Brent Cobb Names Classic Rock Song That Changed Everything

Not long after he announced plans for his next album with his band the Fixin’s, Ain’t Rocked In A While, Brent Cobb joined Loudwire Nights to dive into it and celebrate his deep love of all things rock and roll.

Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

“My mom’s from Cleveland, Ohio, and so she was more Beatles and more Led Zeppelin,” Cobb told host Chuck Armstrong on Thursday’s show (May 1). It’s an important distinction because Cobb is from Georgia and his dad’s family is from rural Georgia, which meant, more than Zeppelin and the Beatles, he was surrounded by artists like Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb.

“That very first Zeppelin album, my uncle Brian would cover — what’s the very first song on the very first album,” Cobb said as he quickly answered his own question.

“‘Good Times Bad Times.’ It fucked me up as a child. I was like, whoa. I just kind of grew up real close to it my whole life.”

From Zeppelin, Cobb immersed himself in the world of Black Sabbath and that gave him a new perspective as a songwriter. The way the band could travel from heavy metal on one song to an almost completely different sound on another, all the while still sounding completely like Sabbath, opened Cobb’s eyes to the importance of making good music rather than trying to make genre-specific music.

READ MORE: Stephen Wilson Jr. Praises ‘Abstract Nature’ That Seattle Brought to Songwriting

“It’s just always been a part of my DNA, both sides of it,” Cobb said about his country and rock and roll roots.

“I just hear good songs … For me, there’s good stuff and there’s shitty stuff. There’s stuff that people, you can tell they care what they did and they care what they were saying whether that be lyrically or musically. And then there’s folks that don’t give a fuck — and sometimes that is the reason why something’s good, if somebody doesn’t give a damn enough.”

What Else Did Brent Cobb Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

• How he ended up recording Ain’t Rocked In A While in Springfield, Mo.: “My buddy Oran Thornton, who also co-produced this album with me, he lives there and we’ve worked together a lot over the last 15 years. He’s a great engineer, but also came from the rock world. You remember that band DC Talk, ‘Jesus Freak’? You remember that song? That solo on that song is a 16-year-old Oran.”
• Why he prefers to record live to tape: “I’m one of those that really believe in the physical difference of sound when it comes to tape … The way a guitar hits that tape and it changes the whole tone, each take of the song. I just think it creates this glue atmosphere that brings a whole sound — it’s like a big warm, cozy blanket over everything.”
• Why it was important to him that Shooter Jennings produced his debut album, No Place Left to Leave: “I was all over the map. I didn’t really know how to make a common thread out of 10 songs or so. I knew each individual song, I had a sort of an idea or a reference song that maybe influenced it or inspired it, but as a whole, I had no idea how I wanted the record to sound. But I knew that I loved that Shooter Put the ‘O’ Back In Country album that he had done and so I just knew that I was at least working with the right folks being Shooter and Dave [Cobb].”

Listen to the Full Interview in the Podcast Player Below

Brent Cobb joined Loudwire Nights on Thursday, May 1; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station and listen to interviews on-demand.