We are excited to announce a new live album will be released this summer! Live from Knoxville was recorded on New Years Eve at the Tennessee Theatre in our hometown of Knoxville, TN. The album will be available on July 16th.

- TDG

Dear Guv’nahs fans,

We write to you today to explain some changes within our lineup. Chris Doody, keyboardist and founding member of the band, is no longer a member of The Dirty Guv’nahs. His last show with us was New Year’s Eve in Knoxville.

We will let Chris explain his decision to move on at the bottom of this blog. We support his decision to start a new chapter in his life and are grateful for the seven years he spent with us. Chris will always be our brother; we’ve had countless fun times together and we all continue to remain great friends.

As we mentioned, this change occurred a few months back. Since that time our friend Kevin Hyfantis has been manning the keyboards at our live shows and will be continuing on our summer tour. A multi-instrumentalist and singer, Kevin has played with many groups over the years, most recently with our pals The Black Cadillacs. We’re thrilled to have him join us for our upcoming shows.

We’re really excited about what the future holds for our band. New music is in the works and we’re having an incredible time on tour. We thank you all so much for your continued support and can’t wait to see you on the road!

-TDG

A message from Chris:

To The Greatest Fans In The World,

First and foremost, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you. I want you to know how much your support has meant to me over the past seven years. This band has been one of the best adventures of my life. It would have never been possible without you.

I also want to say thank you to the five men who I have had the opportunity to share the stage with. Their friendship has been a blessing. Being in a band means more than just performing together. It also means walking through life together in close proximity. I couldn’t ask for a better group of friends to share this amazing experience with.

The next chapter in my life is an exciting one. My wife and I are happy to announce that we’re expecting our first child in October. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to be at home with my family. Please know that I will always support this band and the men who play in it. I’m grateful that they have amazing people like you who continue to support them as well.

In the words of Jeff Buckley – “The mystery of music is that it’s a language for something that has no language; it’s an expression for something that can’t be expressed. But it is expressed. Just the existence of music is totally audacious.”

Here’s to audacity.

Chris

As seen on CMT and MTV, check out “Fairlane”, our newest music video! Directed by Scott Murphy and produced by badland pictures, the video stars actors Matt Dearman and Hannah Margaret Allen. Thanks to all our fans for the support!

- TDG

Click below to download a demo version of the song “New Years Day”! We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and if you’re still looking for New Years Eve plans, come on out to the Tennessee Theater and celebrate with us!

Much Love,

TDG

Christmas will forever remind me of our December 2009 trip to Woodstock, NY to record our “Youth is in Our Blood” album. In honor of Levon and the boys, we are proud to share with you our cover of The Band’s song titled “Christmas Must Be Tonight” (1977). Click below to download!

If you hear an unfamiliar harmony vocal on the track, then that’s because we invited our good friend and fellow Knoxvillian Josh Oliver to sit in and play some keys / sing some harmonies.

Merry Christmas from The Dirty Guv’nahs!

James, Michael, Aaron, Justin, Chris, and Cozmo

We are pleased to announce that “Honey You” was featured on last nights episode of Criminal Minds! You can check out the episode on HERE. A huge thanks to our fans for supporting us so these types of things can happen!

YOU CAN BUY “HONEY YOU” HERE!

Much Love,

TDG

CLICK THE PICTURE ABOVE TO BUY “BABY WE WERE YOUNG”!

Our song “Baby We Were Young” is featured in tonight’s episode of “Nashville” on ABC! We couldn’t be more excited to be involved with such a great show! Here’s a little behind the music from James about the song……

“The first song we’re releasing is titled “Baby, We Were Young”. It’s the first track on the new CD. It’s an upbeat rock song about being young and way too idealistic. It’s about having youth in your blood and thinking you’re invincible. It’s also about taking once experience and quickly dreaming way too far down the road about what might be. Michael had come up with the guitar riff for the verses and I just loved it. Couldn’t get it out of my head for weeks. For a couple practices I would just ramble a bunch of Rod Stewart lyrics over the music because it felt good… but I couldn’t really figure out what this song needed to be about… so we put it on the backburner for a few more weeks. Then one day in November I was running errands around downtown on my lunch break with that stupid riff in my head, just humming along. Up ahead of me, I caught a glimpse of a beautiful young lady packing her car and it looked like she was leaving town for something. When I drove by her, I looked a little too long and nearly got in a wreck like an idiot. Laugh if you want, but you know the same kinda thing has happened to you. Her plates said Shelby County, TN and I was feeling romantic so I just wrote a song about what it would be like if we fell in love.”

Much love,

-TDG

CLICK HERE TO BUY “BABY WE WERE YOUNG”!

“Don’t Give Up on Me” was the first song that we wrote after we
recorded Youth Is In Our Blood up in Woodstock in December 2009. That
was almost 3 years ago. Wow. Jenkins wrote all of the music to that
song and it hung around for a long time as “Song 1” without any lyrics
or melody… meaning that it was the first song we wrote after the Youth
recording sessions. (For anyone wondering, “Fairlane” was “Song 2”)

The lyrics finally came together after a series of conversations with
two different friends of mine who had been struggling deeply with
being accepted for who they are by a loved one. My two friends told me
eerily similar stories about how they had personal histories that they
felt they just “can’t share with anyone .” They each told me tough
stories about starting to date someone seriously, only for the dating
relationship to end abruptly once they revealed that they were
damaged, broken, and imperfect. This song is a cry for acceptance,
and a cry for a graceful lover.

“All I really want is someone to tell me I’m wanted
Can you hear me?
I’m longing to know tonight

Gimme an answer
I need a fighter
I’m a long way off
Hanging on a little string
Hoping you notice
I’m loaded with questions
Old enough to know
But young enough to still believe
Don’t give up on me.”

- james

Songs come from all different kinds of places. The ones on our new album come from stories about myself, stories about our band, and stories about friends and family members who are connected to our band. I read an article about a year ago in Psychology Today that said this:
“Stories are about collaboration and connection. They transcend generations, they engage us through emotions, and they connect us to others. Through stories we share passions, sadness, hardships and joys. We share meaning and purpose. Stories are the common ground that allows people to communicate, overcoming our defenses and our differences. Stories allow us to understand ourselves better and to find our commonality with others.”

Recently, I’ve had a handful of folks come up to me at shows and say, “Hey man, I’m diggin (Enter Song Name), what is the story behind it?” So, I thought I’d take a few blogs to explain some of the inspiration behind a few of the songs.

“Fairlane” is a song that was inspired by my Mom and Dad’s love story. In 1972, my Dad bought a 1964 Ford Fairlane for $700 and named it Fred. Fred didn’t have any computerized technology inside of him, and he certainly lacked a few things cosmetically. He went with my Dad to community college in Columbia, and then made his way to a university in the big city of Nashville, TN. In April 1975 my Dad met my Momma and it immediately shook up all of his plans. She was studying education and psychology and my Dad was wanting to be an engineer. In August 1976 they got married in their parents backyard. My mom dropped out of college and they moved to Cookeville, TN to finish my Dad’s engineering degree at Tennessee Tech. Crazy 20 year old kids who thought they were invincible. Their parents didn’t think it was a great idea to get married in the first place, but they did it anyway. They lived in married student housing and to pay their bills, my Mom worked at Shoney’s and my Dad preached on Sundays at a rural congregation in Cookeville. Throughout all their adventures, they had Fred. I spoke of Fred’s cosmetic blemishes, the biggest of which were holes in the rusted out floorboard that you could drop softballs through. When they whizzed down the highway at a top speed of 50mph, you could watch the concrete whizz underneath them. In the winter, cold air flooded the the cabin of old Fred through those same holes. The heater in the car was sub-par, so to keep warm my folks kept a few blankets in the backseat. They used to go on mini-vacations to state parks cause that’s all they could really afford. They lived in Chattanooga for a short while before making their way back to Nashville where my Dad finally got a job as an engineer at the local power company and my Mom finished college so that she could be a teacher. My Mom and dad put 150,000 miles on old Fred, bringing him to a grand total of 200 and some odd thousand miles. Sometime before me or my brother were born they sold Fred for $250. I’d say they got a pretty good deal.

Email us and let us know which other songs you’d like to hear more about. band@thedirtyguvnahs.com. Click HERE to read the lyrics to “Fairlane”.

Thanks for the continued support yall.

James

Our new album “Somewhere Beneath These Southern Skies” is released today!! We are so excited for you all to hear it! This is YOUR album, completely funded by you, the fans. We cannot thank you all enough for the opportunity to write and perform music for a living. We put our heart and soul into these songs and we hope you like them. You can buy the album at iTunes today, or stream the music from our website. Lyrics are up as well!

Much Love

TDG