After years in the spotlight as Luke Combs’ longtime collaborator, Grammy-nominated songwriter Rob Williford has stepped into a new chapter with the release of his deeply personal debut album ‘Johnny & Jenny'. Known as a behind-the-scenes architect of Combs’ early sound and a key part of his touring band until 2022, Williford made the bold choice to walk away from stadium tours in favour of rediscovering his artistic voice. That journey led him to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where the town’s storied musical soul helped shape the emotionally rich world of ‘Johnny & Jenny'—a 14-track collection produced by Andy Park and recorded at the legendary FAME Studios.
Out now, the album arrives alongside a short film directed by Dustin Haney and weaves a cinematic tale of addiction, heartbreak, redemption, and resilience. Williford describes the project as “real life,” drawing on personal experiences while crafting songs that feel universally resonant. With unflinching honesty and Americana grit, ‘Johnny & Jenny' trades commercial polish for emotional weight—anchored by standout tracks like the Southern Gothic opener ‘Johnny,' the bluesy confessional ‘Married Music,' and the devastating ballad ‘Helicopters.' It’s a record that refuses to look away from life’s hardest moments—and in doing so, affirms Williford’s belief in music as a force for connection, healing and truth.
You can read our review of the album right here as we talk to Rob all about that and his time with Luke Combs.
Thanks for your time today, Rob, we know just what a busy guy you must be?
Oh man, it's a pleasure – thanks for talking to me.
Before we talk about ‘Johnny & Jenny' lets do a little deep dive into your career. You moved to Nashville in 2006 but then left in 2009 to go back home to North Carolina and then you moved back again in 2013. What were the drivers behind those decisions?
That's a good question. In 2006 I was a freshman in college in North Carolina. Basically, I was pretty much a loner, I stayed in my dorm room learning John Mayer licks! I decided that college was not for me, I dropped out, broke my mom's heart….. (laughing) Me and two guys had formed a band in high school – at that time it was called '74 Southbound' – and we moved to Nashville together and played on Broadway for a couple of years.
I had no goals or ambitions outside of waking up every day and just getting to play guitar. Music was my identity. Those years were really fun and gave me a lot of experience in entertaining people and playing for tips but I didn't really know what the hell was going on. The other two guys ended up married, had babies and moved back home so I moved back to Charlotte right before the big flood in Nashville in 2010.
I ended up in Charlotte doing odd jobs and just playing on the weekends. Around September 2013 I was working in PR in a theme park called Carowinds in North Carolina and I clocked in one Tuesday, clocked out for a lunch break and just left, drove to Nashville without telling anybody. It was an impulsive moment but I knew that it was my calling.
How soon after you arrived in Nashville in 2013 did you hook up with Luke Combs?
Man, it was relatively quick, I would say six months. By some wild happenstance and cosmic event I got a publishing deal as a songwriter. I was 26 years old and obsessed with liner notes, production and writing. I had a little more understanding in 2013 regarding the industry, the deals – I did end up graduating from MTSU with a degree in music business – and the mechanics behind it all by then.
I had a mutual friend with Luke, named Sam Crabtree, who was in the same year as Luke at Appalachian State University. We connected over a mutual love of Eric Church and Luke would come down to Nashville once a month to write songs. I implored him to move to town and he made that move around 2014 / 2015. That's kinda the cliff notes version.
And so began a nine year rocket ride for the pair of you really. What would your proudest moment or fondest memory be from your time working with Luke?
There are so many! It was a privilege to be on that ride with him. I loved doing it with an actual friend. Obviously it was a job and I was hired but we were two buddies writing songs together, which is a real romantic thing.
The first time we played the Opry in 2016 was a huge moment for me. The first time we played Red Rocks in Colorado. I remember being in Melbourne, Australia when ‘One Number Away' was on the radio and 50,000 people in the crowd sang it back to us. If I had to pick my favourite it was the night I got to take my mom to the CMA Awards in 2019 and Luke won for ‘Song of the Year.' As a guy that worshipped songwriters that was the pinnacle and getting to share that moment with Luke was incredibly special.
Some of your writing and melodies across ‘Johnny & Jenny' reminds me of someone like Travis Meadows, who has written a fair bit with Eric Church. I can also hear elements of the Springsteen songbook in there. Which writers have influenced you the most?
Oh man, you're nailing it brother! You've just hit two of my top five right there! (laughing) That's an exciting question for me. It's always fun talking to someone who knows what they are talking about so I appreciate that, my friend. I'm a HUGE fan of Travis Meadows – that ‘Killin Uncle Buzzy' record of his is incredible.
Being a kid from the bible belt and the south, I didn't get Springsteen until I was 36 years old, which is embarrassing to me! (laughing) A buddy of mine called Noah Gundersen introduced me to ‘Nebraska' and from there I dove into his catalogue. ‘Johnny & Jenny' is my little homage to ‘Nebraska' alongside my study of the craft of masters like Travis Meadows and Eric Church. I can also trace the album back to the classic artists like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, who also had narrative based characters and themes.
Did you set out to make a character driven, almost concept-type of songwriters record?
No, absolutely not, nor did I set out to make a short film to go along with it either! (laughing) Being a songwriter, at least in Nashville, is all about emails, meetings on music row, songwriters in a room and a song. I came to town and jumped into that way of writing and there was a magic and chemistry to it which I loved and got a lot of joy out of……. until I didn't.
Around the time I came off the road with Luke in 2022 I was in this big season of change, both in my personal life and in my career. I had become completely burned out with co-writing – it was a me problem – it wasn't like there was a broken system or bad people – it had a become a business and all businesses have problems, right? The well had dried up for me in terms of music row.
I had become interested in trying to understand the entomology of music and what inputs have to go in to be able to make timeless music beyond just getting into a room with other people and knocking out a song. I'm absolutely passionate about writing and creating so why would I treat it like a job? Like I'm getting ready to go work at Best Buy?
I found myself down in Muscle Shoals, in Alabama and I met Kyle Cook, the guitarist in Matchbox Twenty – they were my favourite band so teenage Rob was really freaking out at that point – and I asked him to produce a record with me. We made ‘Wildcard' down at FAME studios in Muscle Shoals – it was a collection of songs that I had written or co-written for other people and I got to do it with one of my heroes. Luke sang on it, Kameron Marlowe sang on it, Darius Rucker sang on it, Tim McGraw ended up cutting a song from it.
I've never fancied myself as a singer before – I'm a songwriter with a little bit of a sense of pitch – I've never had any delusions that I could be on The Voice, right? I'm not going to be joining the Carolina Panthers just because I love football, right? (laughing) But because of that record I bought a place place in Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee river, I call it my red neck Shangri-La, and I started to write down there. FAME studios have been so kind and generous in letting me use that legendary space. I started writing songs, not because it was my job, but simply for the love of writing songs – I woke up every morning for three or four months writing just to write and that's where the ‘Johnny & Jenny' album came from.
I wasn't trying to sing someone else's songs – they were for me and for the story that was beginning to emerge. I'm trying to communicate my emotions through these lyrics and melodies without having the privilege of sounding like Chris Stapleton – I'm more of a stylist than a singer. I wanted to tell a story without feeling like I needed to perform – I'm more concerned with honesty and transparency than I am with entertainment.
Which song on the album was the easiest to write and which song took the longest to get it where you wanted it to be?
The longest is so easy for me to answer because it is ‘Eden.' I started writing that song in March of 2023. I was in the Bahamas at a studio there at a resort called Albany and we started it there. It didn't have a chorus and that took me 7 months to figure out! I have to give myself the freedom to get it wrong and the honesty to know when I don't have what I need so I wrote many different versions of that song until I got it right!
The easiest was ‘Married Music.' I'm just telling you my story on that song. Similar to writing ‘Doin' This' for Luke, it went through a couple of different titles initially but once you find the north star of what the point of a song is, it should fall out fairly quickly after that. There's a lot of people I could sing ‘Married Music' too and it would be very authentic, it doesn't even have to be to a woman about a romantic relationship either – it's about the sacrifices you have to go through if you want to pursue music for a living.
‘Helicopters' seems to be the emotional centre piece of the album to me…….
It's definitely the heaviest and most cathartic song on the album. It has the most spiritual story around it and the only song on the album written solely by just me. I was sitting on my couch and a helicopter flew over the house – I got my phone out to record the sound for a sample, I do that kind of stupid shit all the time! Man, it sounded like it was going to land on the house and I reached for my guitar and then I find myself singing and crying at the same time.
We were at the Route 91 festival the night the shooting happened – the third verse traverses the events of the evening and I hope that song reaches who it needs to reach. We only did two takes of it in the studio and there's a rest in it that is twice as long as it should be because everybody, collectively, just needed to compose themselves when we were playing it.
Sonically, I love ‘Beautiful Breakdown' which I described in my review as ‘a hypnotic grunge-meets-country homage to Chris Issak's ‘Wicked Game.'
Man, you are good, my friend! That song was a surprising song – I didn't think it would even make the record. It came out real quick. I wrote it down in Shoals out on the deck at midnight. I told Weston Stewart, who played some guitar for me on the album, he's superb, he plays for Muscadine Bloodline, ‘Just give me the most sinister guitar – almost like a gun fight was about to happen,' and boy, he nailed it!
The song ended up being the backbone of a lot of the short film that we made to go with the album. It is the song that is the featured track in the trailer of the film. You nailed it with the Chris Issak reference, Gary Allan has some of this in his songs too, that Western thing where you know that something bad is about to happen.
Picking up on the film – sometimes when you watch a video or a film the visuals detract from the music but I find with your film that they actually add and augment to your voice and songs in a really strong way.
I'm so at peace with what we did there. I worked on it for two years. My mom kinda put it best when she said to me, ‘When I watch the film, your voice sounds better!” (laughing) To me, the film compliments and adds another dimension to the record. The music flows nicely and it's something that you can watch in isolation and not know that there is a record behind it. We are a very visual society so I'm hoping some people catch the film and it leads them onto listening to the album.
I was only thinking to myself last night that I could see myself getting into……. not scoring movies, I'm not a composer, but more like sound design and being someone who curates music for shows and films. I'm watching ‘The Bear' right now and the music in that show is so wonderful in how it compliments the acting and the visuals in it.
What's the plan for the future then, Rob, in terms of this album, your co-writing, your production skills and getting ‘Johnny & Jenny' out to as many people as possible?
I'm not looking to do that. I get this question a lot and so I understand it's a confusing answer! (laughing) The goal of this record was purely to make a piece of art that I needed to get out of me.
I've had a lot of beautiful experiences over the years. I've gotten to be in bands, I've gotten to play everywhere from coffee shops to stadiums, I've toured the world and been a tour manager too. I've studied the music business and been involved in that side of things too and done a number of publishing deals and catalogue sales. This was really my first time in immersing myself in the role as an independent artist.
Because of that, I consider the album as something like a Trojan horse that has enabled me to move into my next season in life – which has been to launch a record label. It's called Wildcard Productions and what I want to do is to help share my knowledge and skills to actualise the music in other artists' heads – I still write and co-write but typically now my writing is now more focused on working with folks who are trying to make their own project and bring that to life.
I want people to see themselves in the mirror as their own artist – for me, it's about getting out of the way. Look at the legendary cats in Nashville, like your Dean Dillon's or Tony Lane or Tom Douglas – If I'm 18 years old and I get put into a room with Dean Dillon I'm just going to be singing a Dean Dillon song because there is such a disparity in the craft levels between us. I get in rooms with younger artists and it feels like, to me, that I'm just writing a song and they are just trying to sing it. That's not what Wildcard Productions is about at all. I've learned to move my ego out of the way and help produce a song that is most appropriate for the artist who is in that room with me. Maybe if I can impart a little wisdom that would be a good thing but my writing now is all about the person I am working with and not about who I am or what I want to say, that's what the record was for.
Check out Rob Williford's superb album ‘Johnny & Jenny' which is out now in all the usual places.
