Some things reset you.
New cities. Long conversations that stretch past midnight. Rooms where the volume is loud and the stakes feel real.
This past month has been full of that kind of movement. Travel. Time with friends who’ve been in the trenches as long as I have. The kind of energy that pulls you out of routine and reminds you why any of this matters in the first place.
And in the middle of it all was NAMM.
If you’ve never heard of it, it’s technically a music trade show. But what it really is, at least to me, is a reunion. A once-a-year collision of people who’ve shared stages, studios, road stories, and long stretches of silence in between.
Five minutes into walking the floor with Chris Hellstrom, we ran into Tariq Akoni, a guitarist whose resume reads like a who’s who. No planning. No texts. Just that instant recognition. The kind that says, You’re still in this. Good.
Most artists aren’t constantly surrounded by each other. The truth is quieter. We’re in our own silos, writing, recording, living life, sometimes seeing close friends once a year if we’re lucky.
So when you do connect, it lands different.
You hear what people have built. One friend who used to be the bass monster in a band is now composing horror anime music and becoming the go-to guy in that world. That kind of evolution doesn’t just inspire, it proves reinvention is always on the table.
More than once I heard some version of: “You said you were going to release a song a week. You actually did it.”
That meant something.
Because for the last couple of years, it probably looked like I disappeared.
I didn’t.
The quiet wasn’t absence. It was preparation, remixing, remastering, working in Dolby Atmos, so what you hear now hits harder. Not rushed. Sharpened.
And now people are seeing what that stretch was really about. Not retreat. Continuation.
That energy carried into the nights too. Whiskey with old friends. Honest talk about life, music, the chaos we’re all navigating. No stage lights. No agendas.
It’s funny how those conversations reset your internal compass. Even in a world that feels fractured and loud, there’s still laughter. Still connection. Still music that cuts through.
Then there were the shows.
One night at the House of Blues watching Metal Allegiance tear through a set that felt like a celebration of heavy music’s lineage. The highlight wasn’t just the legends, it was a younger band from South Florida that hit like a cross between Rage Against the Machine and Tool. Urgent. Focused. Hungry.
Another night was the NAMM Jam, a charity event packed with well-known players covering songs everyone in the room knew by heart. At one point a singer asked what key they were playing in and Nuno Bettencourt shot back: “In the key of Be Quiet.”
That’s the kind of moment you remember. Not because it’s polished, but because it’s human.
Here’s why that matters to you: the more alive I feel in those rooms, the more honest the songs become when they reach your ears. Energy transfers. Always has.
Which brings me to this week’s release: Vision.
I wrote it more than 25 years ago, a satirical jab at how easily people could be manipulated by television. How screens shape belief. How repetition becomes reality.
Now?
It feels less like satire and more like documentation.
Social media algorithms. AI-generated content. Manufactured outrage. Carefully edited narratives designed to make you believe, react, share. The lines between truth and performance blur faster every year.
Vision was written before all of that escalated, and somehow it speaks directly into this moment.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the noise… if you’ve ever wondered who’s really steering the narrative… if you’ve ever caught yourself scrolling and thought, How much of this is real?
This song is here when you need it.
It isn’t preachy. It isn’t political. It’s observational. A raised eyebrow set to a heavy, driving pulse that doesn’t sit in the background, it pushes. It lingers. It makes you pay attention.
Not distraction. Awareness.
When you press play on Vision, you’re not just hearing an old song polished up. You’re stepping into a conversation that’s been brewing for decades, one that feels more urgent now than it did then.
So here’s the invitation.
Put it in your ears. Let it under your skin. See what it stirs.
And if you want to stay connected, not just to the songs, but to the why behind them, the Jody Army list is where that happens. No spam. Just the signal.
More to come.
