When Tyler Jordan was young, he was told that playing an instrument went against God’s word. The son of a preacher growing up in Lake Jackson, Texas — a town located about an hour south of Houston known for being the corporate hub of Dow Chemical — he was raised in a “cult-like” Christian sect that subscribed to Biblical literalism. In church, only a cappella singing was allowed. The Devil couldn’t abide a piano or guitar, but the unaccompanied voice, apparently, was copacetic. “Their whole thing is that the commandment is to sing and it doesn’t say anything about playing instruments,” Jordan tells me during a Zoom call last month. “The idea is just that to do only what he asks and no extra.” He smiles and then adds, “They’re weird in a lot of ways.”
As Jordan entered his teen years, he naturally rebelled. He turned 13 in 2000, the year when Napster was at its cultural zenith. He spent his days downloading indie-rock albums and scouring reviews on All Music. This coincided with his parents pulling him out of school and educating him at home. The weirdness surrounded him like a wall. Music was his only escape.
A few years later, “my life really changed” when Jordan saw Spoon play live twice in the same week on television, on The Late Show With David Letterman and Austin City Limits. “I was like, ‘Man, if these guys are from Austin, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. That’s where I need to go,’” he recalled. Several years later, at age 19, Austin is where he went.
This is how Jordan, 37, recounted the origin story for his tangled path in music, which culminates this week with the release of Lived Here For A While, the excellent new album by his four-piece band, Good Looks. Over 10 songs, Jordan writes candidly (and often bruisingly) about his strict religious upbringing, the traumatic abuse doled out by his father, and the indifference in the face of that abuse exhibited by his mother. Sometimes, he does this with devastating directness, like the album-closing “Why Don’t You Believe Me.” But more often, Jordan leavens the lyrics with surging, fist-pumping music that make his autobiographical lyrics feel more universal. On the single “If It’s Gone,” for instance, Jordan references his ongoing familial estrangement (“I already lost my mother / Left my family far behind / And I don’t believe in Jesus / God, or Buddha, or beyond”) in a manner that somehow manages to register like a feel-good Tom Petty road-trip anthem.
The key musical partnership in Good Looks is between Jordan and guitarist Jake Ames, his best friend who suffered near-devastating injuries after being hit by a car at the hometown album release for 2022’s winning Bummer Year. (Ames, thankfully, recovered.) Jordan — who lists Steve Earle as his favorite all-time songwriter — admits that Good Looks would likely hew closer to a more conventional Americana sound if not for Ames, an inventive and largely improvisational player whose soaring leads pull the band toward a more widescreen, War On Drugs-type sound. This is the case even when Jordan, an avowed socialist, takes Lived Here For A While in an explicitly political direction on songs like “Whiteout” (which addresses gentrification in Austin) and “Vultures” (which deals with income inequality). No matter the subject matter, Lived Here For A While strikes an effective balance between lyrical weightiness and musical breeziness, resulting in one of 2024’s most satisfying and well-rounded rock records.