(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Actor and outspoken conservative James Woods is continuing his career reinvention by collaborating with Shooter Jennings on a new album, and one of the tracks is available now.
Woods released the song The Road Back this week, which features Jennings, son of country legend Waylon Jennings, singing. Behind the scenes footage shows Woods playing guitar and he also wrote the lyrics to the song, which is part of a larger collaboration that will see the release of the an album titled Hear the Thunderous Crack on October 18. The album is described as the “life of James Woods sung by Shooter Jennings.”
Listen to the song below:
Woods first announced the album in an interview with Megyn Kelly in July, saying he is “embracing” his “second act” after his Hollywood career essentially came to a halt. Woods’s last live action work was in 2017. Woods recounted in 2018 — we well as in the Kelly interview — being dropped his agent over his outspoken conservative and pro-Donald Trump views expressed on Twitter where the Republican has more than four million followers.
My dear friends, here is the magic link to every major streaming music service where you can enjoy THE ROAD BACK, the Shooter Jennings/James Woods single from our album HEAR THE THUNDER CRACK (10/18/2024):
https://t.co/ZYK9cTQZxD— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 17, 2024
The actor wrote in his newsletter that the songs written for the album are his version of a celebrity “tell all.”
Woods wrote:
Throughout my Hollywood career people encouraged me to write a book about my life. Celebrity ‘tell-alls’ never appealed to me though, because I don’t care about frivolous things. I yearned to share stories that moved me in my life, authentic tales that lifted my spirits or broke my heart. When the great Shooter Jennings once casually suggested I write song lyrics, I was skeptical. When I put pen to paper, however, these whispers from the heart expressed themselves in ways I never imagined. And when Shooter then put them to music, my life changed forever. I can’t wait to share them with you.
Woods’s jump into music follows some behind the scenes film work too. The filmmaker was an executive producer on Oppenheimer, having bought the rights to the book it was based on. Woods told Kelly about helping to put the Christopher Nolan-directed project together, but said he was gently asked at one point to keep his involvement in the blockbuster quiet due to his outspoken political views. Oppenheimer would go on to win seven Oscars, including Best Picture, after earning more than $900 million worldwide on a $100 million production budget.
“When Oppenheimer came out, there was a discussion about my Twitter, and it was gently suggested that I basically remain invisible, which was painful — on the other hand, I’m a pragmatic person and I thought, a lot of people put their effort into this, so I’m just going to be an invisible pariah because the people who are going to be voting for Oscars, which is very important,” he said.
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