Tony Justice and '18 Gears to Life' -- the trucking behind, inside the music

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Updated Aug 14, 2021


For longtime Overdrive Radio listeners he will need no introduction whatsoever, but for the rest of you, the artist you'll hear straight away in this edition of the podcast is none other than Tony Justice. The Everhart Transportation driver, singer, songwriter and performer's recent history reaches back more than a decade now to his first solo trucking-themed record, "On the Road." This year, as regular readers will know, he’s out with his fifth, "18 Gears to Life."

While Justice was in town recently for a video shoot for the "War Paint" single, he sat down with Overdrive for this freewheeling talk through a variety of the tracks on the record, his first in four years. The studio work on it was interrupted by the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. The year before that, Justice’s wife, Misty, waged a war against breast cancer that likewise took some toll on their music efforts.

At once, the emotion of the experience has inspired the pair forward in several ways, as you'll hear.

The new record is a great listen, no doubt. Production values were boosted with more studio time than usual, Justice told us, thanks to trucking sponsors like TBS Factoring Service, DPF Regeneration, Bull Snot products, and, perhaps the most important of all -- the real support of professional truckers all around the country who are Justice's biggest fans.

Take a listen to run through the music, and the stories behind those songs: