Rome is a city in Northwest Georgia in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Since forming there in late 2015, rockers The Georgia Thunderbolts have had many memorable experiences performing around the globe. Thanks to a triple threat infectious dose of southern rock, blues and Americana, the band has built up a following over the years, with their 2021 debut Can We Get a Witness and the August 23 release of their sophomore album Rise Above It All via Mascot Records.
Their success has paved the way to playing bigger venues and sharing stages with bands such Deep Purple, Black Stone Cherry, The Marshall Tucker Band, The Allman Betts Band, Blackberry Smoke, The Kentucky Headhunters, and The Outlaws.
Lately, they’ve been aided by having their own practice space in vocalist TJ Lyle’s makeshift home studio in Taylorsville, a small town about 25-30 minutes from Rome. In late 2019, Lyle and guitarist Logan Tolbert renovated the inside of a building in Lyle’s backyard and made it their home. It’s given the group a place to practice, work on new song ideas, and an area to film music videos.
“I’ve just kind of gutted it all. Me and Logan gutted it all and stripped the flooring and put up a wall and built a sound booth and everything, so it’s in its own little space,” says Lyle. “Nobody will ever hear any noise or anything. I live out in the middle of nowhere really, so it’s nice and quiet and peaceful…It makes everything a lot easier when you’re in it. It’s in my own yard here too, so I can just kind of keep an eye on everything at all times.”
The studio allows the band – which also features Riley Couzzourt (guitar), Zach Everett (bass, harmony vocals, keys), and Bristol Perry (drums) – a space where they can set up and “record tracks and demos and everything we need to before we actually cut to tape.” They could workshop the songs amongst themselves and their manager and narrow down ideas to the best ones.
Prior to traveling to formally record the songs for Rise Above It All at the Glasgow, Kentucky-based Barrick Recording Studio, the group used Lyle’s studio to test run the songs.
“It makes it easier when everybody can just get together here at the studio and lay things out and figure out what ideas they want to try and kind of like a trial and error before we get into the main event,” says Lyle. “All the new songs were written in there, and just the time spent with the guys in there, that’s been a really cool part.”
Recently, the band decided to also use the space to film their entry for Water Tower Sessions, performing an acoustic version of the album’s title track.
“Playing the song acoustically really breaks everything down and it makes sure everybody’s on their game because there’s not a lot of noise to hide behind,” says Lyle. It’s just a lot more fun for us because we’re always playing loud and we’re playing heavy, and when we break it down, we have a lot of fun. It’s a lot more calm and a lot more fun and exciting.”
In the session video, one can see an assortment of items the band members have added to the space to make it feel like home. For example, there’s an autographed poster by members of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Lyle also has a drumhead that’s autographed by members of Deep Purple
“There’s some stuff in there from over the years that we’ve kind of picked up and stuff that we used to use,” says Lyle. “It’s just kind of sitting in there, so it’s just like when you walk in there, it’s kind of a little time capsule of our journey so far.”
For the studio version of the song, drummer Bristol Perry brought in a rough sketch of the song, including the main riff. When he started playing the song, the band started adding to it and Lyle came up with the lyrics quickly.
“Every time I try to write something, I try to stay in a positive mindset. I don’t really care too much for negativity, so that’s how that comes about,” he says. “I always try to look for something that’s kind of hard hitting and uplifting at the same time.”
Lyle says their experience working in his studio was a learning experience of “what to do and what not to do and what we need to do to get the project we’re working on done.” The new album was the first time they were able to work together on songs in an actual studio space. They previously used a garage, which didn’t work as smoothly.
“It was nice to actually be able to sit down and be able to have headphones and be able to listen to what we’re doing and really communicate with each other without there being a bunch of excess noise,” says Lyle.
“You have a little more train of thought and you don’t have to worry about anybody coming around complaining about the noise or anything, nobody around here, and so it’s a lot more peace of mind going into it, not as stressed or on a time limit, We could be out here all night, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and nobody would cause a fuss. So, it’s always a nice place to get inspired or go to or just go out there and listen to music.”
One of his favorite memories recording in the studio was when he showed the song “Crawling My Way Back to You” to the band for the first time.
“Nobody had ever heard it until we got to the studio, and we sat down in a room, and I’ll forever remember that we were just sitting around in a circle,” Lyle recalls. “I was just playing the song showing the guys what was going on, and it turned out to be one of our favorites.”
Below, Lyle further discusses the band and their new music.
How would you describe the band’s sound? What makes it stand out from others?
It’s southern rock and a little bit of Americana and really bluesy and soulful and stuff like that. It’s very amp driven, very guitar driven. A little heavier than you would expect when it needs to be and a little softer when it needs to be. Like Riley and Logan, they don’t use many guitar pedals. They’re just mainly into the amp with a boost and a tuner or something like that.
So, we really just kind of play off of our instrument and the room and the crowd and stuff like that. Very energetic, very energetic, very engaging with our audience. We like to engage with the audience, but we just get up there and play and it’s who we are. There’s nothing that we turn on or turn off. We’re the same people off the stage as we are on the stage, so it’s just very raw and very energetic and very live.
Some of the guys in the band listen to country and then on the other hand [some] listen to metal. And I listen to forties and thirties Big Band and Swing [music], so it’s like a whole different spectrum of music all around.
How did the band originally form? How did you decide how you were going to sound?
We came together in late 2015, Riley and Bristol, the drummer and the lead [guitar] player. They went to school together and me and Logan went to school together from first grade on. And Zach was always Logan’s neighbor. So, Zach was always a part of the group and we’d always known him and Bristol and Riley had a band and they would play the same open mic place that we used to play up in Cartersville uptown, and we actually met them there. Logan was in college at this point. Me and Zach would get up and play our acoustic thing and then they would get up and play their electric band deal. We all somehow got on stage together and jammed and that’s how we really hit it off.
And then we got together a few weeks or so months after that and started playing cover songs. And then we went on to play our first gig late 2015, early 2016. That’s before Logan ever joined the band. After that they were like, “well, we kind of need another guitar player if we’re going to do this kind of music.” So, we asked Logan to join the band. He joined and it wasn’t very long that we got tired of playing covers and I started writing and we all started playing our own songs. That’s the sound that came out and every time we record or play or get together, the songs come out how they are [naturally] because of who we are and we’re not trying to portray anything that we’re not. We’re just trying to write songs that maybe we feel that somebody could relate to.
The band’s chemistry has grown a lot in the last few years thanks to playing on the road a lot. How has that helped the band with making this album?
A lot of the stuff that I write about is about stuff that I’ve seen on the road or somebody’s talked about on the road or that we’ve lived through on the road and we’ve done all this stuff together. We’ve been going at it for like 10 years now and we’ve done all this stuff together and it is kind of like a family. You have to treat it like a family when you’re out there and really look after each other and grow with each other. We’ve grown up in our late teens together and through our twenties so far, so that has a lot to do with it growing up in the same environment and growing up on the road together from being 17, 18, 16 to almost 30 now, it’s been a journey.
What were some of the biggest lyrical themes the band tried to convey with this album?
Just positivity and spreading love, mainly because there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve noticed, and a lot of people have noticed in the world. A lot of it’s really negative and you look around, there’s something bad happening all the time. I feel like if we can be a small part in saying our peace about peace and about love and togetherness and no animosity towards anybody, I think all the better. We try to keep it light and where everybody of all ages can listen to any style.
What songs had the biggest impact on the sonic direction of the album?
It’s hard to say because a lot of these are really diverse because on one end you have ballad types like “Rock and Roll Record,” and then the other you have “Wait” and “Crawling My Way Back To You.” Then on the other side you have songs like “Little Jim” and Pricetag” and stuff like that. It kind of bounces. The heavier songs that we have are heavier than the last record, and the softer songs that we have on this record are softer, so it’s more in tune with what, trying to get closer to that sound we want.
What were some of the biggest surprises?
“Crawling My Way Back to You” was a big shocker. That song turned out amazing and that’s unlike anything we’ve ever done before and everybody loved it, which was a shock.
Why do you think it’s different?
That song was just mainly acoustic, and Zach is actually playing a Fretless bass on that one, which is really cool. And Riley’s playing the baritone and Logan’s not even playing until the very end, so it’s kind of just more like a singer-songwriter type song.
But it’s a love song and we don’t have very many love songs. We have songs about happiness and trying to spread positivity and stuff like that, but we’ve never actually had a real love song until this record, and we have two of them, “Wait” and “Crawling.” We kind of like touching that softer side of the band. It’s really neat. It’s a learning curve because a lot of the guys just want to [play loud rock], but it takes a different dynamic to be able to pull back and play for the song instead of over the song.
What are some of your favorite tour stories?
We went on the Rock Legends Cruise and played with Roger Daltry from The Who. We played with Deep Purple, Marshall Tucker Band, The Outlaws, Ten Years After. And then we played with George Thorogood and Walter Trout and that was really cool. We got to meet a lot of those guys, Lou Gramm, he was there. That was really neat. We got to meet all those guys and kind of talk with them and chat with them and stuff. And we’ve made really good memories with the Marshall Tucker Band and good friendships with them. And the same as bands like Black Stone Cherry and Blackberry Smoke and stuff like that. So, it’s been a real journey so far. It’s been really neat to get to know these guys.
I imagine you’ve gained confidence knowing that these veteran acts are fans of the band.
Yeah. It makes you feel really good. It makes you want to do better. It makes you want to really get to know the music. It really makes you want to get in tune with the music and figure out if they like it. I should try to be better. I should try to, and if they have any advice, listen to it because they’ve been doing it for years and they’ve had success and everything. So, it’s nice to get compliments from legends. It’s really amazing.
What are you most looking forward to in the months ahead?
I’m ready to start picking up and getting on the road…We’re going to be over [in Europe] playing for a month and then we come back. We have a lot of shows through December and we’re ready to get out there and play and we’re ready to see what the new album brings.
You can follow The Georgia Thunderbolts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. You can check out their music at their Bandcamp page.
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
