On August 11, 1992, Jackyl released their debut album on Geffen Records. It was the middle of Grunge, but Jackyl’s loud, proud and unapologetic rock songs, produced by Brendan O’Brien (Stone Temple Pilots, AC/DC), earned the LP double-platinum status. (And helped land the band a scene-stealing spot on Woodstock ’94.) Videos for the singles "The Lumberjack" (with Jesse James Dupree performing his iconic chainsaw solo), "I Stand Alone,” "Down On Me," "Dirty Little Mind," "When Will It Rain" and "Back Off Brother" earned rave reviews and rabid fans for the band’s no-holds-barred energy and lyrics.
On August 11, 2022—30 years to the day of Jackyl’s debut—the lineup plays Sturgis, South Dakota’s Full Throttle Saloon, in a raucous celebration of the lineup’s 30th anniversary that also marks the debut of the quartet’s brand-new album, Jackyl 30 Coming In Hot and first single, “Get All Up In It.”
“Jeff, Chris and Roman coming down on the ‘one’ together is still a force of nature,” says Dupree. “Thirty years together and I feel we’ve found an honest place about our new music, our fans and us as a band, on and offstage.”
Jackyl 30 Coming In Hot, which also includes the new tunes “Bad Decision” and “Another Round (Coming in Hot)” is only the latest highpoint of the Southern-bred band’s career. From the get-go, Jackyl were unafraid to stand up for free speech; their “I Stand Alone” video featured the band performing in front of a K-Mart as a protest for the store refusing to sell their album. Other bold moves? Dupree entered a Longhorn Steakhouse with a chainsaw to “surprise” a group of influential radio programmers. That generated a class-action lawsuit that reportedly cost the band more than $1 million.
But the ever-growing legion of fans loved Jackyl’s songs and antics, helping 1994’s Push Comes to Shove album go platinum, thanks in part to the singles "Push Comes to Shove" and "Headed for Destruction.” 1993 saw “Mental *@%.!” featured on The Beavis & Butt-head Experience, a compilation album of songs tied in with MTV’s hit cartoon series; it was eventually certified triple platinum.
Hitting the road non-stop, Jackyl’s tour mates in those early days included Aerosmith, KISS, ZZ Top, Ted Nugent and Damn Yankees. One of the biggest audiences? Jackyl’s performance at Woodstock 94. The appearance made national news and featured on late night shows, including Late Night with David Letterman. The double-album Woodstock 94 went platinum and included “Headed For Destruction” (a track from Push Comes To Shove).
Another groundbreaking musical moment came in 1996. Jackyl followed A&R legend John Kalodner (who had signed them to Geffen) to Sony Music’s Epic Records. The resultant record, 1997’s Cut the Crap was produced by Mike Fraser (AC/DC, Metallica) and mixed by Kevin Shirley (silverchair, Aerosmith). The rock radio hit “Locked and Loaded” included guest vocals by AC/DC’s Brian Johnson. It was the first time Johnson had recorded with any artist but AC/DC since joining the band 17 years earlier.
A collection of B-sides titled Stayin’ Alive appeared on Shimmering Tone Records in 1998, but the biggest highlight of the year was Geffen’s release of the best-of collection Choice Cuts and the related promotional events Jackyl did to promote it. Always reaching higher, in 1998 Jackyl set not one but two Guinness World Records by playing 100 shows in 50 days…. and 21 shows in 24 hours. The daytime sets were 45 minutes long; the evening gigs were between 90 and 120 minutes of rock mayhem.
The band’s 2002 Relentless LP contained the second collaboration with Brian Johnson, the raucous rocker “Kill the Sunshine.” The following year, Universal Music/Geffen Records issued a Jackyl volume as part of its acclaimed “20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection” best-of series. In 2004, the long-awaited Live at the Full Throttle Saloon CD and DVD was released by Sanctuary Records. It was recorded and filmed in the summer of 2003 in Sturgis, South Dakota, as part of the legendary annual biker rally.
It’s a festival close to the band’s heart, and from 2009 - 2015 Dupree became one of the lead characters of the hit reality TV show Full Throttle Saloon. Of course, that didn’t stop Jackyl from touring and recording, and in 2010 the band released When Moonshine and Dynamite Collide, which featured DMC from Run-D.M.C.
It’s been three decades since Jackyl shot out of Georgia spewing equal parts hard rock, heavy metal and Southern rock. They’ve never stopped touring or recording, and with 9.2 million views (and growing) of “Lumberjack Song” on YouTube, the quartet are earning rabid new fans daily. The August 2022 release of Jackyl 30 Coming In Hot cements and furthers Jackyl’s no-holds-barred legacy. Or as Dupree, with his unquenchable energy, exclaims, “Thirty years on and we’re still celebrating the fundamentals of rock ‘n’ roll, so Get All Up In It!”