For nearly a decade, the name Koe Wetzel has carried with it an “if you know, you know” reputation. To a devoted cult audience, the Texas singer-songwriter has been a genre disrupter, mixing country with rock, hip-hop, and grunge; a live performer as powerful and unpredictable as a tornado; and a notorious party animal who never met a bottle of tequila he couldn’t finish. Wetzel remains all of those things, but on his new album 9 Lives, he proves that there’s more to his story — and that a mass audience awaits.

Produced predominantly by Gabe Simon (Noah Kahan’s Stick Season) alongside a string of trusted collaborators like Josh Serrato, Carrie K, and Sam Harris (X Ambassadors), 9 Lives finds the Pittsburg, Texas, native showing off his versatility as a writer and his prowess as an interpreter of songs. There are big, emotional ballads like “Sweet Dreams” and “Hatchet,” and easygoing country singalongs like “Reconsider.” Some of his vocal performances border on the gorgeous, tempering Wetzel’s image as an unrepentant hellion.

“I want fans to know that there’s a different side of me, not just the sex, drugs, and rock & roll Koe that they may have heard about online,” Wetzel says. “I’ve grown up a little bit. I’m no longer the 20-year-old kid that’s partying down and getting thrown in jail all the time. 9 Lives reveals a vulnerable side that people may not be used to hearing.”

Wetzel takes stock of his life’s choices (and mostly likes what he sees) in first single “Damn Near Normal.” He sings about his friends all having a “real job, good wife, 2 kids,” before bluntly detailing his own existence: “Fake job, no wife, no kids/can’t believe I’m living like this.”

“It might not be normal to some people,” he says, “but it’s what I know as normal.”

In “Leigh,” he recounts his losing record with women, particularly those whose names all have that suffix in common: Haleigh, Baleigh, Kaleigh, and more. On the surface, it’s funny and self-deprecating, and Wetzel jokes that he may never score again in Texas after he releases the song. But it also exposes the vulnerability of one of country’s most macho dudes. “It’s kind of hard for me to put that song out there,” he admits.

But the rebellious Wetzel isn’t completely settling down: 9 Lives contains a solid helping of what he calls the “rocky nasty shit” on which he’s built his career.

“There’s a storm brewing in a pool hall down in Houston/where some poor old boy’s bout to get his teeth knocked out,” Wetzel growls in the very first lyric of the album, the title track “9 Lives (Black Cat).” Arriving with an ominous piano intro, the song explodes into a chest-thumping declaration of defiance. Yes, the narrator may have burned through eight lives so far — succumbing to pitfalls ranging from a drug dealer to a rodeo bull — but he dares you to “put the black cat down.”

“I always like hitting the listener right in the nose to start off a record,” Wetzel says. “‘9 Lives’ is a straight-up rock song, man. I’m influenced by so many genres of music, but with this record, I found myself going back to the Texas country and classic rock that I grew up listening to.”

Those influences have always been a part of Wetzel’s catalog. His notorious fan favorite about a drunken night spent in search of a Taco Bell — “February 28, 2016,” off 2016’s Noise Complaint — blended Nineties alt-rock with country twang. On 9 Lives, he tells more outrageous tales over a hard-rock beat.

“Runnin’ Low” starts off with Wetzel trying to sell drugs to a guy in El Paso, only to be rebuffed. “He said, ‘Son, I’m a Christian, I don’t fuckin’ touch that stuff,’” Wetzel sings.

“I love writing stories, and that one starts in El Paso, moves to Abilene, and then ends up at the Choctaw casino in Durant, Oklahoma,” he says. So how much is real? “Oh, I’d say it’s 70/30 fact,” he laughs, “but we’ll let the listeners decide for themselves.”

9 Lives also includes a high-profile features as labelmate Jessie Murph joins forces on the album’s lead radio single, “High Road.”

Perhaps most surprisingly, the album also includes a left-field cover of “Depression & Obsession” by late rapper XXXTentacion. It’s part of Wetzel’s makeup to keep his fans guessing — about his music, his private life, and what he’s going to do next.

He swears he’ll never get comfortable and chooses to let his albums tell more and more of his story.

“I’m always out there searching for different styles of music. I don’t want somebody to look at Koe Wetzel and go, ‘Oh yeah, he was pretty good, but he never changed at all,’” he says. “If you really want to get to know me as a person and know who I am, go buy the record and listen.”