Jonathan Tyler did the rock star thing.

He played Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo, Hangout Fest and the Voodoo Experience. He performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and toured alongside AC/DC, ZZ Top, The Black Crowes and Kid Rock. His 2010 LP Pardon Me for Atlantic Records with backing band The Northern Lights reached No. 8 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart. His songs scored such television shows as Boardwalk Empire and Friday Night Lights. ESPN and FOX each used anthems he penned and performed to soundtrack their televised sporting events.

It was everything he thought he’d wanted. It was everything he’d signed up for. But it wasn’t ultimately what would satisfy him.
“I knew what I was getting into,” the 30-year-old 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.”
These days, Tyler really does come off as a changed man – in person and on record alike. He’s more introspective, more focused. The gray strands starting to crop up in his hair appear earned – and yet, conversely, his shoulders are less slumped, as if a heavy burden has been lifted. It has: Holy Smokes, his forthcoming third proper LP and first solo release, finds Tyler shed of major-label constraints, removed from the guard of his Northern Lights backing band and bearing his soul as songwriter who’s seen the top of the mountain and now seeks a different kind of climb, one filled less with flash and more with substance. The album’s an open look into who Tyler is at this very moment – and, most of all, who he feels he’s always really been.

“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, very much plays out like a testament to this fact. Removed is the devil-may-care attitude of his brash 2007 Jonathan Tyler & The Northern Lights debut, Hot Trottin’ and the aggressive lyrics of Pardon Me. Rather, Holy Smokes feels like the record Tyler seems built to have crafted, an 11-song collection of tracks that blend outlaw country and roots aesthetes through a laidback, lovelorn and weary filter to a progressive, southern rock end.

A true songwriter’s record, the album was co-produced by Thom Monahan (Chris Robinson, Devendra Banhart, Vetiver) and Tyler himself in studios across both Tyler’s native Dallas, Texas and his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, California. Matt Pence (Centromatic and Jason Isbell) also contributed with production and engineering on select tracks at his studio The Echo Lab. It’s a collaborative record, too, featuring a co-write with renowned Texas troubadour Ray Wylie Hubbard (“My Time Ain't Long”) and a duet with Nashville throwback Nikki Lane (“To Love Is To Fly”), and contributions from pedal steel player Ricky Ray Jackson (Phosphorescent) and a rotating cast of backing players that includes members of the old Northern Lights crew and the Dallas-based Texas Gentlemen collective.

But, ultimately, Holy Smokes is Tyler through and through – an album boasting the kind of self-representation he’d always sought after but had trouble finding in a way that would line up with the confines of being signed to a major label. Tyler ultimately broke free from the deal in April and is enjoying the freedom that comes with being an independent artist, calling his own shots.

From its opening notes and all the way on through its end, Holy Smokes makes one thing abundantly clear: This ain’t that Tyler. Kickoff cut “Hallelujah” sets this tone early, leaving no doubt about how Tyler feels about this change. From there, the album’s mélange of rustic Texan and easygoing Californian sensibilities showcase a Tyler finally ripe and ready for an honest go in the spotlight. Which is all he ever wanted.

“This is me,” Tyler says these days, with no wavering to be found in his tone.

As for all that other stuff? Tyler did all that already. Now he’s onto something real.