***Just to clear the air at the top, the Doohickeys are not married. They’re just friends.***

The Doohickeys routinely punch above their weight class: their fifth ever show was at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville opening for Jim Jefferies, and now the pair is gearing up to release their first record All Hat No Cattle produced by two-time Grammy® nominee, Eric Corne. How’d they do this? They don’t know. The band was an accident.

Haley grew up in LIberty, Missouri, helping train horses and spending time on her grandpa’s cattle farm. Her family’s country/bluegrass band covered the likes of Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, and Martina McBride at nursing homes, churches, and two 50th wedding anniversaries. While Haley has your attention, she would like to let you know that she has, in fact, stuck her hand up a horse’s butt to clear out an impaction. And that sounds pretty damn country to me.

Jack, on the other hand, has not done this. He grew up in a strict Japanese-American household in Atlanta, Georgia where you had to take your shoes off at the door. Everything else was pretty lax. His family listened to an unhealthy dose of Jimmy Buffett, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the Allman Brothers… and Green Day. His parents both bought each other the American Idiot CD for Christmas, so Jack snuck the extra copy to his room and learned all the riffs and swear words.

Although they have country roots, Jack and Haley met at USC (FIGHT ON!) while working on the college TV station’s satirical news show. They both were pursuing careers in comedy and made a myriad of sketches together. On one fateful evening in November 2021, Jack was hosting his legendary weekend-after-Halloween party when Haley heard the sounds of Kenny Chesney echoing through the spookily decorated halls. Right then, they discovered their mutual love of country music. The next day, instead of sitting down to write a sketch, they wrote the song I Wish My Truck Was Bigger.

Once Haley and Jack teamed up as a country duo, the pair couldn’t stop writing songs together. The duo’s humor and clever songwriting immediately established The Doohickeys as a name to be reckoned with in the Los Angeles country scene. On a whim, Haley submitted the lyrics to their title track All Hat No Cattle to the American Songwriter Magazine contest in 2022. It earned an honorable mention and the pair thought: “Hmm… maybe we should keep doing this.” Then in 2023, their song This Town Sucks earned an award for Outstanding Songwriting in the Great American Song Contest, and the duo thought, “Hmm… maybe we should make a record.” So they did.

Their debut album, produced and mixed by Eric Corne (Glen Campbell, Lucinda Williams, Sugaray Rayford, Walter Trout, Jamie Wyatt), will have you tapping along as well as laughing out loud. The LP is an assorted mix of old and new country, with intentional stupidity and clever jokes woven into the lyrics. The Doohickeys believe that comedy is the best rhetorical device for critiquing, celebrating, and questioning the status quo. Nothing cuts faster to the truth than a joke or our mom’s comments on our bodies (we’re fine, it’s a joke. Calm down, mom).

All Hat No Cattle features cameos from artists way, way cooler than Jack and Haley. The opening track, Rein It In Cowboy, includes rippin’ licks from Dwight Yoakam’s touring guitarist Eugene Edwards, as well as back-up vocals from Hayley Orrantia, lead on the hit ABC show The Goldbergs and ‘The Ringmaster’ on FOX’s The Masked Singer. World-famous comedian Jim Jefferies makes an appearance at the end of Please Tell Me You’re Sleepin’ (he infamously suggested the song idea to the duo). Longtime session pianist Skip Edwards (Dwight Yoakam, Roy Orbison, Lucinda Williams) lays down some boogie woogie piano on Mr. Fix It.

Likewise, all tracks feature Adam Arcos (Sam Morrow, Leroy from the North) on bass, and Matt Tecu (Neil Young, Brian Wilson, Fiona Apple, Beck, Nora Jones) on drums. The tracks also include whiz kid Jordan Bush (Southwestern Biscuit Company) on pedal steel, banjo, and harmonica—Jordan is so good that he actually was banned from competing in the Topanga Canyon Banjo Fiddle Fest for winning too many times. Haley’s dad, Ward Brown, a.k.a. the real-life Farm Lawyer (one of the songs), can be heard playing pedal steel on two tracks. The duo’s friends, fiddler Aubrey Richmond (Marilyn Manson, Jaimie Wyatt, Shooter Jennings), pianist Sasha Smith (Tori Kelly, Sugaray Rayford, Everclear), slide guitarist Taylor Kropp (Tanya Tucker), baritone guitarist Matt Safranek, mandolinist Philip Glenn, and fiddler Korey Simeone (I Think You Should Leave, we love that show so much!) also feature on the reco