‘Leather Deluxe’ wasn’t part of Cody Johnson’s plan: ‘It was by accident’

Leather Deluxe Edition is set to arrive Friday, but here’s a fun fact: dividing Leather into two wasn’t part of Cody Johnson‘s plan.

“Leather was supposed to be an album to follow up Human: The Double Album, but by the time I got through looking at all these songs that I just could not give up [and] had to have, there was, like, 24 or 25 of them,” Cody recounts to the press.

Dumbfounded, Cody thought, “Well, I don’t want to do another double album. Like, how do we do this?”

That’s when Warner Music Nashville co-chair and co-president Cris Lacy came to the rescue. 

“I’ll credit [Cris Lacy]. It was her idea. She said, ‘What if we release half, come back later with the deluxe edition with the rest of it?’ And I was like, ‘Man, I really don’t want to break this body of work up because I feel like all these songs complement each other,'” he shares.

“But after sitting down with a pen and a paper and really looking at separating, like, ‘This one’s kind of the same tempo, OK, let’s separate those. This one’s kind of the same key, let’s separate these. That one’s kind of almost the same subject matter, let’s separate these.’ And I looked, and I was like, ‘Wow, we have two albums here,'” Cody recounts of his little epiphany.

“So, it was by accident,” Cody says. “It was not a planned thing, and I really appreciate Cris bringing that idea to the table because it worked out pretty well.”

Leather Deluxe Edition is available for preorder and presave now.

Cody’s currently making his way up the country charts with his Carrie Underwood-assisted single, “I’m Gonna Love You.”

Here’s the full track list for Leather Deluxe Edition:
“Work Boots”
“Double Down”
“Watching My Old Flame”
“That’s Texas”
“Dirt Cheap”
“Jesus Loves You”
“Whiskey Bent” (featuring Jelly Roll)
“Leather”
“People in the Back”
“Long Live Country Music” (featuring Brooks & Dunn)
“The Painter”
“Make Me a Mop”
“Overdue”
“The Fall”
“How Do You Sleep at Night”
“Country Boy Singin’ the Blues”
“Georgia Peaches”
“Damn Good Life”
“C’mon Cowgirl”
“I Wished It Was You”
“Take It Like a Man”
“I’m Gonna Love You” (with Carrie Underwood)
“Made In the USA”
“Over Missin’ You”
“The Mustang”