Maylon Jones didn’t know just exactly what he was applying for.
His friend Jared Chandler, head chef with local minor league baseball team Rocket City Trash Pandas, tipped him to an online opportunity “looking for chefs for a commercial.”
The application was mum on details. After applying, Jones, owner of Huntsville based food truck Hootenanny BBQ, got a message he’d made it to the process’ next phase.
“They didn’t tell me who it was for until after I got cast,” Jones recalls. Turned out it was for an online ad/paid partnership between University of Alabama and Kingsford Charcoal.
The gameday themed ad is titled “Kingsford King of the Tailgate.” It features Jones, further touted as a “lifelong Alabama fan and grill master.”
The footage was filmed four or five months ago at a family member’s Ardmore home. In the video, a bearded Jones is shown decked out in Crimson Tide gear glad and cooking ribs on his custom smoker for family and friends. A few “Roll Tides” are involved, of course.
In the ad’s voiceover, Jones says, “Community and family’s everything to me. The time being spent together over the grill, watching the game, every little detail, it’s a monumental moment for me. We’re doing something every single game that make it feel like a family.”
At another point in the ad, Jones says, “Man, if I was to describe the taste of Kingsford Charcoal, I’d say that’s America.”
UA’s social media posting of the clip has garnered more than two million views, Jones says.
Jones started grilling at the age of 15. His given name is a mashup of Merle, his dad’s name, and Waylon, as in country music legend Waylon Jennings.
His Hootenanny BBQ started off as a catering side hustle, back when he was employed by a pest control company. He picked the name “Hootenanny” out of the dictionary.
Jones had prior professional kitchen experience. At age 19 or so, he was sous chef at Cullman’s St. Bernard Prep School. At St. Bernard, Jones cooked lamb for Easter, turkey for Thanksgiving and ham for Christmas.
“One day,” Jones says, “I tried to cook pork, but it was awful. And then I just got the bug [for grilling] after that. I love the aspect of it’s so hands on, the live fire cooking. It’s a dying craft.”
Catering demand built to where Jones decided to segue to a food truck. He saved up for a year from his nine-to-five to buy one.
Early this year, the 31-year-old Cullman native went full-time with Hootenanny BBQ. His wife Mary Jones helps with the business, including making deserts like an Oreo cheesecake cooked on the grill.
Typically, the Hootenanny BBQ truck’s set up Wednesday through Sunday in the parking lot of Quality First Financial, address 30105 Ardmore Ave., in Ardmore.
They go from 11 a.m. to “whenever we sell out,” says Jones, He adds, “We have sold out every time.” On social media you can find them at facebook.com/hootenannybbq.
Salt and pepper are the only seasonings used on Hootenanny’s proteins, which are smoked with oak and peach wood.
“Oak because it burns hot,” Jones says. “Peach because it’s a very subtle sweet smoke.”
Jones says for him the magic of grilling over charcoal “is consistency. if you know how to use charcoal correctly. And the flavor profile that charcoal gives versus gas [grilling] is second to none. For example, Jack Daniel’s Whiskey is filtered through charcoal, right?”
For Jones, grilling with charcoal, “just elevates the flavor profile of everything. You take a cheap hot dog, and you grill it over some charcoal, it just makes it better.”
In addition to ribs, go-to Hootenanny BBQ items entrees include brisket nachos. Baked beans is their signature side.
What makes these beans special? Jones says, “The meat is cooked over the baked beans right on a rack, so we catch all the drippings from that fat, and we put it in our beans.”
While he’s cooking, Jones might have some Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd or AC/DC tunes playing. Away from the grill, his interests include deep-sea fishing and Asian cuisine.
Hootenanny BBQ’s Maylon Jones during filming of a Kingsford Charcoal and University of Alabama online ad. (Photo courtesy Jones family)Photo courtesy Jones family
Los Angeles venture Sawhorse Productions created the Kingsford/Bama ad. Although it’s running time is just minutes, the shoot lasted more than eight hours.
“If you notice, it [the finished ad] starts in the daytime and ends at night,” Jones says. “Filming is very repetitive, and you feel silly repeating yourself over and over, but it was pretty cool to see it all come together. I was proud of how well it turned out.”
This isn’t Jones first brush with showbiz. He says he was a “covert backup” for Netflix cooking competition show “Barbecue Showdown.” Now with experience from the Kingsford/Bama ad, he hopes to make a future season of the show.
On fall Saturdays, Jones can often be found cooking for the local youth football league at Ardmore’s Cooper Field. “I get just as much satisfaction out of that,” Jones says, “as I did doing the commercial.”
Dining and Cooking