Jelly Roll Walked Out Of Jail For The Last Time, Telling Fellow Inmates: “If I Ever See You Again, I’ll Be At Madison Square Garden”

Jelly Roll is telling all about life in prison. The CMA New Artist of the Year hit The Howard Stern Show to chat about where he started and where he is now. While the whole interview is stellar and highlights the kind of guy that Jelly Roll is, one portion that stood out to me was what Jelly Roll told his friends in prison when he left for the last time. While incarcerated, Jelly Roll found his passion for music and began writing songs in his cell. Stern found it fascinating that Jelly could find a beat for the lyrics he was writing. "You just kind of start humming melodies over this loop, over this kind of track in your head. You go from there. The hard part is when you are writing so many of them, Howard, you start forgetting them." Jelly Roll then says that the most challenging part of writing music while locked in was the inability to record the melody that he perfectly crafted to the lyrics. While he could write down all his lyrics on paper, Jelly Roll said that he had lost so many great melodies because there was no way to record them: "So what ends up happening is, and this worked out for me a lot, is that I would come home with a bunch of songs that I couldn't remember the melodies to, but I had really good lyrics....at least pen out the lyrics and keep the lyrics as tight as possible." After Jelly Roll details how he started his writing career while locked up, Stern inquired about how Jelly Roll decided he was going to bet it all and try out music once he was released from prison. While Stern and Jelly were both giggling at how crazy of an idea it probably sounded coming out of his mouth that he was "going to be famous one day,' Jelly Roll did stick to his guns and made it happen but agreed that he probably looked like a grade-A looney telling all of his cell block friends he was going to make a living out of music: "Especially when I was leaving jail for the last time this a stack of songs like this (holds up a textbook-size stack) because I wrote them all on paper. I had a whole bag of songs, I had my little knapsack of songs and walked to people's cells going, "If I ever see you again, I'll be at Madison Square Garden." Jelly Roll's friends were not the only ones skeptical of him making it... even his family was: "Even the family to a degree. Because then I came home and lived in a van for a decade and tried to do shows for $50 a piece. I got to the point where I was just banging my head against the wall. It was my father who encouraged me to keep going, I wanted to quit probably right at my early 30s. I was finally like, 'This is it. I've got to figure this out.'" He sure did figure it out now, being one of the most recognizable names in country music and headlining huge festivals like CMA Fest. Jelly Roll's story is truly incredible, and the hard work he has put in personally and professionally shines as he touches so many with his emotional lyrics. He is living proof that it is never too late to turn things around. What a guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epKhOYgk5e0 If you aren't familiar with Jelly Roll's music, fire up his most recent single while you are here. "I Am Not Okay" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qop5XLgwkNc