Cody Tyler and Gypsy Convoy

Cody Tyler & Gypsy Convoy bio

• Three-time Central Pennsylvania Music Award nominee
• Dark Horse Music Review featured artist, alongside Travis Meadows, Casper McWade, Gethen Jenkins, Ben Jarrell, and more
• “His Facebook videos do not do him justice… the guy can pick a guitar like nobody’s business, has a great voice, and he’s a really good songwriter.” – Mark in the Morning, WCXS-FM, Punta Gorda, FL
• “It’s nice when a song is actually written about something… Cody paints the picture really well with his songwriting.” – Small Batch Network, Tulsa, OK

Outside of the industrial ruins of early 20th century boom towns where steel mills and coal mines thrived and steam engines thundered through the valleys, Cody Tyler & Gypsy Convoy are forging their own path through the foothills of Appalachia. The songs on their forthcoming debut album are the product of Cody Tyler’s musings while hunting deep in the Pennsylvania wilderness. With a long history that dates back to the colonial era, Cody’s family has hunted the hard timbers, tilled the fields, worked in the mines, and sweated in the steel mills of Pennsylvania for generations. Cody’s father, a third-generation trucker, inspired Cody’s love of roots music and hunger for the open road from a young age. Like his family of truckers and travelers that came before him, his yearning for the road was bred into him. At just 27 years old, his musical journey has barely begun, but his yearning to travel the open road with his songs written from his tree stand have already taken him across the United States as a solo artist.

Cody and the Convoy may be from above the Mason-Dixon line in Reading, PA, but they have forged a country/roots sound of their own that tips its hat to the blue collar men and women of the Keystone State’s Appalachian heartland. Gypsy Convoy are a collection of battle-tested musicians that have collectively earned their stripes sweating it out in venues across the state for decades.

In 2019 and 2020, the Central Pennsylvania Music Hall of Fame nominated Cody Tyler & Gypsy Convoy for three Central Pennsylvania Music Awards. Cody was a Top 150 vocalist for Season 14 of NBC’s The Voice, reaching the executive producer callback auditions in Los Angeles. In 2019, the band were the runner-up in the Tumbleweed Country Music Festival Rising Star Talent Search, which featured over 300 artists from the United States and Canada.

Their forthcoming debut album encompasses the sound Cody describes as “Black Dirt Country,” which derives its name from the fertile dirt tilled by the Amish for centuries and the rocky soil of the Appalachian coal country. The feel of the songs is just as dark, as if they flowed down the mountains and into the Susquehanna River.

In addition to Cody, the band features an all-star lineup of the best musicians from across the Keystone State. Bass guitarist Kenny Peffley, is an experienced songsmith who uses his 5-string bass and his doctorate in Rush-ology to drive the soaring bridges, choruses, and backing vocals into a near-psychedelic stratosphere.

Drummer Kenneth Mettam studied music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, the US Naval School of Music at the Little Creek Amphibious Base in Norfolk, VA, and earned a Bachelor of Science in Music Education at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA. He also spent two years studying with jazz musician and educator Joe Morello at his studio in West Orange, N.J. Kenneth spent two years touring the US, Canada, and Europe with Blues legend and W.C. Handy Award nominee, “Big”  Jack Johnson and the Oilers. He has honorably performed as a member of the 389th Army Band.

On harmonica is the postman-by-day Murray Perlstein, who enjoys disc-golf and fishing when he isn’t on the road delivering mail or traveling with the Convoy.

The newest addition to the Convoy is Lenny Casper on keys. Lenny brings a whole new layer of depth and blistering hot piano solos to give the Convoy a southern edge, reminiscent of the music on which Cody was raised.

The band’s main influences include The Allman Brothers Band, The Steel Woods, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Sturgill Simpson, Junior Kimbrough, Jason Isbell, Rush, Willie Nelson, Tyler Childers, Cody Jinks, Yes, Chris Stapleton, Genesis, Billy Strings, Marcus King, Little Feat, Brent Cobb, Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis, and many more.

Cody’s family owns a few acres in the northern tier of Pennsylvania, by the “PA Grand Canyon.”  The tract of land and Cody’s experiences on it inspired “Playin’ With Firewater.” The acreage is so far removed from everything, it’s nearly impossible to find except with written directions. This song reminisces times spent in the backcountry, while also being mindful that things can go wrong if you can’t handle your moonshine. Cody wrote it on a cold day hunting whitetails, sitting at the base of a tree as old as the hills. “The deer weren’t moving that day, so I figured I’d write a song. I was so intent on finishing the song, an entire herd could’ve passed me by and I’d have had no idea.”