Jelly Roll Drops ‘Liar,’ Says His Felony Was a ‘Dream Killer’

Photo byRyan Anderson

Jelly Roll has another new song, out now. The Nashville native just released “Liar,” a song he first performed at the 2024 ACM Awards.

The song says in part, “Saying, ‘Drink another whiskey / Pop another pill / Money makes you happy / Heaven isn’t real / You won’t find nobody to love / Because your heart’s too broke’ / Now I know / You ain’t nothin’ but a liar / Yeah, I walk right out the fire / Yeah, you try to keep me down / Try to put me underground / But I’m only going higher,” a message that Jelly Roll learned the hard way, after spending a lot of his life in and out of prison.

“Liar” comes as Jelly Roll is enjoying a Top 15 song with “I Am Not Okay,” his first single from his still-untitled new album, which follows his 2023 Whitsitt Chapel record.

“My sound has never fully favored the summer, so I think we’ll be coming out around fall … I do have a couple of fun songs on this album,” Jelly Roll hints on Audacy’s Katie & Company. “It was cool because I’m in a different headspace than I’ve ever been, so I was in a cool place to be able to write like that. I wrote most of my career from extreme, dark hopelessness, which I still write from, but I think this was like, I’ve had enough cool experiences. My music will always favor the fall.”

Jelly Roll recently opened up about his time in prison, and how it impacted his life, for years making him believe that his future was over. It’s that season in his life that makes the song “Liar” so meaningful to him now.

“It’s a dream killer. It’s the automatic dream killer,” Jelly Roll says on Q With Tom Power, sharing what having a felony conviction did for him and his self-esteem. “My felony happened to me when I was 16, which is two years before you’re an adult, and they charged me as an adult in that moment. So even then, I wish I had really the brain to understand what my lawyer was trying to explain to me when he was saying, ‘Hey man, in the state of Tennessee, when you get one of these, you can never get it off your record. You can never get it expunged. It’s on your record forever.”

Photo byCourtesy of the CMA

Barely old enough to get a driver’s license at the time of his felony conviction, which was for armed robbery, the singer-songwriter couldn’t comprehend at the time the impact his criminal record would have on his life and career.

“I didn’t realize how far this would spread,” Jelly Roll acknowledges. “But everything from international travel to home insurance. I’ve had home insurance companies triple and quadruple my quotes, based on my criminal record. Life insurance charges more based on my criminal record. General health insurance in America costs me more because of my criminal record. These are all things that I am immediately upcharged on because of my criminal record.

“You don’t think about that when you’re 16,” he adds. “You don’t think about that I could never get a real job. I could never be a firefighter, I could never be a nurse, I could never be a doctor … It hurts, because you realize how limited and restricted you are. If I wouldn’t have been a dreamer — I literally am the epitome as a man who would have died or been in prison for life had the dream not worked. I felt completely optionless.”

Jelly Roll will embark on his Beautifully Broken Tour on August 27. Find all of his music and upcoming shows at JellyRoll615.com.