In the summer of 2025, Los Angeles-based country artist Jonny Fritz released his first recorded music after a near decade-long hiatus from the music business. “Debbie Downers”, however, would not be the start of your typical record release cycle, but a multi-album, genre-spanning spectacle meant to bring Jonny’s songwriting to new sonic worlds and challenge the consumption-obsessed nature of the modern digital music landscape. Debbie Downers part one, a classic sounding Americana album recorded in Nashville, was released in October, 2025. The next installment, Debbie Downers – Woodwinds, sees the original album’s nine tracks reimagined with an all-woodwinds ensemble, composed by Andrew Conrad.

“I love woodwinds and have wanted to make this type of record for as long as I can remember. I’ve had this vision of clarinets playing chicken pickin style telecaster solos. Just imagine a Jerry Reed covers album played with clarinets and piccolos. There’s something about the staccato tonguing of a reed instrument that seems to me as enjoyable as playing roadhouse country solos. I’ve never played one so I don’t know but I do think about it all the time. I couldn’t be happier to finally hear it out loud and share it with the world.

The version of this record I brought to Andrew Conrad was very different from what it became. My version was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and he made it into The Star Wars Theme (or something like that). He was so clearly over-qualified for the job and it made me appreciate him even more.” – Jonny Fritz

photography by Mama Hotdog (Bobbi Rich)

Two more versions, to be released later in 2026, will complete the collection. Continue reading to learn more about the project and the enigmatic Jonny Fritz:

For 15 years, Jonny Fritz relentlessly traveled the world as a country music eccentric. You could find him everywhere: onstage, singing songs about laser hair removal and the age old debate of Ford VS Chevy; in Jackson Browne’s recording studio, tracking his debut for ATO Records; in the writing room, penning Top 40 hits for Dawes and cult classics for himself. Fritz put in the hours, climbing the music industry’s long ladder with a novelty-golf-ball-concession-stand sized personality whose sheer weirdness didn’t overshadow, but rather magnified, his genuine talent at songwriting.

Then, one day, he just quit. “I think I kinda overdid it,” he says, thinking back to his decision to leave the road for nearly a decade. “I worried that if I kept making music not only as my passion, but also as my paycheck, it was going to ruin it for me. I needed music to be kept pure and free from the burdens of economics.” What followed was a long break from the limelight. Jonny became a father, settled into his new home in Altadena, and rebranded himself as “L.A.’s Only Realtor,” bringing his wild brand of creativity to the real estate market. For years, he avoided the recording studio and the road altogether. When he finally returned, it was to make Debbie Downers: a collection of four interlinked records, each one featuring a wildly unique interpretation of the same album. First on the menu is the country version, recorded in Nashville, produced by Jordan Lehning and a band of world-class studio musicians. Think of this as the album. Three variations of the album follow in stride. The next course features a version that was arranged and recorded with a quintet of woodwinds. The only real note that arranger Andrew Conrad was given was to “make it sound like tea time on The Titanic”. Here Fritz traded guitars for a wholly unexpected mix of clarinet, flute, and piccolo. Two more albums with different themes TBA.

“I had an idea — a dumb idea, maybe, and I followed it through, making these albums exactly

as I’d envisioned. And hey, at least it was expensive —” he says. “It’s so easy to fall into a pattern of saying, ‘Well, the label wants things to sound a certain way’ or ‘I’m not sure we can afford this,’ but I didn’t want any of that to influence my decision making. I just wanted to stay true to myself. Artistic integrity is worth so much more than any monetary payback, so this project has already been a major success to me, simply because I haven’t compromised or done anything conventional yet. I think that’s the key to success, actually.”

There’s an ancillary benefit, too. “When you release a record, everyone forgets about it a week after it comes out,” Fritz explains. “But I made four different versions of the same record and I’m going to release them over the course of a year. Now I can say, ‘I made a record! … Oh, you forgot about it? Well, HERE IT IS AGAIN!’” (Used-car salesman voice)

Years spent in the real estate market haven’t dulled Fritz’s sense of humor. On the Nashville recording of “Hot Chicken Condos,” he blasts the city’s celebrity and bachelorette party culture, mixing mischief and melody in equal amounts. “I love Nashville,” he promises. “I lived there for a decade, but I think it all just got too L.A. for me… so I moved to Los Angeles. I watched all my favorite places in Nashville get torn down, then rebuilt and rebranded as hot-chicken-themed tourist traps.” On “Have You Seen Her,” he croons his way through a plot summary of the Spike Jonze film “Her” while also delivering some unexpectedly moving thoughts about partnership and romance. “Love transcends the boundaries and the limits of the eye,” he sings, backed by a loping, trail-riding groove on the album’s Nashville recording and flanked by single-reed instruments on the woodwinds version. It’s a moment that’s both poignant and preposterous in the same breath, and it’s there — in the grey space between the humorous and the heartfelt — that Fritz has always done his best work.

Case in point: “Tea Man,” a gorgeously breezy tribute to his favorite caffeinated beverage. “I’m a tea man, and I can drink more than England,” he sings with an almost audible smile, as though he’s two sips into his first cup of the day. Country music boasts a long history of drinking songs, but “Tea Man” is something different: sober, playful, and stunning all the same. In other words, it’s the sort of left-field song that Fritz excels at delivering. “When I first came on the scene, everybody said, ‘This guy is the next outlaw!'” he says. “But I’m no outlaw. I’m a marathon runner who obsesses over Ken Burns’ The Civil War and drinking tea. I don’t even drink coffee and I hate weed. I’m more like somebody’s weird dad. That’s why I coined the genre ‘Dad country.’ I’m much more interested in the mundane than the extreme. I like the nuance — the in-between stuff. I live for that grey area and rely heavily on it for inspiration. I couldn’t care less about anything ‘outlaw’ and I’ll never write about ‘traveling down a whiskey-soaked highway.’ I never want to say anything anyone has ever said before.”

Entirely self-funded and independently conceived, Debbie Downers is a project fueled not by the music industry, but by a genuine love of music itself. Whether he’s skewering his MAGA relatives (“Debbie Downers”), singing about the challenges of working at Walgreens with your roommate (“The Boss”), or sketching the portrait of a divorced father “trying hard to ignore the looks from the earth-tone moms” at the neighborhood playground, Fritz turns the everyday

into the anthemic, creating a colorful soundtrack for blue-collar life. He’s rested and rebalanced, back in the saddle after a long, voluntary break from the road. This time around, though, he’ll be following his own path, not getting derailed by false hopes of pleasing the masses through convention, but rather aiming to please himself and his community of respected musicians.

TRACKLIST

1. Debbie Downers
2. Polished Turd
3. Hot Chicken Condos
4. Run
5. Tea Man
6. Bikers
7. Have You Seen Her
8. The Boss
9. Slow Down

UPCOMING TOUR DATES

February US Headlining Tour

2.12 – Oakland, CA – The Stork Club

2.13 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Crepe Place

2.26 – Milwaukee, WI – Cactus Club

2.27 – Chicago, IL – Hideout

2.28 – Evanston, IL – SPACE

CREDITS

Vocals – Jonny Fritz

Composer – Andrew Conrad

Christine Tavolacci – Piccolo, Flute, Alto Flute

Michael Mull – Clarinet, Alto Sax

Andrew Conrad – Clarinet, Tenor Sax

Brian Walsh – Bass Clarinet, Bari Sax

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Kevin Ratterman live in Alhambra, CA 

All songs written by Jonny Fritz except

“Hot Chicken Condos”, written by Jonny Fritz, Jordan Lehning and Skylar Wilson and

“Slow Down”, written by Jonny Fritz, Tim Deaux and Robert Ellis 

Artist Links

Instagram | Facebook | Youtube | Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music