The Signal gig is a full-circle moment for the Georgia Thunderbolts

When the Georgia Thunderbolts open for heavy metal/Southern rockers Jackyl at The Signal on Sunday night, Dec. 1, it will be a full-circle moment for Riley Couzzourt, the Thunderbolts’ lead guitarist.

“When I was 12 or 13, my uncle introduced me to Jackyl – it was the song with the chainsaw, ‘Lumberjack.’ We all grew up jamming Jackyl, and we actually did a Jackyl cover a couple of years ago,” says Couzzourt in a phone interview from his home in Rome, Georgia.

Couzzourt and Rome drummer Bristol Perry were teammates on the 2014 and 2015 Armuchee High School football teams. Discovering they both played instruments, they started jamming after practices. They recruited bass/keyboard player Zach Everett of Taylorsville, Georgia, to join them just over two years later. Playing their fair share of bars, Couzzourt says that’s when they “started making a little money.”

Guitarist Logan Tolbert and friend, TJ Lyle, both from Taylorsville, happened to hear the trio play. Lyle was a singer whose only performances to that point had been in church. In 2016, when Couzzourt, Perry and Everett went to audition for a bar gig, they heard Lyle singing and the original three asked Tolbert and Lyle to join.