates proudly. “This is gonna sound cheesy as hell, but just stay true to yourself, man”, he concludes. “Don't let anybody else change that. Do you, and if people don't like it, fuck that. Make them like it and make it so they can have nothing bad to say”.