EXCLUSIVE: Cody Hibbard Premieres the Video for ‘'Long Ride in a Short Bed' Featuring Aaron Watson

Taken from his forthcoming Long Ride in a Short Bed project, the title track to the new album from Cody Hibbard is one of 10 autobiographical and unapologetically blue-collar country songs written with an endearing honesty and warmth that cut right to the core.

The album hosts an all-star cast, with features by A Thousand Horses and co-writes with hitmaker Rivers Rutherford, as well as Aaron Watson who not only sings on the title track but also stars in the video along with his son, Jake.

The follow up to the stirring ‘Backroad to Heaven’ - released last month as a testament to Hibbard’s unwavering religious relationship throughout his life – ‘Long Ride in a Short Bed’ tells the story of taking a midnight ride in a truck with his father when he was younger as he looks back on the deeper connections they made as he got old enough to fully appreciate the importance of their relationship.

It’s a song about holding onto faith no matter what direction your life takes, changing course whenever you have to, but still managing to stay on a true path to what you believe in.

“'Long Ride in a Short Bed' is a special song,” Cody Hibbard says. “It takes the listener on a trip through my life and, hopefully, takes them on a trip through their own. The second verse is so powerful to me and I couldn’t think of a better person than Aaron to sing it. I’m so honored he did."

“I guess that’s why I love the late night highways when there’s hardly any other cars at all,” Watson sings in that powerful second verse. “Just because there’s no one riding shotgun that don’t mean that I can’t have the talk.”

“You may say I’m praying to my maker / You may say I’m talking to myself,” he sings, reflecting on those drives Hibbard took with his father when he was younger, made all the more poignant with the video that stars Watson and his own son, Jake. “I don’t know if it’s crazy or holy / Hell it maybe / All I know for sure is it sure helps.”

"I’ve always had lots of respect for Cody as an artist, but the songs on his new record are next level, and 'Long Ride in a Short Bed' really spoke to me personally,” Aaron Watson told us. “Not only thinking about me and my dad, but also me and my sons now. Getting to make this with my boy Jake was so special to me and I’m so grateful to Cody for having us be a part of this.”

Watch the video exclusively on Holler below.

Born in Seoul, South Korea and adopted into an Adair, Oklahoma-based family at 13 months of age, where Hibbard was raised on a 340-acre farm and grew up just like any other farm kid. His mom was a teacher and his dad was a trash hauler, so his summers were spent hauling trash, and his mornings and evenings during the school year hunting, fishing, and tending to cows and chickens.

“I basically did anything my dad needed done,” he says. At just four years old he began playing piano singing along to songs in church, a lifeline he would pick up again years later when he needed it most.

After being accepted into the United States Naval Academy he decided on a career in the military, but shortly after starting training, a shoulder injury forced Hibbard to undergo two surgeries - and introduced him to painkillers.

“The Naval Academy prescribed me a bunch of pain pills, and I had no idea how addictive they could be,” he remembers. “That was a tough era - I spent an entire semester in college addicted to painkillers. And I couldn’t talk about it. I was raised a farm kid, and a Christian - people like me aren’t expected to have an issue like addiction.”

Hibbard ultimately found his way to sobriety, and in the process married, started a family, and found steady work as a pipeline worker. It was during his time in the field that Hibbard happened upon an opportunity to take his music a bit more seriously.

“A coworker and I stopped at a TexMex restaurant for lunch,” he tells us. “The server said, ‘Man, you don’t look like you sound...’ and my co-worker immediately replied, You should hear him sing.’”

On the spot, Hibbard was asked to sing and made such an impression he was asked to make the TexMex restaurant a standing gig, and his career snowballed from there, leading to several self-written songs, a recorded EP and, eventually, a relocation to Nashville.

“I enjoyed pipelining. I thought that’s where I was going to stay,” he says. “But I ultimately felt I could change a lot more behind a mic than I could behind a welding hood.”

With Long Ride in a Short Bed he’s doing just that.

The album Long Ride in a Short Bed is out on 2nd August.