A master storyteller from small-town Georgia who chronicles Southern life in plain-spoken songs, Cobb’s spent much of his six-album career behind the comfort of an acoustic guitar. With a hollow-bodied six-string in-hand, he’s blended the time-tested gaps between country, soul and folk-rock with the ease of a clear-minded drive down a two-lane blacktop on a Sunday afternoon. Now, Cobb’s stomping his foot on the gas for Ain’t Rocked In A While, a new 10-song album that collects some of his loudest, rowdiest and downright wildest songs to-date. As the album title suggests, he’s making up for lost time – and it’s a hell of a ride. Cobb releases Ain’t Rocked In A While on July 11 via his own label, Ol’ Buddy Records, in partnership with Thirty Tigers. Channeling his ear-ringing live show, Ain’t Rocked … is the first album from Cobb to be recorded and billed alongside his trusted touring band, The Fixin’s. And for Cobb, it marks a return-to-form for an artist who’s collaborated with hard-rocking Texas band Whiskey Myers and country-rock favorite The Steel Woods.  “I feel like sometimes when people come to our shows, there might be a disconnect,” Cobb said. “People might view me as just a singer-songwriter. You know, sit down and tell ‘em a nice, little Southern story. Sing ‘em a song. And our live show kinda rocks. Sometimes people are taken aback. I want people to have an album of reference.” Like many who grew up playing music with buddies in garages, Cobb’s creative DNA is lined with big-riff rock songs. He remembers being a 13-yearold learning lyrics to AC/DC songs and studying Metallica riffs for his first band, named Blind Ambition, he remembered with a laugh. He cites Black Sabbath as a major influence on Ain’t Rocked In A While, as evident on the ambitious title track. Clocking in at nearly five minutes, “Ain’t Rocked In A While” introduces listeners to the album by embracing the distorted swagger found in standout Southern rock songs alongside an unfiltered heaviness that wouldn’t be out of place on Sabbath’s Vol. 4.  For the album, Cobb and The Fixin’s relocated to an unlikely destination – Springf ield, Missouri. He enlisted longtime collaborator Oran Thornton to co-produce Ain’t Rocked …, which the band recorded live to tape on the studio floor.   “I know how to communicate and translate and articulate ideas to studio people, who just think differently,” Cobb said. “I didn’t know how it would go with the [live] band but it went fucking great. I couldn’t imagine making this album with anybody else, other than The Fixin’s.”  The album opens with “Beyond Measure (Piano),” a 90-second prelude where Cobb sings of gratitude for the life of song and love that he leads; he closed the album with a full-band reprisal of the number. As for what happens between the bookended snippets? Nothing’s off limits. Cobb tackles loneliness, mortality and the seemingly upside-down powers beyond one’s control.  From title track “Ain’t Rocked In A While,” the album moves into soulful rocker “Bad Feelin’” – which Cobb pinpoints as a song he can’t wait to debut live – before hitting listeners with a swampy groove on “Do It All The Time,” a sweaty, sticky tune where he coyly sings, “I put the work in every single day/ prayin’ for the weekend, baby, me and you can play.” And on reflective song “Even If It’s Broke,” Cobb shows his uncanny ability to turn a phrase – a talent that helped him earn a Grammy nomination, score touring slots with Luke Combs and land cowrites with Miranda Lambert.  “You know, there’s a fine line between pickin’ for a livin’ and pickin’ for a lifetime,” Cobb said, referencing a phrase in the song. “That’s where I live. And it seems like I’ve lived on that line for a long motherfuckin’ time. I’m not complaining, I’m just sayin’.”  Cobb continues his rock ‘n’ roll romp on “Powerman” and “Take Yer Meds,” a one-two punch that bleeds together on the album. The former was written in a North Carolina parking lot during a late-night hang after a show.  Sitting with a few buddies, Cobb remembers “talking about ‘what the fuck is going on in this whole world, man?’ How can we all sit out in this parking lot, half stoned and drunk, and get shit figured out? But the rest of the world can’t do it? People who are supposed to get this shit figured out, why can’t they figure it out? Because, man, it’s power.. It’s all that power.”  As a spiritual companion to “Powerman,” the standout song “Take Yer Meds” builds from a few acoustic notes into a fast-driving – and sometimes freewheelin’ – jam where Cobb reminds listeners that “it’s worth the hit/ kick back, let it rip/ see you on the other side …”  On “Take Yer Meds,” Cobb said, “Everybody that you know is on something. If all of the power-thirsty people are making you go crazy, it’s probably on purpose. Don’t let them make you feel bad for trying to get through this fucking crazy-ass shit. Go on, take ‘yer medicine – whatever that is.”  And in another call-back to Cobb’s formative years, he co-write the album’s penultimate song, “Til Dawn,” with Dylan Lee, a childhood friend the singer-songwriter describes as “one of the most brilliant-minded humans and creative humans [I’ve met] in all my life.” It’s a haunted, ruminative number that finds Cobb singing, “don’t come ‘round the graveyard after dark, if you can’t stay ‘til dawn.”  “I’ll cry right now, thinking about it,” Cobb said. “That song is personal for [Dylan] and his own story and his own life and I‘m real proud of it for a bunch of different reasons.”   Cobb hits the road this summer, where he’ll bring Ain’t Rocked In A While to concert halls and festival stages coast-to-coast. He’ll play the songs loud and with an unruly spirit – the way it should be. And when you hit “play” on the album for the first time, be sure to turn it up and buckle in for a hell of a ride.