INTERVIEW: TJ LYLE from THE GEORGIA THUNDERBOLTS – May 2024

Photo credit: Todd Jolicoeur @ToddstarPhoto

According to a recent press release: “The Georgia Thunderbolts have announced their highly-anticipated sophomore album, Rise Above It All, set for release on August 23rd via Mascot Records. Featuring the quintet’s signature blend of Southern rock, blues, and heartfelt Americana, the 13-track album showcases the band’s ability to navigate a vast array of musical terrains, while also capturing the profound emotional and artistic growth fostered by their years on the road. To celebrate the announcement, the band released the album’s latest single, “Stand Up,” accompanied by a music video directed by Jim Arbogast. The video captures the band in their element, performing this powerful track that combines slithering guitar riffs and soaring vocals with a Southern rock flair. The road to being hailed as the new torchbearers of Southern rock hasn’t been as glamorous as you might imagine for The Georgia Thunderbolts. It wasn’t many years ago that the guys busked at gas stations, fumbled through covers, and drove four hours to Alabama to play to a bartender and a three-legged dog sitting on a barstool. These days, however, the Rome, Georgia-based quintet is a critically acclaimed and internationally touring band fending off the sophomore slump with its latest release. The Georgia Thunderbolts are rounded out by Zach Everett, bass, classical guitar, harmony vocals; Bristol Perry, drums; Logan Tolbert, guitar; and Riley Couzzourt, guitar. The quintet’s earthy and emotive aesthetic spans late 1960s singer-songwriter intimacy, the yearning of the blues, the mythological stories of country, and a bracing dose of arena-ready classic hard rock.” I grabbed some time with TJ the other night to discuss his new music, touring, and more…

Todd: TJ, thanks for taking time out, man. I know you guys are busy.

TJ: Yeah, absolutely, man. I enjoy it.

Todd: I checked out the record when Jon sent it over and I hit him up… “Let me get on the phone with TJ.” This is a great album, man. Rise Above It All has thirteen amazing tracks. It’s all over the place as far as what you guys do live. Let’s start with, what are fans of your band not going to realize the first or second time they listened through this album?

TJ: I really don’t know, that’s difficult. It’s grown a lot from our old sound, I can tell you that much. It’s come a long way from our old sound. It’s still the same sound, but it’s more in depth with the lyrics and the melodies and the guitars and the drums and the bass and everything. Everybody’s just evolved so much.

Todd: You guys have played the hell out of your old stuff. Your debut came out during COVID, and you really couldn’t do much touring and then you guys made up for it over the last couple of years. How much has being on the road cultivated who you guys were? Not only individually, but as a group?

TJ: It’s really shaped us as a group. Honest to God, because it’s a tough gig. Going from show to show and making those long runs. We’ve had shows where we had to go from upstate New York to Jacksonville, Florida and play the next night. We’re used to the road and road life is… we’re cut out for it and we’re a working band, so we really enjoy playing, and getting out and getting to meet new people and stuff. I think that’s really what makes you who you are too and really defines your sound. You put so much of yourself into what you do and then it comes out when you say something about it, especially in your music.

Todd: Going through this album, and I’ve got my own personal favorites, but are there any that you just can’t wait to start playing live regardless of what the press and everyone else thinks? Are there songs that you just want to play live because you know you’re going to have a good time on stage with these songs?

TJ: Yeah, definitely a song called “Crawling My Way Back To You.” That’s one I’m really looking forward to playing because it’s very different for us. I wrote that one when I was… I’ve been listening to a lot of Beatles, solo Chris Cornell, and a lot of soul music. It is a weird combination of things and I come up with some cool chords, and I just can’t wait to play them live. I love the melody and I love what that song’s talking about.

Todd: You guys have done the big tours with The Black Crowes. You’ve done places like The Machine Shop in Flint, Michigan. Everybody wants to play the arenas and the big shows, but do you have a sweet spot that you think really gels for the band as far as a venue or type of venue?

TJ: A place like The Machine Shop, that’s where we can really get in depth and get close to everybody. It’s hard to reach somebody when you’re forty feet away from them in an arena, but when you’re up close and personal, all they can do is leave. So I mean either you get them, or you don’t, but that’s where we feel like we do the best. That’s when we’re close enough to reach out and touch somebody.

Todd: TJ, you’ve been doing this for a little while. What piece of advice do you wish somebody would’ve given you when you were first starting out?

TJ: Rest while you can because you never know when you’re going to be woken up. You got to eat right, you got to go to bed. I know it’s hard to turn everything off and just zone out but try to stick to a good diet and eat good and go to sleep and try to rest as much as possible. Treat it like a job and enjoy it. Don’t overdo it, but just take care of yourself.

Todd: The music industry has changed so much. What’s the biggest downfall you’ve seen in the industry itself since you started?

TJ: Streaming has gone up tremendously. Nobody really comes out to live rock shows anymore unless you’re at a household name. I’ve seen that happen a lot. The streaming thing happens, and everybody can watch it from their phone and everything, and it really takes away the delivery when they don’t come to the show live. I mean, anybody can have it at their fingertips, and it stinks for live bands who want to play to an audience, and they won’t come out because they can watch it at home, and I think that’s the biggest downfall I’ve seen.

Todd: I’d say I’m not a fan of streaming. I’ve been going to shows for a long time, but to me, like you said, there’s nothing like being live, being there, blood, sweat and tears, the whole deal.

TJ: Yeah, there’s nothing like that.

Todd: It reminds me of the old days. I remember I couldn’t wait to get my hands on some vinyl. You wanted to smell that plastic, you wanted the experience.

Photo credit: Jim Arbogast

TJ: That’s what it’s all about and I’m glad to see that vinyl’s made a comeback. Everybody’s getting back into the vinyl and stuff, and we sell out. Every time we get our vinyl, we sell out of that because people just want it and it’s just the artwork. It’s something cool that they can physically hold and have and pull out and show somebody, and they’ll probably never play it. Some of them may, but they just keep it on the shelf, pull it out and look at it.

Todd: Going through the track list of this, there’s a couple that jump out at me and they get me moving in my seat every time I listen through and one’s on right now, “She’s Gonna Get It.” How is it you guys can go from something like “Rock and Roll Record” or “Crawling My Way Back To You” and then get into something so in your face as “She’s Going to Get It” or the opener, “Gonna Shine”?

TJ: It’s just different sides of our spectrum, I guess, because we all grew up listening to different music. I grew up listening to Bob Seger and Ray Charles, and I love soul music. The guys listen to a lot of metal and stuff like that, so you got to get the lead out every now and then. Just kind of kick it into overdrive and then we can come back down and rest on the soft stuff.

Todd: One thing I really like is you might be Southern rock, but you’re not your parent’s Southern rock. You guys have taken a modern rock twist and put it right in the mix. Was that something you guys did purposely so that you wouldn’t be lumped into that age-old feel or groove or impression of what Southern rock was?

TJ: Maybe unintentionally we did that because we still love to listen to Audioslave and heavy rocking bands like that, but we like to put a little spin on it, so, yeah, I guess we did that. It just comes out that way. Everybody gets their influences together and sometimes it’ll come out pretty country, kind of like “Whiskey Talking.” It’ll come out Southern rock and then we’ll go right back into something like “The Pricetag” or “She’s Gonna Get It” and stuff like that.

Todd: What still inspires you to get up every day and do this, TJ?

TJ: I love it. I fell in love with it a long time ago, and it’s the only thing that hasn’t let me down. It’s stressful sometimes, don’t get me wrong. It’s like a never-ending class. You’re always learning. You can always learn no matter what you do. You think you’ve got something down and you find something else, you find another way to do it the exact same way, but completely differently.

Todd: What’s the best part of being a musician?

TJ: Being able to create, being able to come up with things that somebody may or may not have heard before. Coming up with something in your room and having that certain spark and singing it to yourself before anybody ever gets to hear it, and you never know what it could turn into, but you sit there and you play it and you think you’ve really got something, and nothing else gives you that feeling.

Photo credit: Todd Jolicoeur @ToddstarPhoto

Todd: How hard was this album to pull together, TJ? They say that you have your whole life to write your first record, and about six months to write your second one. Was this one harder, easier, the same as the debut?

TJ: This one was a little more stressful just because we were doing it in between touring and stuff like that. Wwe would come off the road and then go, and then we were short a few songs. I’d come back home, and we’d start back writing again and try to go in and try to figure something out in the studio. This is more of an in the studio type coming up with stuff, working out parts in the studio for this record. We actually didn’t have all the songs completely together on this, so we had to work some up in the studio and it kind of gave it a different vibe too because we come out with new styles of what the old song was and it actually worked better for certain parts of certain songs.

Todd: On the track list, what song was the hardest to get out and get completed from start to finish?

TJ: I don’t know. I’m blanking. There was one that was difficult. We kept punching and punching and punching and it just didn’t turn out right. Maybe it was “She’s Gonna Get It.” Maybe the lyrics weren’t done or something.

Todd: At the end of the day, if this were to all go away, what would you do? What other life experiences do you want?

TJ: There hasn’t ever really been anything else that really caught my attention. I’ve worked with my dad for a long time, so I love that too. It’s just contracting and stuff like that, like wetland services and water and sewer and driving tractors and stuff like that. I don’t see anything else outside of music really because that’s my safe spot. That’s where I feel like I can go and be myself and be free and take my mind off everything and just kind get in there and get loose. I don’t know, I don’t wouldn’t want to do anything else but this.

Todd: Going through the history of music and everything that you’ve culled from your influences and things like that, what’s the one album you wish you’d have been part of, whether it was writing, recording, or just sitting in the room and watching the magic happen? What’s that album and why is it that album?

TJ: I got it on my phone here. Going to throw you for a loop here.

Todd: You tell me Britney Spears, we’re done, man.

TJ: No, no, no, no, no. Definitely not. It’s Bing Crosby, I got the song in my head – “Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day).” A lot of his songs from that era… “Stardust,” “Swinging On A Star,” and “Don’t Fence Me In.” I would’ve loved to have been a part of those recordings personally because a lot of The Andrews Sisters sang on that, and a lot of the guitar on that record was Les Paul. That would’ve been neat to sit and watch Bing sit up and sing the way that he does, and then sit there and watch Les Paul sit there and play his little five string. Les Paul and The Andrews Sisters just nail it. That one and a Charlie Chaplin one from the movie Modern Times. I would’ve loved to see them do that in a studio and just see how that orchestra came together back in the 1920’s.

Photo credit: Todd Jolicoeur @ToddstarPhoto

Todd: I’ll tell you, those are two that I would not have expected, but that’s what makes it cool and individual for you is you’ve been able to pull some of those little nuances and want to make that same magic, so that 80 years down the road, somebody’s saying the same thing about the latest Georgia Thunderbolts album.

TJ: Yeah, that’d be incredible. It’s all about finding that magic and you get lucky enough to touch it once and then it’ll come and then it’ll go. You may see it again, you may not, but as long as you capture it once. I would’ve loved to see how they did all that.

Todd: It’s late, so I’m going to let you have your evening and I appreciate the time, and hopefully we’ll run into each other once again at The Machine Shop.

TJ: Yeah, absolutely, man. Thank you so much and I’ll see you soon.

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Category: Interviews