Toby Keith Announces First Album In Five Years, ‘Peso In My Pocket’

Toby Keith is releasing his first album of all-new material in more than five years on Oct. 15 with Peso In My Pocket via Show Dog Nashville.

Co-produced by Kenny Greenberg and Keith, the project features Keith’s highest Billboard Country Airplay chart debut of his career,”Old School,” which is the album’s leadoff track. Songwriters contributing to the project include The Warren Brothers, Ryan Hurd, Maren Morris, Jesse Jo Dillon, Brett Tyler, Sammy Hagar, and more.

Keb Mo joined Keith in the studio on a cover of his “Old Me Better,” as did Oklahoma artist Mike Hosty, whose “Oklahoma Breakdown” kicks off the album. Keith also offers a tribute to the late John Prine on the Prine and John Mellencamp co-write “Take A Look At My Heart.” And Keith has several solo writes on the album as well, led by the title track. He found inspiration for much of the project while in Mexico where he hunkered down during the pandemic for the first several months of the crisis.

“It was like being on the moon,” Keith says. “A lot of my friends down there were afraid they wouldn’t be let back in the U.S., so they all went home. I wasn’t on the road and nobody could go anywhere, so I thought, ‘You’ve written a long list of songs by yourself, dumbass. Get up and get busy!’ I went through the ideas I keep on my phone and thought, ‘Shit, I need to write these.’”

Keith will be plenty busy in the next few months: he recently resumed touring on his Country Comes To Town Tour, and will receive the Academy of Country Music’s prestigious Merle Haggard Spirit Award in August for “following his own path, crafting great songs and epitomizing Merle’s spirit.” He received the National Medal of Arts earlier this year, and is being inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame this November.