Cody Carnes

A worship leader and a CCM singer with a decidedly mainstream rock bent, Cody Carnes often seems to be channeling elements of Coldplay and U2 into his inspirational rock. He first started making music as part of the Dallas-based Gateway Worship before he headed out as a duet act with his wife, Kari Jobe. He launched his solo career in 2017 with The Darker the Night/The Brighter the Morning. His biggest chart success came three years later with “The Blessing,” a collaboration with Jobe and Elevation Worship that became a Top Three Christian hit in 2020.
Carnes first started playing music as a child, and headed his first worship service as a teenager. Throughout his teens and early adulthood, he played with a number of bands, including Hit the Ground Running and Crimson Soul. He later became part of Gateway Church, which led him to a key role in the associated band Gateway Worship. There, he met his eventual wife, Kari Jobe. The pair frequently co-wrote songs together, including “Let the Heavens Open” on her acclaimed album Majestic. Carnes and Jobe released an EP called All He Says I Am in 2014. They married that year, relocated to Nashville, and had a son in 2016.
Carnes signed with Capitol CMG in February 2017, releasing “The Cross Has the Final Word” shortly afterward. By May, Newsboys reunited to record their own version of “The Cross Has the Final Word,” and by the end of the summer Carnes also released the singles “Hold It All,” “Til the End of Time,” and “What Freedom Feels Like.” His full-length solo debut, The Darker the Night/The Brighter the Morning, appeared in September 2017.
Carnes re-emerged in 2019 with songs from his March 2020 album Run to the Father, which featured writing collaborations with CCM artists including, among others, Matt Maher, Cory Asbury, and Kristian Stanfill. That same month, a song Carnes wrote with Jobe, Chris Brown, and Steven Furtick, “The Blessing,” became the lead single from Elevation Worship’s live album Graves into Gardens. Carnes and Jobe were also featured performers on the track. “The Blessing” went on to peak at number two on the Billboard Hot Christian Songs chart.
Carnes followed the success of “The Blessing” with a succession of non-LP singles in 2021 — “Too Good to Not Believe,” which featured Brandon Lake; “Hope of the Ages,” which featured Hillsong Worship and Reuben Morgan; “Firm Foundation (He Won’t),” a single by Maverick City Music which featured him — adding “Be Glad” to that streak in July 2022. A month later, he released the live set God Is Good!. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine