Cody Ash | Jelly Roll's drummer

Country music has changed. Whatever you think about that, one consequence is that its drummers now have to be able to play rock, hip-hop and arena pop as well as a shuffle.

Cody Ash is the current example. He drums for Jelly Roll — the most unlikely mainstream country star of the decade — and won Drumeo’s country award in both 2024 and 2025 for it.

Here is what a modern country touring gig actually asks of a drummer.

Who is Cody Ash?

Cody Ash is an American drummer based in Nashville.

He has been Jelly Roll’s touring drummer through the run that took the artist from mixtape rapper to arena headliner and multiple award nominations — a period covering roughly 2023 onwards, and the two years Drumeo’s voters gave him the country award.

He is also, increasingly, a content creator in his own right, with a substantial following across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram — which is now essentially part of the job description for a touring drummer.

What Cody Ash actually does

He plays heavy. Jelly Roll’s material sits somewhere between country, rock and Southern hip-hop, and the drums are built for an arena. This is not a brushes-and-a-shuffle gig.

He plays hybrid. Triggers and pads carry the programmed elements — the trap-adjacent hi-hats, the sub-drops, the sampled claps — that modern country production is full of.

He locks to a click, hard. Almost everything at this level runs to tracks. The drummer is the human element inside a very precisely arranged show.

He still plays country. Underneath the volume there are proper train beats, proper cross-stick verses and proper dynamics. That is the part people miss.

He plays for the singer. Jelly Roll’s whole appeal is the vocal and the story, and the drums stay behind it.

Two years running

Winning Country Drummer Of The Year in 2024 and 2025 is unusual — the category tends to rotate. Two consecutive wins reflects how visible the Jelly Roll run has been, and how much of that show rests on the drums.

Cody Ash’s drum kit

• Drums — DW.
• Cymbals — Zildjian.
• Sticks — Vic Firth.
• Heads — Remo, where he is a listed artist.
• Electronics. Pads and triggers integrated into the acoustic kit — the modern country touring standard.

Every era, with buy links, is on Cody Ash’s Rig Vault page.

Want the sound without the rig?

Modern country is a hybrid genre now, and the entry cost is lower than you would think.

Add a sample pad. One pad next to the hi-hat, loaded with a clap, a trap hat loop and a sub-drop, is the difference between sounding like a 1998 country band and a 2026 one. Our electronic drum kit guide covers what you actually need.

Then learn to play to a click without sounding like one. The whole skill in this genre is being locked to a grid and still feeling human — pushing the backbeat fractionally, leaving the hi-hat loose.

And keep the country vocabulary. Train beats, cross-stick verses, brushes. They still turn up, and drummers who arrive from rock without them get found out. The Gear Guru will spec a hybrid kit to a budget.

Where to start listening

• Jelly Roll — live footage from the arena tours. The whole job, on display.
• “Son of a Sinner”, live. Restraint, then weight.
• His own social output. Rig tours, playthroughs, and a good look at how the kit is put together.

Final thoughts

Country drumming used to be a fairly narrow specialism. It is not any more, and Ash is a good example of the current version: a drummer who has to be a rock player, a hybrid programmer, a click-locked professional and a traditionalist, sometimes within the same song.

Two Drumeo awards in a row suggests the drumming community has noticed.

See Cody Ash’s full rig in the Rig Vault, or read about Fred Eltringham — the other end of the Nashville spectrum entirely.