Walking the fine line between outlaw country and hard rock, Cory Marks is a burly modern Southern rocker for the 2020s. As steeped in active rock as backwoods country, Marks defined his aesthetic with the very name of his debut single "Outlaws & Outsiders," a cut that also featured a crew of cameos that summarized his world view: It featured country vet Travis Tritt, Five Finger Death Punch singer Ivan Moody and Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars. Marks' ease moving between metal and country distinguished his 2020 debut Who I Am and helped him bring in fans on both sides of the country and rock divide.

A native of North Bay, Ontario, Cory Marks learned how to play drums as a child but he played hockey and attended a pilot school as an adolescent. Flying became a hobby, hockey a vocation, and music a pastime he pursued during downtime as he attended the Royal Military College of Canada. Eventually, he concentrated on music, developing a hybrid of hard rock and country over the course of a decade when he performed under his given name Cory Marquardt. By 2015, he'd released the independent album This Man and earned the attention of producer Kevin Churko. The pair wrote "Outlaws and Outsiders" together. Soon, the singer signed to Better Noise Music and the duo started working with Churko's engineer son Kane on what would become Marks' debut album Who I Am.

A star-studded version of "Outlaws & Outsiders" found a hard rock audience in late 2019, reaching number one on Billboard's Top Rock and Hard Rock Digital Song Sales charts, but it also reached number seven on Country Digital Song Sales. "Better Off" followed "Outlaws & Outsiders" then "Blame It on the Double," "Devil's Grin," and "Drive" all preceded Who I Am's August 2020 release. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi