I need this one to drop.
Ernest and Jelly Roll just sat down with Theo Von for an electric episode of his podcast, This Past Weekend. While Jelly Roll and Ernest might have different sounds as individual artists, their songwriting is beyond compatible. In fact, for those who did not know, Ernest is a co-writer of “Son Of A Sinner,” which was a #1 hit off Jelly Roll’s 2021 album, Ballads of the Broken.
The duo started the podcast HOT with Theo Von jumping right into talking about their songwriting, noting that he was unaware that Ernest was a writer on that song until recently. Ernest then tells a hilarious story about a song highlighting their longstanding friendship.
Von comments that he finds it hard to believe that Ernest is a “Son Of A Sinner,” to which Ern makes a joke that because he was adopted, he was raised in a far much more upstanding family than he was born into, but he has his fair share of stories.
And Jelly Roll revealed that they’ve put that story into a song:
“We actually have a song on his new album that talks all about that, actually.”
And Ern added that it was actually inspired by a conversation with Luke Bryan:
“So me and Luke Bryan are playing golf out on Troubadour, listening to some rap, and we start talking about Jelly Roll, and he was like, ‘Y’all have known each other for a while.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, we go back.'”
Jelly Roll then pauses Ern for him to pull out his Luke Bryan impression, which I have to admit is SCARY good.
“I used to go by his house and acquire some things, and we’d freestyle rap. And this was back in, like, 2010. Then I went to college, and he went to jail, and then we came back around all these years later. Then Luke was like, ‘Hold one motherf*ker, you better write that f*ckin’ song right now.'”
Ernest then starts singing a bit of the track they were writing on the golf cart while on the course.
“I went to college he went to jail,
One was a dorm room, one was a cell
Who came out on top?
Hell, it’s hard to tell
I went to college; he went to jail.”
Jelly Roll then jumps in to tell his perspective of getting multiple Facetime calls from Ernest and Bryan, asking him what he thought about each line as it came to them. Jelly Roll said it dawned on him after the 4th call that they were drunk on the golf course and writing a song while putting around in the golf cart from hole to hole.
“These c**ksuckers are writing a song on the golf course right now.”
Ernest starts giggling and adds:
“For sure, over FaceTime…with no guitars.”
While the story of how this ditty came to life is incredible, Ernest teasing a tiny bit of the chorus has me bucking to hear the full version stat. Boys, please give the people what they want and drop this.
The portion of this episode starts at around 5:30 and ends at 7:30, so right out of the gate. But the whole podcast episode is well worth the listen.
