Speaker 1: What's up, guys. Welcome to The Granger Smith Podcast, Episode
Speaker 1: thirty six. Thank you guys so much for watching, Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. I'm grateful for this platform. I'm grateful for
Speaker 1: the first amendments that I could exercise my freedom of speech.
Speaker 1: Get on here, speak to you guys, tell you what's
Speaker 1: on my mind, tell you about what's going on in
Speaker 1: my life, tell you about the stay of the world,
Speaker 1: at least the way I see it, and to invite
Speaker 1: some of my friends on here to chat. So, if
Speaker 1: you're new to this podcast, thank you, Thank you for watching.
Speaker 1: If you're on YouTube, and I would encourage you to
Speaker 1: go backwards. This whole thing started in the back of
Speaker 1: my bus on tour, and I wanted to give people
Speaker 1: an idea of who I am and where I came from,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to music business. How we ended
Speaker 1: up here, How did ye ye come around? How did
Speaker 1: I start even playing guitar? Who are my influences? That's
Speaker 1: that was the inspiration behind this podcast originally. Then it
Speaker 1: is now shifted to every Monday. We're gonna put these
Speaker 1: out early every Monday, so hopefully you're commuting to work
Speaker 1: and it gives you something to do. To listen to,
Speaker 1: to watch wire commuting to work, and it gives me
Speaker 1: a platform sometimes to answer questions, sometimes just to get
Speaker 1: in front of a camera and keep you guys updated.
Speaker 1: So regardless, thank you for all that. The world, as
Speaker 1: far as my world and touring is still very slow.
Speaker 1: We're looking to get back soon. I know we have
Speaker 1: a couple of dates in June. Those are in Texas.
Speaker 1: There are some dates in July, and I would expect,
Speaker 1: and I've been saying this that this will continue to
Speaker 1: double and double and double every month until late fall
Speaker 1: we're back. I mean, our December is full, so hoping
Speaker 1: that that stays the same like it's always been. It's
Speaker 1: going to be really fun. And as I believe, and
Speaker 1: I kind of preach this to people, I feel like
Speaker 1: we're living in a pent up economy right now. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that just want to go out
Speaker 1: and want to grab a beer and listen to a band.
Speaker 1: I know I do, and so I feel like so
Speaker 1: many people, especially those the majority that have not lost
Speaker 1: their jobs unlike me, are saving money that they would
Speaker 1: have spent at the movie theater, are going out to
Speaker 1: the bar or even going to the beach or things
Speaker 1: like that. So I am excited that when this tour
Speaker 1: does the floodgates open, it's going to be crazy. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be fun. We'll be able to pack out some
Speaker 1: rooms again and fill that passion. I'm also going to
Speaker 1: put an album out in the fall. I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly when, but I do. I am looking at a
Speaker 1: whiteboard right here that I've written all of the songs
Speaker 1: that I know are going to go on there, and
Speaker 1: the process that those songs are in as far as
Speaker 1: what they need instrumentation wise, what they need vocally. Some
Speaker 1: lyrics need to be tweaked tweaked, But I'm looking at
Speaker 1: that board right here, so that that's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1: Because when this when the flood gets open and we
Speaker 1: do start toring like crazy, I'm gonna have a bunch
Speaker 1: of new songs to play. So today is a fun
Speaker 1: podcast with one of my best friends and my tour manager.
Speaker 1: He is notorious on the internet, so many people know
Speaker 1: him for his big personality and big biss. I want
Speaker 1: to introduce you if you don't know him already, and
Speaker 1: uh and hear the backstory of how we got together,
Speaker 1: how we became friends, and then how we eventually became
Speaker 1: friends that work together very closely. This is an interview
Speaker 1: with Chris Lee did kids in dcl my tires and school.
Speaker 1: Long line of five, four of husband dined back rang
Speaker 1: once evage. Yeah, that gation. So the year was two thousand.
Speaker 1: I just moved to Nashville. I moved to Nashville July first,
Speaker 1: two thousand. I didn't know anybody there. I didn't have
Speaker 1: any friends at all. I had a couple connections through
Speaker 1: people that knew somebody that moved to Nashville, and then
Speaker 1: I knew that you were there. I had heard that
Speaker 1: Chris Lely, the drummer from the Garland Opry, moved to
Speaker 1: Nashville a few years before me. It was big news too.
Speaker 1: I mean at the time, I just you know, there
Speaker 1: was a small group of Texans that lived there around
Speaker 1: my age. So I went into a bar called Silverado's,
Speaker 1: a dance hall, country honky tonk, and I was there
Speaker 1: just having a few beers. And I had known I
Speaker 1: don't know even know if you know this, but in
Speaker 1: my desperation to have a friend, God, I went through
Speaker 1: the Yellow Pages, which used to be a thing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: not a thing anymore. I went through the I was sorry,
Speaker 1: White the white Pages I already forgot. So this is
Speaker 1: the white Pages book, the Nashville Metropolitan White Pages, And
Speaker 1: I went through and found the Lees, and there was
Speaker 1: like four Chris Lee's. This is a sign of the times.
Speaker 1: I would call starting with the first one, just called
Speaker 1: the number. Hello, Chris, yep, Chris Lee from Garland, Texas.
Speaker 1: They'd say huh, I'd say sorry, roll number. So I
Speaker 1: did that four times and none of them were you.
Speaker 1: So fast forward a few months. I'm in I'm in
Speaker 1: this honky tonk and this guy comes up to me.
Speaker 1: I barely recognized him. Cowboy hat. No no, no no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you weren't cowboy hat. You were very uh slip dressed.
Speaker 1: At the time, I believe. Okay, there's a phase I
Speaker 1: was in. I guess yeah. And and this this guy
Speaker 1: super Tank in a colder month and you said you
Speaker 1: Granger Smith And I'm like, you know, at the time,
Speaker 1: no one said that to me. I was like yeah,
Speaker 1: and he was Chris Lee growing up and I was like,
Speaker 1: my god, Chris, I found you, man. It was it
Speaker 1: was a really big deal to me that I found
Speaker 1: a guy from Texas and the guy I had been looking,
Speaker 1: and we weren't really I wouldn't consider as good friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we knew each other. We knew each other, we were
Speaker 1: acquaintance acquaintances, and no one at the time had everybody's
Speaker 1: social media account or phone numbers that just didn't exist.
Speaker 1: Cell phones are actually pretty new, Like if you had
Speaker 1: a cell phone number, you you didn't have a long
Speaker 1: contact list. So, needless to say, we hit it off
Speaker 1: that day at Silverado's, had a few beers exchanged to
Speaker 1: phone numbers, and then our our although we had known
Speaker 1: each other probably five years before that, our real friendship
Speaker 1: began then starting with a co write I believe was
Speaker 1: the first thing we did. Yeah, so Allison, who I'm
Speaker 1: still married to. We were a boyfriend and girlfriend at
Speaker 1: the time. We invited you over to her apartment. Okay,
Speaker 1: and okay, I remember I hadn't heard you play or
Speaker 1: sing since our Garland Oprey days, which was you know,
Speaker 1: probably three years before. Yeah, but uh yeah, we had
Speaker 1: you come over and like, I don't even think we
Speaker 1: were gonna write. We were just gonna play and just
Speaker 1: hang out and drink a few beers and everything. And
Speaker 1: I like played for you a little bit, and You're
Speaker 1: like Oh, that's great. And then you started playing and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, I don't remember this guy
Speaker 1: being this good back at our opery days. But something
Speaker 1: happened in those couple of years. I think maybe you
Speaker 1: had gotten out and started playing in your own band
Speaker 1: and everything, but I think that might be a little
Speaker 1: bit of exaggeration or you just don't remember. It was
Speaker 1: a major lead. I mean you were, you were a good,
Speaker 1: you know, a little singer in your your grown opry days,
Speaker 1: but there was a drastic change. And at that point
Speaker 1: I was like this, this freaking guy's gonna he's gonna
Speaker 1: be huge. He's gonna make it. Well, so I'm still
Speaker 1: waiting for you to make it, by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 1: right Somewhere around that time, I was also needing a roommate.
Speaker 1: I had an extra room, and so I asked you, Hey,
Speaker 1: you going to be my roommate? Yeah, And you were like, well, man,
Speaker 1: I was kind of I'm just kind of crashing at
Speaker 1: my girlfriend's apartment and I was kind of actually have
Speaker 1: a whole lot going on. And I remember the one
Speaker 1: time we met to write and I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember this or not, but I said, whatever, parking
Speaker 1: lot em I publishing or something. I said, meet me there.
Speaker 1: I'm driving a big white truck, and you said, cool,
Speaker 1: I'm driving a big red truck. And you pulled in
Speaker 1: with the legit big Ford pick up diesel and I
Speaker 1: was driving a just a normal fifteen hundred seventy one Chevy.
Speaker 1: But the funny thing wasn't what what occurred to me
Speaker 1: was that at the time I was driving a big
Speaker 1: truck because no one was driving a truck in Nashville. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And another Texan comes in and actually had a legit
Speaker 1: big truck and we hit it off. Soon after, I
Speaker 1: mean you moved in. It wasn't long after the Silverado's
Speaker 1: run in. Yeah, yeah, we were. We became good buddies
Speaker 1: and fellow honky tnkers. Yeah we would, so starting then
Speaker 1: we would. We would go out together, hit the honky tonks,
Speaker 1: hit downtown Nashville, which if y'all haven't been in downtown Nashville,
Speaker 1: it's always a good time, and did a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of things that were pretty reckless, you know,
Speaker 1: Carolins at the time. Our kids will eventually listen to this,
Speaker 1: so we can't get into too much of that. But
Speaker 1: we we spent our early twenties, living it to the fullest.
Speaker 1: Put it that way. We wrote songs together. We both
Speaker 1: sang together at times, and then sometimes I would sing
Speaker 1: and you'd play drums, and then sometimes I would play
Speaker 1: steel guitar and you would sing or play drums with Trent,
Speaker 1: and our relationship grew basically building the backstory of us
Speaker 1: because I don't think anybody really knows you other than
Speaker 1: tour manager. Ye, so there's not much else to that. Well, No,
Speaker 1: you're you're actually a really good artist, really good songwriter.
Speaker 1: You've always been a great singer, great guitar player. Not
Speaker 1: just a guitar player, but just you're the kind of
Speaker 1: guy that could pick up any instrument because you have
Speaker 1: a really good ear. You could pick up piano, guitar, drums.
Speaker 1: It's important to know that I'm not great at any
Speaker 1: of those things, right, I get a little bit good.
Speaker 1: It depends on who you're comparing yourself to. Compared to
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, you're a pro at all
Speaker 1: those things. And I guess we also stayed really good
Speaker 1: friends because our schedules were really different. We stayed out
Speaker 1: of each other's way, and you had a day job
Speaker 1: that was very demanding, and you were gone a lot,
Speaker 1: and then we would come together on the weekends and
Speaker 1: do our Shenanigans. So about two thousand and four, I
Speaker 1: moved back from Nashville back to Texas to start a band,
Speaker 1: asked you to come with me. You said, no, good reasons.
Speaker 1: You know, you had roots in Nashville, you had a
Speaker 1: serious girlfriend at the time who is now your wife,
Speaker 1: and you had a good job, so it would have
Speaker 1: been silly to leave with me. I was because part
Speaker 1: of my going back was going to finish college live
Speaker 1: on my uncle Johnny's couch and nothing going on. I
Speaker 1: was going to start to open Mike Night, so there's
Speaker 1: nothing to go back for. So things developed you your
Speaker 1: career started really taking off. You became a regional manager
Speaker 1: at a company called Syitechs. Is that right? Regional manager,
Speaker 1: district manager, district manager. That was a hard and I
Speaker 1: mean the way that you lay this out there, you
Speaker 1: make it made it sound like you didn't have a
Speaker 1: whole lot going on in college station, and that is true.
Speaker 1: You know, you were trying to develop some roots and everything.
Speaker 1: But it still was a difficult decision for me not
Speaker 1: to make that move because I really just as I
Speaker 1: do today. I firmly believed in what you were doing
Speaker 1: and in what you were as an artist. And I
Speaker 1: didn't know what role I was going to have in
Speaker 1: that someday, but I knew I had to be a
Speaker 1: part of it, so that that was a difficult decision
Speaker 1: for me not to make that move to College Station.
Speaker 1: And this is coming from a diehard Texas Longhorn fan too,
Speaker 1: moving to College Station. And that being said, College Station
Speaker 1: has kind of always been known as a Texas music hub,
Speaker 1: along with Austin and Lubbock, and there's probably a handful
Speaker 1: of others. So if you're playing Texas country music, you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to live in one of the San Marcus
Speaker 1: New Bronfuls, College Station, Austin, Lubbock, Dallas, Fort Worth. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so that's what I guess. That's why you in
Speaker 1: Houston's probably somewhere on that list. Yeah. Yeah. So years
Speaker 1: go by, you get married, I go, I go to
Speaker 1: your wedding, you have a baby. I'm starting to tour
Speaker 1: a little bit more. We're barely touring at all outside
Speaker 1: of the state of Texas, but we are going to
Speaker 1: Nashville and doing some bar gigs, and every time we
Speaker 1: would go to Nashville. I would crash at your house,
Speaker 1: you know, and we would we would catch up. But
Speaker 1: still never really thought during that time that there was
Speaker 1: a huge future with us past that it didn't seem
Speaker 1: like it beca As your roots were getting deeper, my
Speaker 1: connection with Texas was getting stronger, So it was a gosh.
Speaker 1: I don't know when it was. It was actually before Meadow,
Speaker 1: your first child, that I asked you again. In fact,
Speaker 1: I invited you down and you came. It's a college
Speaker 1: station because I remember drinking beer at the Dixie Chicken, yep,
Speaker 1: And I said, I want to I want to invite
Speaker 1: you down to join me. And I don't think I
Speaker 1: said tour manager. I think it was like, just be
Speaker 1: in the band or be part of it, because you're
Speaker 1: also a really good lead guitar player, so you could
Speaker 1: have done anything at that point. Yeah, I don't remember
Speaker 1: what the title was. I think it was just to
Speaker 1: be down there and just be a part of it,
Speaker 1: which I oh, you know, I would have been grateful to.
Speaker 1: My sales pitch to you was move, move everybody. Actually
Speaker 1: it's just Allison, move Alison. But Alison had a good
Speaker 1: job and in your job was My sales pitch was
Speaker 1: I know you got a good job. I know you're
Speaker 1: making consistent money, but you're not doing music. Man. You
Speaker 1: love that, you want to be in music, and you
Speaker 1: said no again. Both of the times you said no
Speaker 1: were really good decisions on your part. It wasn't it
Speaker 1: was too early, but it But it's funny looking back
Speaker 1: because then it was that was probably I don't know
Speaker 1: what year it was, but it was twenty thirteen when
Speaker 1: things Earl Dibbles was out and which you helped write
Speaker 1: the country Boy song, So you're kind of at the
Speaker 1: ground floor of Earl Dibbles. You saw that what that
Speaker 1: did for us as a band. And then two years
Speaker 1: after Earl Dibbles, I asked you again, this time with
Speaker 1: a mission to be my tour manager, because I'm sitting
Speaker 1: here thinking, I don't want to hire a glorified merch guy,
Speaker 1: no offense to merch guys. I don't want to hire that.
Speaker 1: Tyler was done, you know, Tyler was done with trying
Speaker 1: to be tour manager. He was already had his eyes
Speaker 1: set on management. And I just wanted a friend, someone
Speaker 1: that knew me. And so I remember that phone conversation.
Speaker 1: I said, my goal is to bring in somebody that
Speaker 1: could they could shoot me straight all the time that
Speaker 1: supports us as a band, wants to push us, but
Speaker 1: at the same time knows when to say, dude, shut
Speaker 1: the hell up. You're wrong, You're wrong on this situation. Boy,
Speaker 1: did you take that run with what? Some things never change.
Speaker 1: But I remember you said, let me think about it
Speaker 1: with al and you had two babies at home? We
Speaker 1: had uh God, you lose count over the years. Do
Speaker 1: you have as many as I do? We had three,
Speaker 1: did you? Yeah? We had cannon. You had cannon. Okay, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was twenty thirteen in March two thirty. So I
Speaker 1: remember you said, let me think it over. You called
Speaker 1: me and we talked. I was in Nacadoches. You laugh,
Speaker 1: you because you had extended this off for a couple
Speaker 1: of times, and I think it had kind of become
Speaker 1: a joke to you a little bit, because I remember
Speaker 1: you kind of laughed it off when you threw it
Speaker 1: out there. And I remember hanging up after that conversation
Speaker 1: and I was like, why is he laughing this off?
Speaker 1: I am going to move down there and I am
Speaker 1: gonna take this job. One of these days. I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is the day, but I am going
Speaker 1: to do it. So I felt a little bit upset,
Speaker 1: and I remember calling you back saying, Hey, I'm taking
Speaker 1: this serious, just to let you know. So then that
Speaker 1: started the conversation with Alison. And I cannot praise her
Speaker 1: enough for that move, because she loved Nashville, she loved
Speaker 1: being there, she did roots, she had friends and everything.
Speaker 1: But when I hung up with that phone conversation, she
Speaker 1: saw something in my eyes. She saw a spark that
Speaker 1: she hadn't seen in years, and it was the music
Speaker 1: business came back calling. You know, I had settled into
Speaker 1: my normal life. I used to wear a khakis and
Speaker 1: button up shirt and I had to tell tell them
Speaker 1: what you did. And I had a great thing going.
Speaker 1: I was a district manager for Syde Text, which was
Speaker 1: a basically a glorified laundry company right right there. They're
Speaker 1: great and what they did and everything, but h that's
Speaker 1: what I did. I ran that branch. It was like
Speaker 1: a it was kind of like a Michael Scott in
Speaker 1: the laundry world. You started that company as a as
Speaker 1: a temp employee, yep, delivering the linens, running the route,
Speaker 1: which is grueling in my mind. Yeah, you'd get up
Speaker 1: at what time I'd get up, like at too. Oftentimes
Speaker 1: you and I would play down town Nashville at Tootsies,
Speaker 1: and I would go straight from playing downtown and I
Speaker 1: would sleep in my big old truck out in the
Speaker 1: parking lot for an hour, and then I'd go to
Speaker 1: work and do the same thing the next night. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so progress through that company, and I got as far
Speaker 1: as I knew I was going to get. And it
Speaker 1: didn't matter what I accomplished in that company. It didn't
Speaker 1: matter what kind of awards or you know, how high
Speaker 1: up I was to make it. There was always something missing.
Speaker 1: And I just had that just like you. Maybe not
Speaker 1: to the extent you have, but I had that musical gene.
Speaker 1: It is to the extent you're Otherwise you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: sitting here. Yeah, but I just couldn't shake it. I
Speaker 1: knew I was never going to find true happiness in
Speaker 1: my work life unless I was doing something in music.
Speaker 1: And so that call was. I had prayed, literally prayed,
Speaker 1: and I pray all the time, but I remember that
Speaker 1: prayer very very distinctively a couple weeks before, and I
Speaker 1: asked God, I said, God, if you want me to
Speaker 1: just stay here and keep doing this and be a
Speaker 1: district manager and stay with this company, I'll do it.
Speaker 1: I'll be the best damn one when I didn't say
Speaker 1: damn to God, but I'll be the best one you
Speaker 1: want me to be. But if you want me to
Speaker 1: go do something else, and you want me to really
Speaker 1: venture out and do this music stuff, give me some
Speaker 1: kind of a sign. And that sign came a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks later in your phone call. And I love
Speaker 1: telling that story because it's a it's the truth for
Speaker 1: one thing, and it's a it's a great example of
Speaker 1: how you put your life and you put something into
Speaker 1: God's hands, He's gonna direct you. Yeah, you know that
Speaker 1: is awesome. You you came in and you said yes.
Speaker 1: Shocked me. I was very happy. And you came in
Speaker 1: and you came into a situation that was kind of volatile.
Speaker 1: You know. We were playing, we were we were in
Speaker 1: an old bus, old blue bus called Atlantic Express, and
Speaker 1: the band was kind of unorderly, you know, and one
Speaker 1: of the tasks I said was, you're you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to get this band in line. We can't get them
Speaker 1: to do anything. All they do is drink and we
Speaker 1: need them to like that's fine, but we need them
Speaker 1: to play the show first, and then we also need
Speaker 1: him to load their stuff back in the trailer when
Speaker 1: they're done, because they had a tendency of finishing the
Speaker 1: show and then getting drunk and disappearing. And then it
Speaker 1: would be I've never heard of a band like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be. It would just be a couple of
Speaker 1: people left over to get all of their stuff and
Speaker 1: put it back in the trailer. So I remember when
Speaker 1: you first came in, it was like, all right, one
Speaker 1: of your jobs, man, is a doing that? And b
Speaker 1: you had to deal with these club owners. Yep. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to describe them besides saying it's an
Speaker 1: interesting bunch club owners. Nightclub owners is a is an
Speaker 1: interesting breed, and as in most things in life, most
Speaker 1: of them are good, really good guys, but you get it.
Speaker 1: You get a few of them one out of ten.
Speaker 1: Maybe that it's a scary situation you're trying to get
Speaker 1: cash from a guy, especially with a band like us
Speaker 1: when we were just starting to pop, we would play
Speaker 1: a eight hundred capacity room and they would think that
Speaker 1: no one was going to come in they would predict
Speaker 1: a thousand or excuse me, two hundred people would come
Speaker 1: in and we would put seven hundred and fifty and
Speaker 1: it would shock them. And they're paying cash at the door,
Speaker 1: So say people are paying five bucks at the door.
Speaker 1: Then at the end of the night, they would estimate
Speaker 1: to us, when I was still involved in that, they
Speaker 1: would estimate how many people were there, about three fifty.
Speaker 1: I'll pay I'm gonna open up this safe and then
Speaker 1: give you a water cash. It's just beer soaked cash,
Speaker 1: you know, just a handful of it and just put
Speaker 1: it on the desk and say, well, rebook you later.
Speaker 1: And so part of your job at the beginning was
Speaker 1: to go, nope, I need discounted. I need to know
Speaker 1: why you think it's three fifty because I think it
Speaker 1: was seven fifty. And that was That was your job
Speaker 1: and it has changed a lot, but the original tour
Speaker 1: manager for us, that was your job. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: I remember the getting the ban in order being a
Speaker 1: huge deal. Yeah, early on. And these are great guys
Speaker 1: that are most of them are all still with us,
Speaker 1: but that was it was just kind of what band
Speaker 1: guys did after the show. This was back before we
Speaker 1: had production guys all in hands and loaders and everything
Speaker 1: loading up all the gear. So band was having to
Speaker 1: do load all their stuff in play load all their
Speaker 1: stuff out into the trailer. So they had a pretty
Speaker 1: lengthy day. It was a tough day. But yeah, we'd
Speaker 1: get a couple guys that would wander off, and the
Speaker 1: trick for me wasn't get it. If I could just
Speaker 1: get my hands and get in front of these guys,
Speaker 1: it was no big deal there. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of times they just need to be reminded, Yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: you need to go load your stuff up. But the
Speaker 1: trick for me was right after a show, you and
Speaker 1: I would go to the merch table. Yes, that's right,
Speaker 1: and so I would be pulled away from that so
Speaker 1: because I would sign autographs and take pictures with everyone
Speaker 1: there every night, yep, So we would sit there for that.
Speaker 1: We do that merch table for two hours sometimes just
Speaker 1: you taking pictures and do an audio ask for everybody.
Speaker 1: And eventually I'd have one of our production guys come
Speaker 1: up and say, Chris, can you go get so and
Speaker 1: so from the bar. He's not loading up any of
Speaker 1: his stuff. And then it became kind of a tug
Speaker 1: Award i'd leave the bar. So I look at our
Speaker 1: lives now and it's like, you know, eventually when we
Speaker 1: start playing again, it's so much, so much easier. I
Speaker 1: don't have to go find band guys at the end
Speaker 1: of the night. And yeah, we got bigger problems. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Tyler says, Bro, you got to get bigger problems. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting because those guys would, uh, you have
Speaker 1: to understand that them doing that. It's a lot easier,
Speaker 1: I should say, to play a show loads of stuff
Speaker 1: put in the trailer when there's not that many people
Speaker 1: there and no one really cares, or if you're tired
Speaker 1: and you're you're ready to get home. But the thing
Speaker 1: was this was new to everyone. An exciting crowd that
Speaker 1: loved us, that was packing in the doors of these
Speaker 1: small clubs. Was very fun for the band too. So
Speaker 1: you got a lot of pretty girls, a lot of
Speaker 1: cool guys that are wanting to buy you a shot,
Speaker 1: wanting to tell you how great your guitar playing or
Speaker 1: your drumming is or your bass playing whatever. And so
Speaker 1: it's a huge distraction because you got a lot of it.
Speaker 1: You got seven hundred new friends every night. Man, I'll
Speaker 1: come everybody. You play guitar so good, picking on Todd,
Speaker 1: Let me buy you a shot, and then that turns
Speaker 1: into two shots, and then some pretty girls come up
Speaker 1: and they want to they want to tell you how
Speaker 1: good you are, and some of the guys would want
Speaker 1: to exchange numbers, and it was just it was overwhelming
Speaker 1: to the ego. So it's hard to blame them for
Speaker 1: what they were doing. They weren't just lawless, they weren't
Speaker 1: just revolting against us. Yeah, but at the end of
Speaker 1: the night we had to look after the crew guys,
Speaker 1: and my did. So you fast forward seven years and
Speaker 1: your job what did you say, how many years with these?
Speaker 1: It was yesterday? You texted yes, seven years yesterday, seven
Speaker 1: years yesterday. So your job has changed so much in
Speaker 1: seven years from those days being that your responsibility to
Speaker 1: now many times are managing an arena tour, right, which
Speaker 1: is much more an arena tour for you say, it's
Speaker 1: a Cane Brown tour, Luke bran Tor. It's much more
Speaker 1: hands off of the band and much more hands on
Speaker 1: with the venue and the promoter for sure, and our
Speaker 1: meet and greets and radio facilitating, and yeah, it's been
Speaker 1: it's a whirlwind. It's definitely perceived as bigger things, but
Speaker 1: you know, at the end of the day, it's from
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen to twenty twenty. Your goal is to get
Speaker 1: whatever vehicles you're traveling in, get them parked, get everything
Speaker 1: loaded in, soundcheck, do a show, do a meet and greet,
Speaker 1: or do a meet and greet, and then do a show,
Speaker 1: collect money at the end of the night. I mean,
Speaker 1: those basic principles never change. It just becomes a more
Speaker 1: vast view. You a greater amount of people to deal with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the principles are the same. Yeah. It might be
Speaker 1: important to say too, because somebody might listen and go, man,
Speaker 1: he met everybody at the end of the night and
Speaker 1: took pictures and autographs. Why doesn't he still do that. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons, one of them being just
Speaker 1: the longevity of our touring life. The lifestyle of touring.
Speaker 1: It was crushing, not just me, and it was it
Speaker 1: was the venues had to deal with the lines of
Speaker 1: the people. You had to be pulled away from your
Speaker 1: job as actually getting paid and getting the band in gear,
Speaker 1: and it became a security issue every night, which was
Speaker 1: overstaffing venues or that were always understaffed and so and
Speaker 1: maybe even bigger than all those was we needed to
Speaker 1: go to sleep. Yeah, sure, we needed to stop and unwind. Also,
Speaker 1: the toll that that puts on your voice, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I would be horsed at the end of the
Speaker 1: night just from Also, because you're a lot of these nightclubs,
Speaker 1: the DJ keeps on playing, and the DJ even gets
Speaker 1: louder after the live music is stopped. So here you
Speaker 1: are at the merch table and every single person that
Speaker 1: comes along, and you're not one of those that just
Speaker 1: doesn't talk to people. You talk to every person that
Speaker 1: comes through, and so you're shouting and you're screaming over
Speaker 1: the DJ. And by the end of the night, it's
Speaker 1: like you've done three shows. Yeah, because you've done your
Speaker 1: ninety minutes and you've done two hours worth of screaming
Speaker 1: at people at the merch table. So we transitioned into
Speaker 1: meet and greets before the show, which was unheard of
Speaker 1: at the time for us, for that level, for that level.
Speaker 1: So we did meeting greets before and then we realized
Speaker 1: we should probably charge money for those meet and greets.
Speaker 1: Otherwise we're dealing with five hundred who wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: go buy a ticket and go see the artist first,
Speaker 1: and then I would if it was George Straight, So
Speaker 1: then we put a money on it, and then we
Speaker 1: put a limit on that. Right. But it's been a
Speaker 1: f on evolution and I don't want to I don't
Speaker 1: want to spend this whole conversation talking about that. I
Speaker 1: kind of want to get into your new life as
Speaker 1: a comedian. I want to take a quick break, quick
Speaker 1: break from the interview with Chris. I hoping you're liking
Speaker 1: this podcast so far. My name is Granger Smith. This
Speaker 1: is the Granger Smith Podcast, Episode thirty six. I want
Speaker 1: to tell you just a couple things before we get
Speaker 1: back to Chris. Ways to find me grangersmith dot com.
Speaker 1: If you go right to that homepage, boom, you're going
Speaker 1: to find out when these tours are going to start
Speaker 1: back up and when you can get tickets. I'm hopefully
Speaker 1: going to announce this on social media as they start
Speaker 1: trickling in, because they will, because we will be completely
Speaker 1: back to normal. It's not a matter of if it is.
Speaker 1: When reject the idea of the new normal, the way,
Speaker 1: the new way of life, all that is false. Reject
Speaker 1: that because collectively as people we're going to come together
Speaker 1: and realize that we could defeat any kind of enemy.
Speaker 1: I want you to go to Grander Smith because you
Speaker 1: could you could find that I'm doing virtual meet and greets.
Speaker 1: We typically do these on Wednesday nights, and they do
Speaker 1: sell out quickly, but usually around Thursday or Friday. We
Speaker 1: announced the next week when we put them on the
Speaker 1: website right there on the homepage, so you can get
Speaker 1: a meet and greet with me, and it's basically holding
Speaker 1: the phone and I'm basically skyping facetiming you and we
Speaker 1: get to have a five or six seven minute conversation.
Speaker 1: Those have been really cool. You could also find me
Speaker 1: on Cameo. It's an app or website cameo dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find me on there and you could book
Speaker 1: me to give you a video, and I'll literally send
Speaker 1: you a video saying what you want me to say,
Speaker 1: whether it's happy birthday, happy anniversary, happy graduation, get well soon,
Speaker 1: you name it. I do these daily. It's so fun.
Speaker 1: Cameo it also allows you to direct message, so we
Speaker 1: could literally direct message text back and forth. And these
Speaker 1: are these are ways for me to make up on income.
Speaker 1: So that and and I'm okay, here with you apparel.
Speaker 1: But this is to try to build our touring company
Speaker 1: back up to take care of the guys. We still
Speaker 1: have to pay health insurance, bus insurance, liability insurance, UH
Speaker 1: bust payments, so there's there's a certain amount of business
Speaker 1: expenses that we still have to maintain to stay alive.
Speaker 1: So I'm doing everything i can UH and it also
Speaker 1: just allows me to to keep in touch, to keep
Speaker 1: in touch with you guys, and and feel your heartbeat
Speaker 1: of what you're needing, what you're liking, what you're wunning,
Speaker 1: and that's important. Last thing we're doing in these live streams,
Speaker 1: and some of you might have seen them, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna try to put out these live streams twice a
Speaker 1: week and we're gonna do these on YouTube and Facebook.
Speaker 1: You could come, you could watch it. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: some throwback songs. Comment below if you have a song
Speaker 1: request and we'll put it on the next the next
Speaker 1: live show we do, or we're getting the guys together.
Speaker 1: We're calling it live at the EE Farm. It has
Speaker 1: been a blast. You could see the old ones on
Speaker 1: my YouTube page and they're all free, and just like
Speaker 1: this podcast, it's all free. We do offer a virtual
Speaker 1: tip jar at Venmo forward Slash, granger Smith PayPal is
Speaker 1: info at grangersmith dot com and the cash app is
Speaker 1: dollar sign Earl Dibbles Junior. So I do want to
Speaker 1: set that up and I do want to talk about
Speaker 1: it because in this whole crazy mess, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: I'm trying to just maintain a livelihood that we could
Speaker 1: go right into touring and boom, no problem. So I'm
Speaker 1: definitely not asking for much. Zero dollars is totally acceptable.
Speaker 1: One dollar is perfect. That's all we're saying. Love you guys.
Speaker 1: Back to Chris Lee. When did Chris Game Means start.
Speaker 1: Chris Gaines has always been here. Yeah, no, you know
Speaker 1: the whole gains mantra thing. It started with weightlifting, and
Speaker 1: about six or seven, about seven years ago, right before
Speaker 1: I moved down here, I got into fitness. I started
Speaker 1: looking in the mirror and I had had a couple
Speaker 1: kids at the time. Started looking in the mirror and
Speaker 1: I'm like, God, I just I'm not going to make
Speaker 1: it to sixty years old. I'm not going to see
Speaker 1: these kids graduate and everything. So I knew I had
Speaker 1: to make some changes. So long story short, I got
Speaker 1: really serious about my health. When I moved down here
Speaker 1: and I started to go lift with you and Tyler,
Speaker 1: it became an extra motivation and extra challenge for me
Speaker 1: to not just be fit, but to see if I
Speaker 1: can outlift you guys, which I'm still trying to do.
Speaker 1: So that's when that whole thing came along. And I've
Speaker 1: always loved the Garth Brooks character Chris Gaines, I always have.
Speaker 1: I thought the album was cool, I thought the idea
Speaker 1: was brilliant and everything. So I liked pairing that kind
Speaker 1: of using that little spin off with my name and
Speaker 1: Chris Gaines and you know, only it spelled G A
Speaker 1: I n Z. So that's kind of where that started.
Speaker 1: And you know, all my social media and everything was
Speaker 1: based around, hey, look I'm lifting weights, because it's it's
Speaker 1: an old late weightlifting adage, right if you're if you
Speaker 1: don't take an Instagram photo of you lifting weights, then
Speaker 1: did it really happen? So that was kind of the
Speaker 1: what started that mess. So a few episodes ago, I
Speaker 1: had Dusty on here and I was telling Dusty that
Speaker 1: he's like a sneaky, funny yeah, and I came up
Speaker 1: because when Earl came out and people were the radio
Speaker 1: would always say, you're so funny, You're so funny, Earl
Speaker 1: is so funny? Were you always so funny? Were you
Speaker 1: always the class clown you were? And I would always answer, man,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not even the third or fourth funniest
Speaker 1: guy on my bus. And I throw Dusty into that
Speaker 1: category above me because Dusty is a quiet comedian. He's
Speaker 1: he doesn't burst open the door. And here's the joke.
Speaker 1: There's Dusty, we all laugh, he's we're all having a
Speaker 1: conversation and he's in the background and he says something
Speaker 1: that just gets us really laughing. But you are the
Speaker 1: bust in the door with the joke guy, and that
Speaker 1: that's not recent. You've just always been that guy for sure.
Speaker 1: Since the Garland Opry playing drums. You were the guy
Speaker 1: that had the funny quip that was had people rolling
Speaker 1: and uh. And that that's why I recruited you for
Speaker 1: a country boy song at the very beginning, because I
Speaker 1: need this guy and I think you were. What were
Speaker 1: some of your lines in that song? It was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the math head was the most notable. I keep a
Speaker 1: twelve gauge by my waterbed because the next trailer over
Speaker 1: there's a meth head. Yeah. Now I remember thinking that
Speaker 1: and like writing it down at the time, thinking there's
Speaker 1: no way he's going to go for this lyric. It's
Speaker 1: it's too far out there, but it's funny to me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, through our days in Nashville, many many years ago,
Speaker 1: you were writing funny songs. Yeah, you were taking either
Speaker 1: a popular song and making a funny parody, but not
Speaker 1: not like a silly parody, like a ridiculous version, right,
Speaker 1: And then you were writing original funny songs. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because I remember you thinking, your your grandpa, you
Speaker 1: your biggest advocate, your biggest fan, who is also the
Speaker 1: man that raised you, taught you to be a man,
Speaker 1: taught you everything you know from birth, and you felt
Speaker 1: a little bit of regret because he was a musician
Speaker 1: and loved country music. You felt a little bit of
Speaker 1: regret to write funny songs where you could be using
Speaker 1: that talent to write serious songs to change people's lives.
Speaker 1: It's funny. What I learned with Earl is that you
Speaker 1: can change people's lives being funny. Also, Yeah, absolutely, a
Speaker 1: smile is a cure to many many ailments. So you
Speaker 1: were you were always funny, but then you started a
Speaker 1: YouTube channel You're keep meanwhile, you're keeping us laughing constantly
Speaker 1: on the road and the bus. But you started a
Speaker 1: YouTube channel about really fitness and weightlifting, and the funny
Speaker 1: pieces of that started to evolve into a comedy channel.
Speaker 1: And then you told me a few years ago that
Speaker 1: I never knew about you that you actually had a
Speaker 1: dream of yourself being a stand up comedian. Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: and that so tell me how that what that is now,
Speaker 1: and how your YouTube page looks now and the direction
Speaker 1: that you want to take that. Yeah. Obviously I like
Speaker 1: the weightlifting aspect of the channel and everything, but I
Speaker 1: found myself only enjoying doing the funny parts of it.
Speaker 1: And I kept asking myself, am I contributing in a
Speaker 1: positive manner really with this weightlifting because there are a
Speaker 1: gazillion weightlifting channels out there, And I noticed that I
Speaker 1: didn't have the passion for the weightlifting part of it.
Speaker 1: I really had the passion for making people laugh. And
Speaker 1: I've always had that. I mean, going from getting in
Speaker 1: trouble in Sunday School for cracking jokes and making people
Speaker 1: laugh and everything. That's always just been a part of me.
Speaker 1: And so I thought, you know, I can contribute to
Speaker 1: this world, and it doesn't have to be in a
Speaker 1: serious manner, because who doesn't need a smile this day
Speaker 1: and age, right, And if I could put a little
Speaker 1: something out there, bring a smile to somebody's face, make
Speaker 1: them chuck a little bit, I've made a contribution. That's everything.
Speaker 1: That's everything. So what's your YouTube channel? YouTube channel is
Speaker 1: Chris Gaines g A I n Z comedy. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: often are you putting out videos? And when did the songs?
Speaker 1: Because you know, I'm all about the songs. I love
Speaker 1: like you should do nothing but songs like it takes time.
Speaker 1: I love when you do the song. So what's your
Speaker 1: plan with this channel? And it's definitely taken on a
Speaker 1: new life with this whole shutdown. Yeah, for sure. The
Speaker 1: plan is so I do a weekly video. Every Tuesday,
Speaker 1: I put a new video out. My goal is to
Speaker 1: put a new song out every month. I just put
Speaker 1: the Frozen parody out last week. So my goal with
Speaker 1: that is just to do a song every month, to
Speaker 1: do a new video every week, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: keep making these funny videos as long as people keep
Speaker 1: watching them. I legitimately enjoy doing this stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: it just fuels my creative juices. I have a good
Speaker 1: time with it. And like I said, if I can
Speaker 1: bring a smile to somebody's face, make somebody laugh and
Speaker 1: I feel like I've done something, it's awesome. It's really
Speaker 1: good too. So if you guys haven't seen it, go
Speaker 1: check out his YouTube page and then comment on his
Speaker 1: latest video Granger Smith Podcast, so that we know it worked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we know the engagement worked. Man. I'm just even thinking
Speaker 1: about the twenty five years that we've known each other
Speaker 1: and the evolution in our friendship. I'm excited to see
Speaker 1: what the next twenty five will bring. And we've gone
Speaker 1: from work partners to friends back to work partners slash friends. Also,
Speaker 1: we don't have a whole lot of work now as
Speaker 1: far as tour management side. You do a few things
Speaker 1: schedule wise. I've seen them, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: mention specifics, but I've seen a couple of shows come
Speaker 1: through on email this week and I'm just a static. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, my favorite part of this week this week
Speaker 1: is getting those emails and being able to enter them
Speaker 1: into our schedule. And I love that you love touring
Speaker 1: you have a massive passion for touring, for being on
Speaker 1: the road, for basically managing the entire touring operation. And
Speaker 1: if you ever wonder what personal manager does versus a
Speaker 1: tour manager, it's exactly in the title personal manager, which
Speaker 1: is Tyler manages my music life and Chris is in
Speaker 1: charge of the tour. And it's it's really refreshing to
Speaker 1: see some one that loves their job like you do
Speaker 1: and so passionate about it, and that is diligent in
Speaker 1: staying and just growing that because I've even speaking of
Speaker 1: job offers. I've even talked to you before about Hey,
Speaker 1: do you want me to we could open something up
Speaker 1: in EEE Apparel. As ee Apparel continues to grow, eventually
Speaker 1: we're going to need a warehouse manager of that sort,
Speaker 1: and that would provide you an opportunity to get off
Speaker 1: the road, maybe make the same money, but still be
Speaker 1: involved in the team, but not travel. You're like, nope,
Speaker 1: I like I love the show man I do. I
Speaker 1: love going to new towns, I love meeting fans. I
Speaker 1: love to see your growth as an artist. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: see this thing through. You know, as long as you
Speaker 1: keep doing this, I'm going to be right there, unless
Speaker 1: you get rid of me, which would be silly. I've
Speaker 1: tried to a couples. Eventually, everyone does it. Something We
Speaker 1: have fought like brothers and h but more often we
Speaker 1: have fought on the same side verse bad patrons and
Speaker 1: bad club owners. We have we have carried people out,
Speaker 1: or I've at least watched you carried people out. It
Speaker 1: hasn't happened lately, no, thank god. But Hayes, Kansas, twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: many many stories. If you guys want to hear some
Speaker 1: more of these stories, comment below. We'll get Chris back on.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll do an episode of just road Stories, Just
Speaker 1: tour Stories, the good and the bad. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: hope you come back man again. Thanks for having me,
Speaker 1: and we'll do it next time, maybe on the bus
Speaker 1: when we're deep into toury. Yeah, I like the sound
Speaker 1: of that. See you guys,