Jonathan Tyler did the rock star thing. He played Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo, Hangout Fest and the Voodoo Experience. His 2010 LP Pardon Me for Atlantic Records reached No. 8 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart. It was everything he thought he’d wanted. But it wasn’t really him.
“I knew what I was getting into,” Tyler says now, removed enough from that whirlwind to have gained some perspective on it. “I knew what would happen when we signed with Atlantic. Then I got over it.”
Holy Smokes, his newest LP, finds Tyler shed of major-label constraints, bearing his soul as songwriter who’s seen the top of the mountain and now seeks a different kind of climb. “I’m in this for the long haul,” he says now with certainty -- and Holy Smokes, filled with songs that fill every emotional nook and cranny, plays out like a testament to this fact.