Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left six podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Matthew Ramsey of Old Dominion. Matthew,
Speaker 1: Are you Matthew.
Speaker 2: Or matt either one? It's fine. It depends on who
Speaker 2: you are. Sometimes sometimes it's Matthew, sometimes it's matt. I
Speaker 2: answered it both.
Speaker 1: Well, you the kind of person like you grew up
Speaker 1: is matt and now as you're an adult, you're Matthew.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a it's a funny story I grew up with.
Speaker 2: I guess. My parents called me Matthew a lot. My
Speaker 2: grandparents called me Matthew. My friends called me Matt. As
Speaker 2: I was kind of beginning my musical career, I was
Speaker 2: going by matt Uh. And then I got to a
Speaker 2: certain point where I had like a you know, a
Speaker 2: website and a MySpace page and all that stuff that's
Speaker 2: Matt Ramsey. And I started getting these emails from other
Speaker 2: people that were looking for a different Matthew Ramsey who
Speaker 2: was the adult film industry or different Matt Ramsey. So
Speaker 2: I changed it professionally to Matthew.
Speaker 1: Okay, Old Dominion is going on the road. What should
Speaker 1: the fans expect?
Speaker 2: Oh man, they should expect to see us having the
Speaker 2: time of our lives. And that's really the biggest comment
Speaker 2: that we get is how much fun we have on stage,
Speaker 2: and that is the truth. No matter what's going on
Speaker 2: in our lives, when we step on that stage, it
Speaker 2: wipes it all away and we just truly have a
Speaker 2: great time. We've really learned over the past couple of
Speaker 2: years really what our relationship is with our fans, and
Speaker 2: we like to be inclusive. We take requests, we open
Speaker 2: it up the set list to them, and you know,
Speaker 2: we have a set list, but there are sections in
Speaker 2: the set where we just say what do you want
Speaker 2: to hear? So every show is different and we we
Speaker 2: play for a good couple hours. So it's a fun time.
Speaker 1: And how about production? How much production do you carrie?
Speaker 2: Good bit of production. We actually start rehearsals tomorrow, so
Speaker 2: I haven't seen I'll see it in its full glory tomorrow,
Speaker 2: but lots of lots of screens, lots of video content.
Speaker 2: You know, we have our lighting director. He's been with
Speaker 2: us since the very beginning, and once we kind of
Speaker 2: started getting into arenas and and really doing the kind
Speaker 2: of big stuff, we had added some you know, show
Speaker 2: designers and set designers before that we'd worked with, and
Speaker 2: it was it felt like it was time to step
Speaker 2: it up, and so we were doing lots of different
Speaker 2: presentations that people were giving us, and our lighting director said,
Speaker 2: I would like a shot. I think I know you
Speaker 2: guys pretty well, so I'd like a shot to present
Speaker 2: my ideas, and he hands down one won the design
Speaker 2: for sure and ended up getting nominated for awards and
Speaker 2: stuff for it. So it's a good bit. It's less
Speaker 2: than we've carried in twenty twenty three because we're doing
Speaker 2: an EMP theater tour, so it's a little bit different,
Speaker 2: but it's still it's a big show.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're playing a Memorial Day weekend, you're playing after
Speaker 1: a car race the six hundred. Have you done that before?
Speaker 1: What's that like?
Speaker 2: We have done that once, I think once or twice.
Speaker 2: Those are always interesting shows. You know, people there for
Speaker 2: the race and stick around for the show after. But
Speaker 2: it's not anything we're not used to. We've played every
Speaker 2: kind of show that you could possibly imagine, as I'm
Speaker 2: sure you can imagine. So we've played, you know, next
Speaker 2: to livestock, and we'll played next to race cars. So
Speaker 2: it's pretty cool to be in the infield, and lots
Speaker 2: of times we get to go down there and stand
Speaker 2: on pitt Row and watch the cars come in and stuff,
Speaker 2: and then we go do our show.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're playing in Europe. If you played in Europe.
Speaker 2: Before, Yes, we have played in Europe a good bit.
Speaker 2: We started that pretty early, trying to build a fan
Speaker 2: base over there, and then COVID obviously kind of killed
Speaker 2: our momentum there for a little bit. But so this
Speaker 2: will kind of be our well. Really, our first toe
Speaker 2: back in the water was playing C two C Festival
Speaker 2: two years ago, and we'll be back there to do
Speaker 2: a proper tour this year.
Speaker 1: Well, a lot of country acts have never toured Europe,
Speaker 1: not right now, and I want people are going. But historically,
Speaker 1: so what's the reaction for your music overseas as opposed
Speaker 1: to the US.
Speaker 2: It was surprising to us. I kind I can understand
Speaker 2: why some artists don't go over there, especially once you've
Speaker 2: reached a certain level in the States, you kind of
Speaker 2: have to start over over there. You know, you're building
Speaker 2: a whole new fan base they don't have where they
Speaker 2: typically didn't have country radio over there. It's just it's
Speaker 2: just a catch all radio that plays your music. Now
Speaker 2: they're starting to get some country stations, so it's a
Speaker 2: little bit easier, but we were very surprised. There's there's
Speaker 2: nothing quite like hearing your music sung back to you
Speaker 2: in a German accent, you know that to show you
Speaker 2: how far your music has gone. Uh. And and they
Speaker 2: also they really dig into the entire catalog, so we
Speaker 2: can play whatever we want. They know every word and
Speaker 2: you know, it's pretty fantastic.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you ever get tired of playing break up
Speaker 1: with Him?
Speaker 2: No? Actually, hear artists talk about that sometimes. For me,
Speaker 2: if it gets the crowd excited, I have no problem
Speaker 2: playing it. You know, it used to we spent a
Speaker 2: long time playing full sets of music that no one knew.
Speaker 2: So when you get a hit, it's a blessing and
Speaker 2: it starts to you know. That was the one for
Speaker 2: a long time where we knew, no matter what we
Speaker 2: were playing, we knew that was a moment we were
Speaker 2: going to get them and we would get their attention.
Speaker 2: And so still now to this day, that song creates
Speaker 2: a reaction. And anytime anytime a group, you know, thousands
Speaker 2: of people are singing something that you created. How can
Speaker 2: you get tired of that.
Speaker 1: So how do you decide where to put it in
Speaker 1: the set list?
Speaker 2: It's usually these days pretty high up. We like to
Speaker 2: start the song or we like to start out the
Speaker 2: set with some hits. We're lucky enough now that we
Speaker 2: can build a set that there's hits all the way through,
Speaker 2: so so we typically try to put that one up
Speaker 2: towards the top, just to kind of, you know, for
Speaker 2: around people who we are and get them excited about
Speaker 2: the hit songs that they're coming here later.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is audio only, but you wearing a Bruce
Speaker 1: Springsteen in the East Street Band shirt. You are seen
Speaker 1: as a country artist. So where are you on the
Speaker 1: spectrum in terms of rock and country?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Birce Springsteen is is my biggest influence personally as
Speaker 2: far as you know. Obviously is a songwriting influence, but
Speaker 2: as a performer too. I really look up to his
Speaker 2: body of work. I don't think we would ever call
Speaker 2: ourselves a traditional country band. I think the thing that
Speaker 2: makes us country is our songwriting. You know, we certainly
Speaker 2: try to focus on the storytelling aspect and and pack
Speaker 2: it full of hooks and you know, get people singing along,
Speaker 2: and you know, I grew up in a really small
Speaker 2: town in Virginia, so you know, I certainly have a
Speaker 2: country background, but musically, the five of us are. Our
Speaker 2: influences are so all over the map, and they include
Speaker 2: just as much rock as they do country. So our
Speaker 2: show tends to be more of a rock show than
Speaker 2: a country show. Lots of jumping around and running around.
Speaker 1: So how'd you get turned on to Bruce?
Speaker 2: My dad had a record collection and he had the
Speaker 2: Live from seventy five to eighty five album and he
Speaker 2: used to play that and I remember always loving it.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't until I was probably, I want to say, eighteen,
Speaker 2: that I heard Rosalita and it sounded so fresh to me,
Speaker 2: and just his cadence and just the pictures that he painted.
Speaker 2: I was driving, I was driving from Brisbane, Virginia to Charlottesville,
Speaker 2: and I heard that song come on and it was
Speaker 2: just it just lit me up. I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: And I went home and pulled out that record that
Speaker 2: my dad had, and it was covered in mold, and
Speaker 2: you know, it hadn't been pulled out for years, and
Speaker 2: I tried to clean it off, and I was just
Speaker 2: sitting in my room and listened to that those concerts
Speaker 2: over and over and over again, and then and then
Speaker 2: I was just obsessed from that point on.
Speaker 1: Okay, you see, you come from a small town Virginia.
Speaker 1: What is that town and where is that in Virginia.
Speaker 2: It's called Buckannan, Virginia. It's spelled Bucannon, but everybody there
Speaker 2: calls it Buckchannan. It's in the southwestern part of the
Speaker 2: Appalachian Mountains. So it's about i'd say about half an
Speaker 2: hour forty minutes from Roanoke, Virginia, in between Roanoak and
Speaker 2: and Charlottesville, Virginia, about nine hundred people. Uh, just no
Speaker 2: stop light, just a tiny little town.
Speaker 1: Okay, Charlottesville is a college town. Roanoak's like the first
Speaker 1: town in America. So you know, I talked to dway
Speaker 1: Yoakum about this. So you say it's Appalachia. He goes
Speaker 1: on that no one pronounces it that way, but you're
Speaker 1: from there, and he's actually from Ohio. So to what
Speaker 1: degree is it backwoods holler or at this point is
Speaker 1: that paradigm done?
Speaker 2: No, you can find that very easily. It's definitely still there.
Speaker 2: You know, My hometown was, like I said, it's very small.
Speaker 2: It was a big deal when they put a burger
Speaker 2: king in the gas station, you know. But there are
Speaker 2: there are hollers, for sure. There's one in particularly called
Speaker 2: Wildcat Holler that is that is very close by, and
Speaker 2: it's it's a pretty poverty stricken part of the country. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the the opioid crisis is running rampant through there, and
Speaker 2: a lot of it, you know, came out of that
Speaker 2: came out of that area. You can watch all the
Speaker 2: documentaries on on all of that. And there's a lot
Speaker 2: of Rono Virginia in that area. So it's pretty downtrodden
Speaker 2: at times, but it is a beautiful part of the country.
Speaker 1: So what did your parents do for a living.
Speaker 2: My dad worked for the railroad for about eighteen years
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, so he was traveling a
Speaker 2: good bit until he ended up taking a buy out
Speaker 2: and got a job working in the local in the
Speaker 2: office of the there's a local factory in town that
Speaker 2: made like silicone and rubber products. And then my mom
Speaker 2: was a teacher. My mom was a math teacher.
Speaker 1: What did your father do for the railroad?
Speaker 2: He was a brakeman, so he was he was on
Speaker 2: the trains, so he would His run was from Roanoak
Speaker 2: to Winston Salem, North Carolina, so he would just take
Speaker 2: trains down to North Carolina, unload them, hook him back up,
Speaker 2: bring them back. That was kind of the family business.
Speaker 2: Was his dad did it, his granddad did it. It
Speaker 2: was like all the men leading up to my dad
Speaker 2: were all railroad people.
Speaker 1: Okay, the factory, the silicon factory. Is that still there
Speaker 1: or did that close?
Speaker 2: It's closed? Now? It's closed?
Speaker 1: Now? How long would it close?
Speaker 2: It sold a few times probably I'd say ten years
Speaker 2: ago and then ended up shutting down probably I'd say
Speaker 2: probably six years ago.
Speaker 1: So was your father or retired or did he lose
Speaker 1: his job?
Speaker 2: No, he was, he was at that point. They kind
Speaker 2: of they kept on selling it and and they would
Speaker 2: keep him. So he survived a couple of different sales
Speaker 2: and then and transitions, and then they kept him on
Speaker 2: until he finally retired.
Speaker 1: And then when the factory finally went under. How did
Speaker 1: that affect the economics of the town.
Speaker 2: The town didn't have a whole lot of economics. It
Speaker 2: definitely killed some jobs, for sure. It's now been turned
Speaker 2: into a brewery and an apartment complex, which I haven't seen,
Speaker 2: but I hear is doing well. The thing about that
Speaker 2: little town that's drawing people there now is the river
Speaker 2: runs right through it, and obviously the Appalachian Trail runs
Speaker 2: pretty close by to so it's a big outdoors destination
Speaker 2: now that people like to come in and in the
Speaker 2: summertime and float the river, and that now they go
Speaker 2: grab a beer at the brewery.
Speaker 1: So your father's a break man. How does he meet
Speaker 1: your mother?
Speaker 2: They met in college. They went to Shepherd University, and
Speaker 2: I think the story is he was showing up to
Speaker 2: date to take my mom's roommate on a day and
Speaker 2: uh and something fell through and he ended up taking
Speaker 2: my mom on the date. Uh and that they've been
Speaker 2: together ever since.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how many kids in the family.
Speaker 2: I have one older brother, and what is he up to?
Speaker 2: He is a rock star in his own right. He
Speaker 2: he works with It's stuff that's way over my head,
Speaker 2: but he works with GPS systems and drones.
Speaker 1: So you've had some great success in the music business.
Speaker 1: You know, people have success and they buy their parents
Speaker 1: cars or houses. Did you do any of that? I have.
Speaker 2: I've certainly handed down some cars to my parents. I've
Speaker 2: I've definitely Uh, given my dad a truck, and I
Speaker 2: I definitely try to take care of them. I haven't
Speaker 2: bought them any houses or anything, but I certainly try
Speaker 2: to spread the spread the wealth a little bit. For Christmas,
Speaker 2: I bought them. My definition of success was always I
Speaker 2: remember telling someone I just wanted to be successful enough
Speaker 2: to see my family whenever I wanted, without having to
Speaker 2: save up or worry about how much the plane ticket
Speaker 2: costs or whatever. So now that I've reached this level,
Speaker 2: I definitely I gave a credit card for Christmas and said,
Speaker 2: whenever you want to come, this is your plane ticket.
Speaker 2: You know, don't don't worry about how much it costs,
Speaker 2: just get here.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're going to school. Did you go to
Speaker 1: the same school your mother was a teacher at.
Speaker 2: She wound up teaching there right after I left. When
Speaker 2: I was in I guess elementary school. There was a
Speaker 2: couple of classes that she was that when I was
Speaker 2: in elementary school. She was going to school to get
Speaker 2: her degree, so she would come in and do like
Speaker 2: teacher's aide stuff sometimes when I was small. But then
Speaker 2: she wound up getting a job in natural Bridge, Virginia,
Speaker 2: which is about probably fifteen minutes away, so she taught there.
Speaker 2: She didn't move to the high school until after I
Speaker 2: was going.
Speaker 1: So what kind of student were you?
Speaker 2: Not a great one? My brother was a really good one, obviously,
Speaker 2: he's an engineer and does all the high tech stuff.
Speaker 2: I was that was not into school, man, it was
Speaker 2: not my thing. I really didn't.
Speaker 1: But you went to college, it couldn't have been too bad.
Speaker 2: I went to college, but I wasn't even sure. I
Speaker 2: just kind of had reached a point. College was an
Speaker 2: avenue out of that town for me. I just I stayed.
Speaker 2: After I graduated high school, I went community college for
Speaker 2: a year because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2: So I went to community college and realized pretty quickly
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be there anymore. I wanted to
Speaker 2: do something else, and the only thing I was good
Speaker 2: at was art and music to some degree. But I
Speaker 2: was better at art, so I thought, well, maybe I'll
Speaker 2: try to go to art school, and that's when I
Speaker 2: ended up doing a degree in illustration from BCU.
Speaker 1: Okay, is there music in the house growing up?
Speaker 2: There was a lot. My dad is a huge fan
Speaker 2: of music and has a lot of a varied taste,
Speaker 2: but he's not a musician. He would have a harmonica
Speaker 2: sometimes and would play that for fun, but other than that,
Speaker 2: we had a piano that was just sitting there. And
Speaker 2: I was drawn to the drums first. So I think
Speaker 2: when I was probably in fifth grade, I really wanted
Speaker 2: to play drums. And so they told me, Okay, if
Speaker 2: you want to play drums, we want you to take
Speaker 2: piano lessons. Okay, that was the deal that they made.
Speaker 2: They wanted me to learn to to to read music.
Speaker 2: I guess I'm not sure why, but I just said
Speaker 2: okay and that stuff for maybe three lessons until I
Speaker 2: dropped that and kept on the drums.
Speaker 1: What was the motivation to play the drums? Did you
Speaker 1: see something on TV? Or we always rhythmic kid?
Speaker 2: I mean I saw I saw at a at a
Speaker 2: middle school talent show, one of my brother's friends played. Uh.
Speaker 2: I think he played like wipeout or something. You know,
Speaker 2: that's the thing you played, of course trying to learn
Speaker 2: the drum. Yeah, yeah, so but I just saw the
Speaker 2: whole gym light up when he did that, and I
Speaker 2: was and it was so powerful to me. I was like, WHOA,
Speaker 2: what's happening here? So and my brother I remember right
Speaker 2: around that time. You know, he's four years older than me. Uh,
Speaker 2: and he was in middle school and and he decided
Speaker 2: he and his buddies wanted to start a band, and
Speaker 2: so they were and it but my brother played trumpet
Speaker 2: and like, so it was like a horn section and
Speaker 2: this drummer and uh. They came over to the house
Speaker 2: and that lasted probably a monk, but they came over
Speaker 2: once to practice. And now all the drums were set
Speaker 2: up in our basement and they took a break and
Speaker 2: I just went down there and was like touching the
Speaker 2: drums and I was just really drawn to them. And
Speaker 2: then I was in led me to be in you know,
Speaker 2: uh the school band playing and playing drums, and then
Speaker 2: later into the marching band. I was in the drum
Speaker 2: line and did all that stuff. So first, for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: that was really calling to me.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you take lessons?
Speaker 2: No, we had a you know, a band director that
Speaker 2: didn't really know anything about the drums.
Speaker 1: I just.
Speaker 2: I just, uh, everything everything I did was self taught.
Speaker 2: I had the I pretty much lived in our basement,
Speaker 2: so I would stay down there in our basement. I
Speaker 2: had a drum kit down there. I had guitars and
Speaker 2: ants and stuff down there on one half of the basement,
Speaker 2: and the other half of the basement was all canvases
Speaker 2: and paints and and art supplies. So I would I
Speaker 2: would always be down there, either painting or listening to
Speaker 2: music and trying to figure out what they did and
Speaker 2: try to play it.
Speaker 1: So you played the piano to get drums. Did your
Speaker 1: appearance buy you a kid?
Speaker 2: Eventually? Yes, I started with a snare and there was
Speaker 2: a big moment. I remember, my dad was never a
Speaker 2: big He's not known necessarily for being a spontaneous person.
Speaker 2: But it was just he and I out One day
Speaker 2: we were going to get some lunch and we walked
Speaker 2: by this uh it was just I don't like a
Speaker 2: junk store, and there was a drum kit sitting in
Speaker 2: them in the window. And we walked by and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh wow, look at that thing. And he said, well,
Speaker 2: let's go look at it, and we walked out of
Speaker 2: there with it. I was my mind was blown, like
Speaker 2: I could not believe that he was He just bought
Speaker 2: me this drum kit. And they weren't musical, but they
Speaker 2: they supported me in every musical avenue I went down,
Speaker 2: they they didn't always understand it. Uh. And throughout the
Speaker 2: course of of my adolescence, when I would get things
Speaker 2: taken away from me for acting like an idiot, they
Speaker 2: never took away that. They never took away anything musical
Speaker 2: from me, So I would sometimes that was all I
Speaker 2: had to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, drums can make quite a racket. Yeah, you were
Speaker 1: in the basement, but they ever say stop.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there was a light switch. There was a
Speaker 2: light switch. The light switch for the basement was upstairs,
Speaker 2: so I'd be I'd be down there playing and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden it would just go completely dark, and
Speaker 2: I'd be like, Okay, time to quit.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're playing in the school band in a drum line.
Speaker 1: You know? Is that cool?
Speaker 2: Not cool?
Speaker 1: What was the experience like?
Speaker 2: That was cool for me? You know, I don't think.
Speaker 2: I don't think people think marching band is the coolest
Speaker 2: thing in the world, But for me, I loved I
Speaker 2: loved every second of it, especially too, because it was
Speaker 2: kind of cool that we had a band director that
Speaker 2: wasn't didn't know much about drums. He just sort of
Speaker 2: let us come up with our own parts. So we
Speaker 2: would listen to to the pieces and we would we
Speaker 2: would circle up and come up with our own parts,
Speaker 2: and he would he would help guide a little bit,
Speaker 2: but he didn't know the rudiments much and so it
Speaker 2: was there was complete creative freedom there. So I really
Speaker 2: really loved it.
Speaker 1: And tell us about the drum line.
Speaker 2: Well, pretty rinky dink. So you know, just a couple
Speaker 2: of snare drums that was a guy playing the quads
Speaker 2: and a couple of bass drums, and that was about it.
Speaker 2: And ultimately that's how I ended up starting my first
Speaker 2: band because we were such good friends and we all
Speaker 2: wanted to be in a band, but we all played drums.
Speaker 2: So one of the guys was like, well, I have
Speaker 2: a guitar, and another guy was he could play piano
Speaker 2: pretty well, and I said, well, okay, I'll borrow a
Speaker 2: bass from somebody and I'll try to be the bass player.
Speaker 2: And so we would get together at my friend's house
Speaker 2: and we had this rotating everybody wanted to play the
Speaker 2: drums because that was the one thing that we did,
Speaker 2: so so like, I want to play drums on that song.
Speaker 2: So it was constantly turning where we would play drums
Speaker 2: on particular songs. But that was my first kind of step.
Speaker 2: The drum line led directly to me being in my
Speaker 2: first band.
Speaker 1: So you borrow a bass. Some people can pick up
Speaker 1: any instrument and play it instantly. Other people have to
Speaker 1: work really hard. Where do you fit on the continuum?
Speaker 2: I have to work really hard. I still work really hard.
Speaker 2: I have a good year, you know, thankfully, so I
Speaker 2: could figure it out. But it was just that's all
Speaker 2: I did once once I was in that far into
Speaker 2: music in general. I had I had an uncle too
Speaker 2: that gave me a guitar, and I had that piano
Speaker 2: sitting there in the living room, and I borrowed this bass,
Speaker 2: and I had a drum kit. And so just every
Speaker 2: day I was working on something, trying to figure out
Speaker 2: how people, how people were playing, what they were playing,
Speaker 2: and reading books and magazines and trying to figure it
Speaker 2: all out.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how long does that band of drummers last?
Speaker 2: Oh, probably a couple of years.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That was we played like the Valentine's Dance at at
Speaker 2: our school, and we played a little you know, local
Speaker 2: pool party type of thing. You know. We were terrible,
Speaker 2: But it lasted a couple of years and then transformed
Speaker 2: into some of the members we formed another band that
Speaker 2: was called Porkrons, and that was like a that was
Speaker 2: like a we wanted to be Pearl Jam. Yeah, we
Speaker 2: wanted to be a grunge rock band. So that kind
Speaker 2: of transformed into that and that lasted for probably another
Speaker 2: four years.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're in your hometown. It's not that far from Charlotteesville.
Speaker 1: Do you go to shows in Charlottesville? Do you hang out?
Speaker 1: Were you pretty much at home?
Speaker 2: Mostly went to Roanoke for shows, so there would bands.
Speaker 2: Charlottesville was a little further away, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: we never went that direction. Nless it was for sports.
Speaker 2: We would go see some UVA basketball or soccer games,
Speaker 2: football games. But Roanoak there was some decent sized touring
Speaker 2: acts that would come through Rono So I spent most
Speaker 2: of my time going to shows there. And there were
Speaker 2: you know, there was a there was a club scene there.
Speaker 2: Two there was there was one, well really one club
Speaker 2: in Roanoak where my band would play with big x's
Speaker 2: on our hands. And because we were underage.
Speaker 1: Okay, you graduate from high school, you still live at
Speaker 1: home and go to community college. Does the band sustain No?
Speaker 2: That was that was pretty much the end of the band.
Speaker 2: I was at that point, I wasn't the singer in
Speaker 2: that band, but at that point had started writing a
Speaker 2: different kind of style of song.
Speaker 1: We'll time out. When did you start.
Speaker 2: To right around the time I picked up the guitar, Well,
Speaker 2: I was probably fourteen thirteen fourteen. I was playing the
Speaker 2: piano one day just by ear, just noodling, and my
Speaker 2: dad reminded me. He was like, you have a guitar
Speaker 2: that's in your closet sitting up there. You should pick
Speaker 2: that up. See what you can do. I was like,
Speaker 2: he's right, you know, So I picked it up, and
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to play anything. So my instinct was, well,
Speaker 2: I'll write something. I don't know how to play anything else.
Speaker 2: But if I write something, then i'll I'll have something
Speaker 2: to play. So that was my first instinct was to
Speaker 2: create rather than to copy. So right off the bat
Speaker 2: I started writing.
Speaker 1: And certainly in retrospect you could evaluate this stuff. How
Speaker 1: much did you write? And when was the first time
Speaker 1: you simply in retrospect, well, that was kind of a
Speaker 1: good song.
Speaker 2: I think I thought they were pretty good right off
Speaker 2: the bat, you know, I thought, I like, the first
Speaker 2: thing I wrote was just a little instrumental piece that
Speaker 2: I could that I could get through. I had another
Speaker 2: uncle who was a fantastic guitar player, and he showed me.
Speaker 2: You know, he would show me a chord and then
Speaker 2: he would say, okay, now that you have that chord,
Speaker 2: just just move a finger. Just pick one finger and
Speaker 2: move it somewhere else and see what that sounds like.
Speaker 2: So he kind of taught me how to explore different
Speaker 2: variations of chords. So so I would, you know, I
Speaker 2: saw him just a couple times a year, so every
Speaker 2: time I saw him, I would show him what I
Speaker 2: was doing and he would show me something else. So
Speaker 2: right off the bat, I was like, all right, I
Speaker 2: think I can create a song here. And I always
Speaker 2: thought they were pretty good.
Speaker 1: Would you be in playing them?
Speaker 2: There was one song that my band started playing. This
Speaker 2: was the first band that that started playing. And that's
Speaker 2: actually how I discovered my singing voice. As a joke,
Speaker 2: I sang it was a very kind of low registered song,
Speaker 2: was very easy to sing. There was no pushing for
Speaker 2: to hit any notes or anything. And at a sound
Speaker 2: check one day, I was joking and I started pushing
Speaker 2: and singing it aggressively and loudly. I was trying to
Speaker 2: make everyone laugh, and when after it was over, they
Speaker 2: all looked at me and went, what was that? And
Speaker 2: they were like, they're all, you should do that more.
Speaker 2: So that's how I kind of discovered that sing how
Speaker 2: to sing a little bit, and that opened up the
Speaker 2: writing a good bit.
Speaker 1: Okay, you go to community college, the band breaks up,
Speaker 1: what happens with your music?
Speaker 2: I still am playing. I still am playing, you know,
Speaker 2: a little coffee shops. I start playing by myself. And
Speaker 2: then when I went to Richmond to go to college,
Speaker 2: I always stayed booking myself in whatever little coffee shop
Speaker 2: or corner bar I could, just to keep doing it.
Speaker 2: I just loved doing it so much. And not only
Speaker 2: that felt like I had to do it, you know,
Speaker 2: I felt like it was it was necessary for me
Speaker 2: to do and so the music never stopped.
Speaker 1: Okay, you moved to Richmond, you know now more than ever,
Speaker 1: but even back days, you can play in a bar
Speaker 1: and people can totally ignore you.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so oh yes.
Speaker 1: Did you get a good response or were you just
Speaker 1: interly driven and say I don't give a shit out,
Speaker 1: I'm just doing this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a mix of both. You know. The you can
Speaker 2: play fifty gigs where you're ignored, and if you get
Speaker 2: one gig that you get a response out of, that
Speaker 2: will fuel you for hundreds more, you know, of people
Speaker 2: ignoring you. So I played much more where people ignored
Speaker 2: than people paid attention.
Speaker 1: Okay, and this was singer songwriter type stuff.
Speaker 2: You alone, Yeah, yeah, just me alone.
Speaker 1: And if we put a genre on it, you know,
Speaker 1: from one end there's James Taylor, the other end there's
Speaker 1: Conway Twitty. Where are you on that? Continue?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was probably you know, I was big into
Speaker 2: I was big into sort of alternative country type of bands.
Speaker 2: There were there were bands at the time, like there's
Speaker 2: a band called sun Volt that I really loved. And
Speaker 2: again I was I was pretty pretty deep into the
Speaker 2: Springsteen at that point, so digging into his kind of
Speaker 2: singer songwriter style. It wasn't it wasn't country yet. It
Speaker 2: was definitely more of a singer songwriter folk music. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of there was a lot of bluegrass
Speaker 2: and and old time music that was being played in
Speaker 2: the area that I grew up, so that kind of
Speaker 2: bled into it a little bit. I was just trying
Speaker 2: to tell stories.
Speaker 1: Okay. There's actually a pretty big punk scene in Virginia.
Speaker 1: Did that influence you? Was that around?
Speaker 2: It was around and I and in my my band
Speaker 2: pork Rinds, we were we were intermixed with a lot
Speaker 2: of those bands. And actually the drummer in our band
Speaker 2: with an Old Dominion was at the time in the
Speaker 2: punk scene at that time, so he was also he
Speaker 2: was also someone I knew from middle school and was
Speaker 2: in the drum line as well, So he wound up
Speaker 2: going into the punk direction, and I wound up being
Speaker 2: drawn more towards like college rock, Dave Matthews type of
Speaker 2: things like that. So I was that was also happening
Speaker 2: at the same time, so I didn't dive too much
Speaker 2: into the punk scene.
Speaker 1: Okay, you were in Richmond for three years. At what
Speaker 1: point do you say? If you say, then this is
Speaker 1: what I want to do as a career.
Speaker 2: It was a graduation was coming up, and at that
Speaker 2: point I started to realize, Okay, I can't I can't
Speaker 2: do both. I think I got a I can't half
Speaker 2: ass two things. So I love art, I love music.
Speaker 2: My heart is telling me that I really want to
Speaker 2: explore this music thing. So basically, as soon as I graduated,
Speaker 2: the plan was Sorry, Mom and Dad, I know, you
Speaker 2: just paid for college for art, but I want to
Speaker 2: try this music thing. And then they took it.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, you're in college, you're playing these gigs, but
Speaker 1: it is college. Are you a partying Do you have
Speaker 1: a girlfriend or are you just the guy that everybody says,
Speaker 1: oh he's the music guy.
Speaker 2: No, I was, I was. I'm not a huge partier.
Speaker 2: I certainly did my time, and yeah, I had a girlfriend,
Speaker 2: and then but also started another band in college, and
Speaker 2: so I was already kind of pulled and lots of
Speaker 2: different directions. I would much rather though.
Speaker 1: Be.
Speaker 2: The band at the party. Then I would go to
Speaker 2: the party.
Speaker 1: Okay, you graduate, you decide you want to do music,
Speaker 1: so what's your first step.
Speaker 2: Well, I had this band at that point that was
Speaker 2: just called the Matt Ramsey Band, and I ended up
Speaker 2: moving to Blacksburg, Virginia, and I would just I would
Speaker 2: just be on the phone constantly trying to try to
Speaker 2: book myself anywhere, try to book this band anywhere, so
Speaker 2: we play.
Speaker 1: We still those of us were not Virginia savvy. What's
Speaker 1: the story with.
Speaker 2: Blacks Blacksburg is where Virginia Tech is. Okay, So that
Speaker 2: was basically on the other side of Rono from my hometown,
Speaker 2: big college town, and I would play all the bars
Speaker 2: in Blacksburg, and then I would try to play in Roanoke,
Speaker 2: and I'd go up to Harrisonburg, and there was a
Speaker 2: there was a band in Harrisonburg. They were called Small
Speaker 2: Town Workers, and with our drummer was in that band,
Speaker 2: and that's how I ended up meeting Jeff, who is
Speaker 2: our bassist now. So I would go up to Harrisonburg
Speaker 2: and open for their band and did. I just did
Speaker 2: everything I possibly could to play any kind of four
Speaker 2: hour gig that would have me. Anytime anyone said I could, Hey,
Speaker 2: can you play for five hours, I'd say yes, and
Speaker 2: then I'd go learn a bunch of socks and then
Speaker 2: I'll just play wherever, wherever I could. And in all
Speaker 2: the while, you know, working at whatever landscaping job I
Speaker 2: could get, or you know, to pay the bills. But
Speaker 2: a certain music certainly wasn't paying the bills yet, So
Speaker 2: I was working whatever jobs I could.
Speaker 1: So how long do you do that for?
Speaker 2: Well that was I graduated college in two thousand. I
Speaker 2: moved to Nashville in two thousand and two. So it
Speaker 2: was a couple just a couple of years of doing that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how do you decide to move to Nashville.
Speaker 2: I was working. Well, a couple of things happened. There
Speaker 2: was a public radio program called Mountain Stage right, and
Speaker 2: I loved listening to that and all of the music
Speaker 2: that was coming out of there. And they had a
Speaker 2: like a festival, and so I went to this festival
Speaker 2: and there were some seminars there, and I went to
Speaker 2: this like songwriting seminar with a guy named Darryl Scott
Speaker 2: and he's, you know, just an incredible songwriter and musician
Speaker 2: and written a bunch of stuff for the Dixie Chicks
Speaker 2: and and Travis Tritt and I went to him after
Speaker 2: the after the siminar, there was probably about twenty people there,
Speaker 2: and I asked him what he thought about moving in Nashville,
Speaker 2: and he said, well, if you're moving there to be
Speaker 2: a star, then don't do it. But if you're moving
Speaker 2: there to surround yourself with the best in the world
Speaker 2: and learn from them, that, by all means I think
Speaker 2: you should. So I took that to heart. And so
Speaker 2: that was one thing that happened at the On the
Speaker 2: other and I had made a little self produced CD
Speaker 2: that I was selling at shows, and I was working
Speaker 2: at a stained glass factory in Lynchburg, Virginia, and there
Speaker 2: was a guy here in Nashville. He's an artist and
Speaker 2: Songwriter's name's Phil Vassar, and he was he was doing
Speaker 2: well at that point, that was kind of the height
Speaker 2: of his career. And he's from Lynchburg, Virginia. And his
Speaker 2: sister used to work for that stained glass company. And
Speaker 2: she came into work one day and I gave her
Speaker 2: a CD and said, you know, if you want to
Speaker 2: throw it away, throw it away. If you like it
Speaker 2: and want to pass it on, please do. And so
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks later, I get an email from
Speaker 2: her and said, hey, this is really good. I want
Speaker 2: to come by and get a couple more. I'm going
Speaker 2: to Nashville in a month and I want to I
Speaker 2: want to take some down there and get some people
Speaker 2: to listen. And so she did, and then she emailed
Speaker 2: me again and said, have you ever been to Nashville.
Speaker 2: So she said, we'll come down and check it out.
Speaker 2: So my boss lent me his car to drive to Nashville.
Speaker 2: We drove down and just to be clear, you don't
Speaker 2: have a car, I did, but yeah, it probably wasn't
Speaker 2: good enough to make it to Nashville. So he said,
Speaker 2: you know, take my car, go down there. They were
Speaker 2: very supportive, obviously.
Speaker 1: How far is it from Lynchburg to Nashville.
Speaker 2: It's it's about seven and a half eight hours. And
Speaker 2: I drove down and took me to the Bluebird, and
Speaker 2: you know, I saw all these great writers and we
Speaker 2: drove past this big house this on this road, Hillsboro Road.
Speaker 2: There's all these beautiful houses on the way to the Bluebird,
Speaker 2: and I was just like, wow, these houses are amazing.
Speaker 2: And after the Bluebird, she said, well, we're going to
Speaker 2: one of those houses. And she took me to Phil's
Speaker 2: house and I sat down with him and he said, look, man,
Speaker 2: you're obviously not an amateur at this. I listened to
Speaker 2: your music. You're you have something, but you kind of
Speaker 2: got to be here if you want to do it.
Speaker 2: And a decision was made. I was like, okay, I'll
Speaker 2: be here next month, and so I moved. That was
Speaker 2: in August and I moved in October.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're in this story. Does your writing and your
Speaker 1: performance become more country than rock?
Speaker 2: There was a there was a moment in my probably
Speaker 2: my senior year of college, I was working. I was
Speaker 2: working at a recycling plant and I was literally sorting
Speaker 2: trash and the country radio was on and it had
Speaker 2: been on in my I knew it all. It had
Speaker 2: been on in my house growing up. My parents listened
Speaker 2: to it. It was never my favorite, except for the
Speaker 2: like kind of old school stuff I really loved, and
Speaker 2: I never really paid much attention to how much which
Speaker 2: I actually did know of what was happening on the radio.
Speaker 2: But then there was a song that came on, I
Speaker 2: think it was an Alan Jackson song that came on
Speaker 2: while I was at work, and I just had this
Speaker 2: thought of like, wow, I can do this. This was
Speaker 2: they are singing about my life. I grew up in
Speaker 2: this little town, and this is all about my life.
Speaker 2: I can write that stuff. That's who I am. So
Speaker 2: then I started to listen to it a lot more
Speaker 2: and focus on stories about my life and growing up
Speaker 2: where I did, and try to start changing it a
Speaker 2: little bit. Shorts country.
Speaker 1: Okay, you decide to move to Nashville. Where do you
Speaker 1: get a place? What are you doing for money? You
Speaker 1: know you land, You don't really know anybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just we got so at that point, I
Speaker 2: was married.
Speaker 1: And but just to peak, we wait to hold on
Speaker 1: a second. Did you marry the girl who was your
Speaker 1: girlfriend in college?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, are you still married to that woman?
Speaker 2: We are still married. It has had not you know,
Speaker 2: it's ups and downs, but we are still married.
Speaker 1: Yes. Let me ask you this, since we're this far,
Speaker 1: do you live in the same house.
Speaker 2: No, we do not live in the same house right now.
Speaker 1: Is this one of the downs of ups and downs?
Speaker 1: Or is this the end?
Speaker 2: It's one of the it's one of the downs.
Speaker 1: And you say you have children too.
Speaker 2: We do have two daughters.
Speaker 1: They are.
Speaker 2: The best thing on the planet. And we are very good.
Speaker 2: We're very good with them.
Speaker 1: And how old are they and what are they up to?
Speaker 2: My oldest is eighteen, and she goes to the University
Speaker 2: of Kentucky. And my youngest is turning sixteen in just
Speaker 2: a few days here, so she goes. She's a sophomore
Speaker 2: in high school.
Speaker 1: Okay, you got this girl you meet, you're in arts school.
Speaker 1: You know, we're in the picture. Did you get married?
Speaker 1: We're in the continue and we're in the right.
Speaker 2: Right after graduation, very young, right after graduation, we got married.
Speaker 1: Did you want to get married or how did that
Speaker 1: end up happening?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so. Yeah, you know, I think we
Speaker 2: were both young, and we both grew up in this
Speaker 2: very small community where that's just what you did, and
Speaker 2: I think we we bought into that, you know, and
Speaker 2: we're very happy to get married.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're an itinerant musician working dog shit jobs.
Speaker 1: What is she doing.
Speaker 2: Once we moved to Nashville?
Speaker 1: She no, No, before you moved to Nashville.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're both working dogshit jobs. She was studying.
Speaker 2: She wanted to be a she wanted to be a veterinarian,
Speaker 2: and so she was working towards that, but wasn't having
Speaker 2: much luck getting into that. School is very competitive. So
Speaker 2: that's one reason we wound up in Blacksburg was she
Speaker 2: was working at Virginia Tech, which is a big that school.
Speaker 2: Once that started to become clear that that wasn't going
Speaker 2: to happen, that's when I started going, well, Okay, that's
Speaker 2: not going to happen. Then maybe we moved to Nashville.
Speaker 1: Did she believe in your dream?
Speaker 2: She did, although she had no concept of it. I
Speaker 2: don't think she's not a she's not an artist, and
Speaker 2: she knew how much I wanted it, and obviously she
Speaker 2: was a fan of what I did. There was no
Speaker 2: way she could have known what we were getting into.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know what we were getting into. She
Speaker 2: blindly trusted me and followed me to Nashville.
Speaker 1: Okay, sometimes the significant other is your biggest cheerleader, say
Speaker 1: you can make it, you can do it, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Other times they're completely the opposite. They're reluctant. No, I
Speaker 1: married you, this is not what I'm in for. Where
Speaker 1: was she?
Speaker 2: It just it changed. I think she was certainly my
Speaker 2: biggest fan for a long time. Once no one is prepared,
Speaker 2: no one is prepared for what this career can once
Speaker 2: it blows up, it is what. It became very difficult.
Speaker 2: She never lost her belief in me, but it is
Speaker 2: super tough to be to be there with me for
Speaker 2: so long and then and then I'm just gone, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: And and she's you know, we're we're I'm gone. And
Speaker 2: not only am I gone, we're broke. You know, we're
Speaker 2: not making any money, but I'm going out on the road.
Speaker 2: And it became very tough. So it it's that's probably
Speaker 2: when it got super money, you.
Speaker 1: Know, So when you have your success, does that improve
Speaker 1: the relationship or make it worse?
Speaker 2: Initially made it worse. Uh, it's definitely. Like I said,
Speaker 2: it's I'm still in therapy trying to figure it all out.
Speaker 2: So it definitely it just becomes you know, I'm pulled
Speaker 2: in a million different directions, and you know, I'm definitely
Speaker 2: wasn't good at I wasn't good at sharing it, and
Speaker 2: I don't think she wasn't very good at at watching
Speaker 2: it happen, because, as I said, she didn't quite understand it.
Speaker 2: So when you're not making any money and you're still
Speaker 2: chasing after something and you got little babies, it becomes
Speaker 2: super difficult. And you know, it looks like a it
Speaker 2: looks like a party, you know, all the time. So
Speaker 2: I think it just it became difficult for us both
Speaker 2: to to understand what was happening.
Speaker 1: So once the money does come in, does that help
Speaker 1: the situation? Not really.
Speaker 2: Neither neither one of us are are wherever really drawn
Speaker 2: to money, you know, where we're not money oriented or
Speaker 2: motivated people. So you know, certainly it certainly helped in
Speaker 2: ways that we could pay the bills, you know, but
Speaker 2: you know, I think at that point.
Speaker 1: We had.
Speaker 2: We had neglected each other for for enough time that
Speaker 2: the money was not gonna help that.
Speaker 1: Just to get the timeline right, you're presently not living
Speaker 1: under the same roof. When was the last time you
Speaker 1: lived under the same roof.
Speaker 2: It's been three years.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know you're a guy, you're from back roads, backwoods.
Speaker 1: For idea, how do you decide to go to therapy?
Speaker 2: I needed therapy. Uh this this industry, Like I said,
Speaker 2: I was not prepared. I naively thought as as I
Speaker 2: was chasing this dream, I naively thought I was going
Speaker 2: to create music that resonated with the world or with
Speaker 2: a certain group of people. That was my goal. I
Speaker 2: did not think about people caring about me and a
Speaker 2: celebrity aspect of it. That was that never entered my brain.
Speaker 2: For whatever reason, you know, I and I moved here. Honestly,
Speaker 2: part of it is because I moved here to be
Speaker 2: a songwriter. I didn't move here. I moved here with
Speaker 2: Daryl Scott's advice. I want to learn and I wanted
Speaker 2: to be a songwriter. I wasn't trying to be in
Speaker 2: a band that was successful. And once it all started
Speaker 2: happening and I started seeing you know, people asking me
Speaker 2: for my picture and things like that. That really started
Speaker 2: to mess with my head. I really started to get
Speaker 2: confused with what was I doing this for and what
Speaker 2: are my motivations here? And I am just this small
Speaker 2: town guy, but people are treating me like a like
Speaker 2: something else, and I just got lost in that and
Speaker 2: trying to figure out who I thought I was as
Speaker 2: a man and who I want to be as a man,
Speaker 2: and who I thought other people thought I should be
Speaker 2: as a man. And finally got to a point where
Speaker 2: I was just like, I got to talk to somebody
Speaker 2: about this because I don't know how to process all this.
Speaker 2: So therapy is still a big part of my big
Speaker 2: part of my life.
Speaker 1: So how often do you go? Do you do remote
Speaker 1: visits when you're on.
Speaker 2: The road, Yes, it's a it's a weekly thing, and
Speaker 2: I do. I do zoom calls and UH and and
Speaker 2: in person calls as well. It's really helpful, it's it's
Speaker 2: really has helped me. One therapist that changed it all
Speaker 2: for me explain to me that I was in the
Speaker 2: service industry and for for whatever reason, I had never
Speaker 2: thought about it like that, and she helped me see
Speaker 2: that by doing what I'm doing it's it's not for me,
Speaker 2: it's for it's for others. And that was like a
Speaker 2: light switch moment for me. That made that made all
Speaker 2: of the pictures and and autographs and things like that
Speaker 2: seem so simple that I could make someone's day just
Speaker 2: by doing that, and that takes nothing from me. So
Speaker 2: it helped me kind of wrap my head around what
Speaker 2: we do and it's not about it's not about me,
Speaker 2: it's about the music. And it helped it helped me
Speaker 2: figure out that's a part of it. Obviously, people care
Speaker 2: what I wear, you know, which is silly, but that's
Speaker 2: just part of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're guys, you're on the road, you're recognizable, guy
Speaker 1: in a band with hit records. I'll just bottom line it.
Speaker 1: There are groupies. To what degree do you say? You
Speaker 1: know I'm here this? You know, how'd you deal with that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? We're all, you know, Luckily we're all. It all
Speaker 2: happened in a certain time in our lives where we're
Speaker 2: you know, we didn't break till we were in our
Speaker 2: mid thirties. We all got kids, you know, which we're
Speaker 2: trying to be the best dads we can and so
Speaker 2: that that was not a huge part of our story.
Speaker 2: You know, as much as people want to be rock
Speaker 2: and roll, sex, drugs and rock and roll, we always
Speaker 2: call ourselves the most boring band ever because we play
Speaker 2: show and go a bit.
Speaker 1: Did that contribute whether things happened or didn't happen to
Speaker 1: tension in your marriage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's certainly. It's certainly something that that can play
Speaker 2: into anyone's insecurities for sure. So it definitely, like I said,
Speaker 2: it looks like a party. It looks like there's groupies,
Speaker 2: you know. There there's certain certainly an idea of that's
Speaker 2: portrayed in movies and stuff like that. You know that
Speaker 2: the kids in people's heads, and you know, there's certainly
Speaker 2: that aspect of this business that exists. But we did
Speaker 2: a pretty good job of managing.
Speaker 1: Okay, see land in Nashville. What are your first steps?
Speaker 1: What do you do for money and what do you
Speaker 1: do on your for your career?
Speaker 2: First thing I did was I, uh, for money, I got.
Speaker 2: My first job was two minute a truck. I was
Speaker 2: working for a moving company. I worked probably seven different
Speaker 2: jobs in the first year and a half that I
Speaker 2: moved here. And then I would just go I would
Speaker 2: cold call people and ask him if I could come
Speaker 2: in and play him some music, and I would play
Speaker 2: my music for Phil a lot, who would just tell
Speaker 2: me to keep going, You're doing the right thing. He
Speaker 2: would take me out on the road with him sometimes
Speaker 2: to do what he's like, if this is what you
Speaker 2: want to do with your life, then you need to
Speaker 2: see what it's like. So I'd go out on the
Speaker 2: road and just hang out and write, and eventually, whenever
Speaker 2: I went, they would strip a tarm me. I'd play
Speaker 2: the show with him. So I would go out for
Speaker 2: you know, a week at a time or so, and
Speaker 2: then come home and and just try to meet other
Speaker 2: writers and dip my toe into the co writing world
Speaker 2: and try to learn how to write with other people
Speaker 2: and play songwriter nights whenever I could. And it was,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a grind. It's definitely not a quick process.
Speaker 2: You learned that pretty quickly that you're you're in it
Speaker 2: for the long all.
Speaker 1: Okay, are you a good networker? No?
Speaker 2: I'm better now. I was a terrible networker for a while,
Speaker 2: but I had some help. There was a guy named
Speaker 2: mike'sis dad who works at ASCAP still is at ASCAP,
Speaker 2: and he would make calls for me and say up
Speaker 2: meetings with publishers and I go play them my music.
Speaker 2: I'm and it was it was tough to figure out
Speaker 2: how to break into that networking scene because again I'm
Speaker 2: I'm not a partier, so I didn't want to go
Speaker 2: out at night and you know, get hammered with a
Speaker 2: bunch of people. Not to say I didn't a couple
Speaker 2: of times, you know, to try and make us connections,
Speaker 2: but not the best of networking.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're doing all these things, You're playing new music
Speaker 1: other than Phil you know, this is a jaded world.
Speaker 1: Are you getting any positive feedback?
Speaker 2: Yes, so I got a good bit of positive feedback.
Speaker 2: But also, you know, these publishers that you're playing for
Speaker 2: a lot of times they'll they'll tell you straight up
Speaker 2: you know it's not good, which never bothered me. I
Speaker 2: always credit my my art school background for that, because
Speaker 2: when you work for a couple of weeks on a
Speaker 2: on a piece of art, and then at the end
Speaker 2: of the project, you go into class and everyone puts
Speaker 2: their paintings up on the wall and you go down
Speaker 2: the line and critique them. You learn pretty quickly to
Speaker 2: have thick skin and take criticism for what it is.
Speaker 2: You know, some of it's useful and some of it
Speaker 2: you just don't agree with. So I kind of learned.
Speaker 2: I learned how to navigate that kind of feeling. So
Speaker 2: I was going into these publishing offices and I'd play
Speaker 2: a song. Sometimes they would stop it halfway through and
Speaker 2: go what else you got? You just go okay, and
Speaker 2: you just keep on, just keep on writing, and you know,
Speaker 2: then eventually you get one. They go, oh, you hit
Speaker 2: something there. There's something that one. There's something special about
Speaker 2: that one. So figure out what you did there and
Speaker 2: do more of that, and then you go back and
Speaker 2: dig in.
Speaker 1: And at what point do you start going to co
Speaker 1: writing sessions.
Speaker 2: It took me, it probably it took me a couple
Speaker 2: of years to do that. I ended up meeting you
Speaker 2: know this. There was a couple of publishers that I
Speaker 2: was visiting regularly and they kept on mentioning this guy,
Speaker 2: Trevor Rosen that I should meet. And this is this
Speaker 2: is not two years after living in Nashville. And they said, man,
Speaker 2: you guys I think should get together, and I think
Speaker 2: you guys could create something pretty well together. And so
Speaker 2: I heard his name a lot, and then one night
Speaker 2: I was playing a songwriter around at this little bar
Speaker 2: called Hobo Joe's and it's not it's not there anymore,
Speaker 2: and they had I was paired on stage with Trevor
Speaker 2: and I was like, Oh, this is the guy I've
Speaker 2: been hearing about. And he said, man, I've been hearing
Speaker 2: your name everywhere, like these guys have been telling me
Speaker 2: that I need to hook up with you. So right there, immediately,
Speaker 2: he and I were big fans of each other's music
Speaker 2: and decided, you know, we need to start hanging out
Speaker 2: and try to write songs together. So he was not
Speaker 2: my first co write, but the first long lasting co writer.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're writing he's ultimately in the band. Are you
Speaker 1: writing with anybody else? Yeah?
Speaker 2: We ended up throughout the course of a couple of years,
Speaker 2: we ended up in this circle of writers. Josh Osborne,
Speaker 2: Shane McAnally, Brandy Clark, Matt Jenkins, Trevor and myself wound
Speaker 2: up kind of in this little clique where we were
Speaker 2: writing stuff that we loved and no one else really
Speaker 2: got it, but we knew that we were excited about it.
Speaker 2: So that was that was our little club, and no
Speaker 2: one really had any success yet. Uh, those guys were
Speaker 2: going to become the biggest songwriters in Nashville. But that's
Speaker 2: that's who we really found a home with as writers
Speaker 2: in the early days.
Speaker 1: Okay, Shane mcinally ends up becoming a big name. When
Speaker 1: you meet him, what's his status?
Speaker 2: He he had I think he was living in this
Speaker 2: tiny little house and he had just gotten one song
Speaker 2: recorded by lea An Willmack, And that's when I first
Speaker 2: met him, and I was like, Oh, this guy's got
Speaker 2: something going on.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That was a really big, big deal at that point
Speaker 2: in time. So he had just started to scratch the
Speaker 2: surface of having a little success.
Speaker 1: And when do you get your first cover.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until about thirteen years after being in Nashville.
Speaker 2: I got a song Trevor and I Matt Jenkins wrote
Speaker 2: that was recorded by an artist named Steve Holy and
Speaker 2: he's a Texas guy and he had had a career
Speaker 2: in the nineties and he had just had this big
Speaker 2: hit that was kind of like a comeback for him,
Speaker 2: and he cut a song of ours, and we thought, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, Steve Hole, he's back. So he had this
Speaker 2: big hit and ours is the next single. Of course,
Speaker 2: it didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, thirteen years go by, do you ever think of
Speaker 1: giving up?
Speaker 2: Certainly there were those moments where where you're definitely thinking
Speaker 2: about why am I doing this? But then you quickly realize,
Speaker 2: like I've been in it this long, what else am
Speaker 2: I going to do?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And there's just enough of a carrot. There's always just
Speaker 2: enough of something that's that's motivating you to keep going.
Speaker 2: And it could be it could be some positive feedback,
Speaker 2: or it could be just a song that you wrote
Speaker 2: that you feel like you leveled up on. Or it
Speaker 2: could be someone like Shane having he did it and
Speaker 2: I'm right next to him. He's got he's got a song,
Speaker 2: So it's possible. You can see those possibilities and it
Speaker 2: just keeps you going. But it is tough. And those
Speaker 2: times where you know they're turning your water off because
Speaker 2: you can't pay the bills, that that you feel like
Speaker 2: maybe you should give up.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have that first cover which doesn't pan out.
Speaker 1: How many more covers do you have till one does?
Speaker 1: And what is that?
Speaker 2: My next cut was a song called wake Up Loving You,
Speaker 2: and Craig Morgan recorded it and that song, that song
Speaker 2: in particular, there's a whole story about how that song
Speaker 2: opened up a whole new world before before, before Craig
Speaker 2: Morgan recorded it. At this point, we were writing a lot. Obviously,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to trying to make it happen. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm broke, can't pay my bills. We had mentioned that
Speaker 2: I was not a good networker, and I was frustrated.
Speaker 2: It was really frustrated that I wasn't able to get
Speaker 2: myself in front of the right people at this point,
Speaker 2: and we were, like I said, we were completely broke.
Speaker 2: There there's a songwriter festival that's actually happening right now
Speaker 2: in Key West called the Q West Songwriter Festival, And
Speaker 2: back then it was kind of it was a huge deal,
Speaker 2: and everybody in Nashville went down to Key West and
Speaker 2: at this songwriter festival. And I thought, well, Okay, if
Speaker 2: I can just get down to Key West and spend
Speaker 2: three days down there at the songwriter festival, everyone in
Speaker 2: Nashville that I need to talk to is down there.
Speaker 2: I gotta find a way down there, but I can't
Speaker 2: afford it. So I said, if I could find a
Speaker 2: plane ticket down there, I'm going. So I have a
Speaker 2: friend and whose brother is a pilot, and he gave
Speaker 2: me a stand by ticket, so I flew stand by.
Speaker 2: You know, I had to pay taxes. It costs like
Speaker 2: twenty bucks. And I was waiting there. I didn't have
Speaker 2: a place to stay. I put a sleeping bag in
Speaker 2: my suitcase and I said, I'll just I'll sleep on
Speaker 2: the street. I don't care. So I flew down to
Speaker 2: Key West. I'm literally wheeling my suitcase down the street
Speaker 2: and I see another person that I know, and he
Speaker 2: said he's a songwriter. And he said, hey, I didn't
Speaker 2: know you were coming. Where are you stay? And I said,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't have a place to stay.
Speaker 2: And he said, well, there's an extra bed in my
Speaker 2: room if you want to crash there. I said, I
Speaker 2: definitely do, so he gave me a place to stay.
Speaker 2: So I went to Walgreens and I bought an eight
Speaker 2: dollars box of granola bars, and that was what I
Speaker 2: was going to eat for those three days. And then
Speaker 2: my friend Mike's his dad from ASCAP was there and
Speaker 2: he said, if you want to meet me for dinner
Speaker 2: every night, I'll pay for your dinner. So he'd pay
Speaker 2: for my dinner every night, and then I would just
Speaker 2: go to all these shows and songwriter showcases and meet
Speaker 2: people and talk to them. And ASCAP at the time
Speaker 2: was hosting them an after hours sort of open mic
Speaker 2: night that was at this little place called the Bottle
Speaker 2: Cap and they had a house band and you would
Speaker 2: show up at like midnight and I hope they called
Speaker 2: you up to go play your song. And so the
Speaker 2: first night I went and they would didn't call me up.
Speaker 2: The second night, I go and they didn't call me up.
Speaker 2: In the third night, it's probably about two thirty in
Speaker 2: the morning, and they called me up and I, you know,
Speaker 2: I've explained to the house band, here's the chords, just
Speaker 2: you know, here's what we're going to do, and we
Speaker 2: played this song wake Up Loving You, and it brings
Speaker 2: the house down. I mean, it was just a huge reaction.
Speaker 2: Everyone just flips out. The next morning, everyone is coming
Speaker 2: up to me, going, what did you do last night?
Speaker 2: Because the only thing that I hear about is what
Speaker 2: you did whether you know your song, so you must
Speaker 2: have really made an impact. And that song, that moment,
Speaker 2: and that song got me a publishing deal after that,
Speaker 2: so I can finally pay my deals. So the you know,
Speaker 2: the the eight dollars granola bars and the free plane
Speaker 2: ticket got me that publishing deal.
Speaker 1: Okay, at this late date, do you own your songs
Speaker 1: where you still love a publishing deal?
Speaker 2: Right now? I have a publishing deal, but it's an
Speaker 2: admin d so, so I just paid you know, a
Speaker 2: percentage for admin.
Speaker 1: Well, how about all your earlier stuff?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a couple of catalogs I've I've done a
Speaker 2: couple of catalog sales. Uh, you know, there's not much
Speaker 2: going on. I got my money from it, and so
Speaker 2: I've sold some catalogs. So some of them I don't own,
Speaker 2: but now going.
Speaker 1: Forward I do. So you sold catalog to covers or
Speaker 1: catalogs of old Dominion.
Speaker 2: Stuff, anything that these are. I've sold catalogs that are
Speaker 2: just exploited work. So I still own parts of the
Speaker 2: Old Dominion stuff. And of course you know, we have
Speaker 2: ownership and masters and things like that too, So anything
Speaker 2: that's a bit exploited. So some some of them are
Speaker 2: Old Dominion songs and some of them are other artists.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you go to key West, you get this,
Speaker 1: does it start to roll? Do you start getting more covers?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Once you once, once we finally got that that
Speaker 2: publishing deal, and then Craig Morgan records that song. I
Speaker 2: think it went to like number thirteen or something on
Speaker 2: the charge was a big deal for me at that
Speaker 2: point in time. And you know, I'm you know, at
Speaker 2: that point, then Shane's starting to take off and and
Speaker 2: we're starting We're writing a lot of stuff together. We
Speaker 2: start to get a little bit more traction. So finally
Speaker 2: then we wrote a song, Shane and Trevor and I
Speaker 2: and I wrote a song called say You Do that
Speaker 2: Dirk's Bentley recorded, and that wound up being my first
Speaker 2: number one solid.
Speaker 1: Okay, at what point do you and Trevor say we're
Speaker 1: going to form a band?
Speaker 2: It was kind of all happening at the same time,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't. It wasn't a decision that was like,
Speaker 2: let's form a band and go for it. We were
Speaker 2: writing all these songs and and uh, you know, I'd
Speaker 2: grow I grew up in bands. That's all I did,
Speaker 2: was was playing music I liked. I loved playing music out.
Speaker 2: So I and I now had all these songs that
Speaker 2: I was writing, I wanted to go play them out
Speaker 2: and I would I would try to put together a
Speaker 2: band to help me showcase you know, I would invite
Speaker 2: publishers to come hear them so that I could sing them.
Speaker 2: And at that time, Jeff and Witt had moved to
Speaker 2: Nashville to be they wanted to be touring musicians or
Speaker 2: studio musicians, and yeah, so I had some buddies from
Speaker 2: Virginia that were in town, excuse me, and I would
Speaker 2: just call them and say, Hey, I've got a show,
Speaker 2: can you guys come play. I knew they wouldn't really
Speaker 2: charge me because there were a buddies, so they would
Speaker 2: come play. And so we started doing that in town
Speaker 2: pretty often. And for years we did that with no
Speaker 2: real you know, it would be my name or there
Speaker 2: would be no there was no real band name or
Speaker 2: anything to it. It was just be and a lot
Speaker 2: of the songs I was writing with Trevor, and Trevor
Speaker 2: was always coming to the shows, and he was always
Speaker 2: frustrated because nobody was singing background vocals, and you know,
Speaker 2: he's he's ain'tal about that kind of stuff. So he
Speaker 2: would jump up on the stage and start singing the
Speaker 2: background vocals to the songs that we that we wrote.
Speaker 2: And then next thing, you know, he's coming to rehearsals
Speaker 2: and you know, the guys are like, okay, Trevor's here now,
Speaker 2: you know. We were just kind of then we started realizing, Okay,
Speaker 2: we can get in my van and we can drive
Speaker 2: to the next town over and we can get paid
Speaker 2: to play. Yeah, you don't get paid to play in Nashville,
Speaker 2: so oh we could we all need money. Let's go play.
Speaker 2: We can play covers and stuff, and let's go play.
Speaker 2: So we would just drive around and try to make
Speaker 2: a little extra cash. And then ultimately what started happening
Speaker 2: was we did start having success as songwriters, and then
Speaker 2: people started going, well, oh, you know, Trevor's having a
Speaker 2: bunch of He's getting a bunch of songs cut. I'm
Speaker 2: getting songs cut. And they start going, well, who's this
Speaker 2: band that's writing everybody else's stuff? So our show became
Speaker 2: you know, there there were hits already in our show,
Speaker 2: and it started to create a little buzz around town
Speaker 2: about what we were doing.
Speaker 1: At what point do you start calling it old Dominion.
Speaker 2: We had this little bar well we played. We would
Speaker 2: play in tuscal Loose, Alabama a lot, and we had
Speaker 2: this person that hooked us up with a bar there
Speaker 2: and we'd drive down to tuscal Losa and we played,
Speaker 2: you know, from ten thirty to two in the morning,
Speaker 2: and then we drive back. And one night we were
Speaker 2: taking a break and there was this kind of haggard
Speaker 2: woman sitting at the bar and she said, what's the
Speaker 2: name of your band? And I said, well, we don't
Speaker 2: we don't really have any We're not really a band,
Speaker 2: you know, We're just it's just I'm writing these songs.
Speaker 2: And she, she was drunk, she just goes, that's bullshit.
Speaker 2: You guys are a band. And when she said that,
Speaker 2: we all looked at each other and went, we kind
Speaker 2: of like, you know, we should have probably let's pick
Speaker 2: a Nate. We should pick a Nate. So so and
Speaker 2: being that Wit and Jeff and at the time we
Speaker 2: had a guitar player. He was named Devin Malone. They're
Speaker 2: all from Virginia, there are, and so we thought, well,
Speaker 2: let's pick a Virginia related name. And so we used
Speaker 2: to play at this little bar called the Blue Bar
Speaker 2: every week in Nashville and there was nobody there, you know,
Speaker 2: we were just we had a regular gig there. If
Speaker 2: there's five to ten people would show up. And I
Speaker 2: was setting up. We were setting up to play that
Speaker 2: night and uh, this is in two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: is probably seven. We were setting up that night and
Speaker 2: I said, man, the only thing I can see that's
Speaker 2: r GINU related that isn't taken his old dominion. And
Speaker 2: everybody just went, that sounds cool. And so that was
Speaker 2: it from the from that night on, we were we
Speaker 2: were old dimension.
Speaker 1: A lot of people they say, like the Doobie Brothers,
Speaker 1: they say, you know, yeah, we just had this name.
Speaker 1: We never thought we'd stick with it, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden we wake up and we're.
Speaker 2: Stuck with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know you had to you know, this
Speaker 1: was years before you know, you broke through his old dominion.
Speaker 1: If you knew we're going to break through, would you've
Speaker 1: picked old dominion or would you have said wait a second,
Speaker 1: wait to say, lem come.
Speaker 2: Up with something different. I mean, naming a band is
Speaker 2: the worst thing, you know, It's none of them ever
Speaker 2: sound good until they until they're just a part of
Speaker 2: people's vocabulary. So I think I love our name. I
Speaker 2: don't regret it at all. There was a moment where
Speaker 2: we thought we were going to have to change it,
Speaker 2: and things had started to take off a little bit,
Speaker 2: and we had this attorney that was telling us, hey
Speaker 2: that I don't think you're going to be able to
Speaker 2: do this. There's you know, there's Old Dominion everything. There's
Speaker 2: a trucking line, there's a beer company, there's the university.
Speaker 2: And he said the university is probably the biggest thing
Speaker 2: because they have a band. You know, they have the
Speaker 2: marching band, they have merch. You know, they're going to
Speaker 2: come after you and we're gonna have to change the name.
Speaker 2: So we thought about it and time we've tried to
Speaker 2: come up with any other name that we could, and
Speaker 2: it got so frustrating. I was just like, fuck this,
Speaker 2: I don't want to do this anymore. You know, I'll
Speaker 2: just quit, Like, let's not do this. I don't I
Speaker 2: don't want to change the name. And then Trevor is
Speaker 2: a pretty he's he's a pretty motivated guy and can
Speaker 2: find Yeah. He's like, man, I don't care what this
Speaker 2: lawyer says, I'm gonna find I'm going to reach out
Speaker 2: to Old Dominion. So he finds he likes, goes up
Speaker 2: the email chain and finds somebody at Old Dominion University
Speaker 2: and says, hey, we're in this band. It's called the Dominion.
Speaker 2: Our lawyer is telling us we need to change the name.
Speaker 2: Was afraid you guys are gonna sue us. What do
Speaker 2: you think? And they came back and said, you know,
Speaker 2: as long as you don't use our colors and you
Speaker 2: don't use our logo, we're fine with it. So we
Speaker 2: got we got that in writing and then from that
Speaker 2: twenty one we were we felt good by it.
Speaker 1: Okay, this lead date, I'm sure Old Dominion is a
Speaker 1: corporation who owns Old Dominion the band.
Speaker 2: The band, five of us are. It's a partnership following us.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now you got some covers, you get some notice.
Speaker 1: How do you end up deciding to cut your own record?
Speaker 2: You know, we were making a lot of demos of
Speaker 2: the songs that we were writing. I had a publishing
Speaker 2: deal that wasn't the best deal in the world. But
Speaker 2: the one of the guys there was a he's a
Speaker 2: producer and a successful one. His name is Blake Chancey
Speaker 2: and he's worked with back then. He had done Montgomery
Speaker 2: Gentry and Dizzy Chicks and a lot of other people.
Speaker 2: And my first demo session was coming up from that
Speaker 2: publishing deal, and he's a bolt. You know, you guys
Speaker 2: playing a band, Why don't you guys just instead of
Speaker 2: hiring a bunch of musicians, he did your buddies to
Speaker 2: come in. So he was trying to save money, and
Speaker 2: so we did and that's the first time we recorded
Speaker 2: together and thought, well, this is pretty cool. That was fun.
Speaker 2: We should think about doing that again. So as we
Speaker 2: were trying to figure out how we would go about
Speaker 2: doing that, looking for talking about maybe finding a producer
Speaker 2: or something to help us do it, we realized, you know,
Speaker 2: in our demo sessions, Shane was such a strong creative
Speaker 2: voice in bringing those demos to life that maybe we
Speaker 2: should just use him. That he's our friend. He's been
Speaker 2: with us this whole time. He's writing all these songs
Speaker 2: with us. So we sat down at lunch with him
Speaker 2: and said, would you come into the studio with us
Speaker 2: and maybe try producing it?
Speaker 1: And he was like, are you sure?
Speaker 2: He said, yeah, man, you're always so good in the
Speaker 2: demo sessions. You're always so fast and your choices are
Speaker 2: so cool. We'd rather have you in there than trying
Speaker 2: to find somebody that is, you know, hot.
Speaker 1: To do it.
Speaker 2: So he agreed and and that's how we started that partnership.
Speaker 1: Okay, the original album EP whatever, who pays for it?
Speaker 1: We had a.
Speaker 2: Well he signed kind of an independent deal this It
Speaker 2: was like a partnership with thirty Tigers and U Reguier,
Speaker 2: who was Trevor's publisher at the time. They helped fund
Speaker 2: it so that we could put out an independent project.
Speaker 1: Do you remember how much money you spent?
Speaker 2: No idea, Uh, it probably wasn't. It wasn't much. It
Speaker 2: was it was five or six songs. It probably was
Speaker 2: forty or something.
Speaker 1: Okay, what is your intention with recording the album?
Speaker 2: At that point? We thought, okay, well, even before that,
Speaker 2: we had recorded some stuff that that stuff that we'd
Speaker 2: recorded with my publisher. We were at that point playing shows.
Speaker 2: We had named ourselves Old Dominion, and we were giving
Speaker 2: them out for free. So we would just show up
Speaker 2: at a bar, we'd play the show, everybody gets a
Speaker 2: free ZP. So that was one thing that we were doing,
Speaker 2: was just trying to build this following. And we thought
Speaker 2: the same thing like, if we can make a make
Speaker 2: a little EP, we can maybe shop it around and
Speaker 2: try to get it picked up, or hire a manager
Speaker 2: and get on the radio. Somehow, pretty naive, but it
Speaker 2: had enough momentum to keep us going like this seems
Speaker 2: like the next step. So I'm not sure what's going
Speaker 2: to happen with it, but we need new music out
Speaker 2: because we've given out all the freezds we can. So
Speaker 2: let's see if we can create something that's the next
Speaker 2: step for ourselves.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're given the CD away. When does it turn
Speaker 1: into something?
Speaker 2: That CD had had some songs on it that it
Speaker 2: had wake Up Loving You on it, and it had
Speaker 2: had another song on there called Nowhere Fast. I think
Speaker 2: that that wound up making it over into the next EP.
Speaker 2: And and then we had a song on there called
Speaker 2: shut Me Up, which at this point now we have
Speaker 2: a manager and we're starting to talk to satellite radio
Speaker 2: and try to get some play there, and so shut
Speaker 2: Me Up was the first choice. Where we had started,
Speaker 2: we had a little independent radio staff. It was one person,
Speaker 2: a radio person that was shopping that song around trying
Speaker 2: to get it on to the radio. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: we're recording more music to try to create a full album,
Speaker 2: and break Up with Them was on that. And so
Speaker 2: once we had once we had this album of music,
Speaker 2: and every record label had turned us down more than once,
Speaker 2: we just kept going satellite radio picked up break Up
Speaker 2: with Him, and they started playing break Up with Them,
Speaker 2: and then a guy in Seattle at a radio station
Speaker 2: heard it on saturd Light radio. And meanwhile, we're trying
Speaker 2: to get him to play shove Me Up, and nobody
Speaker 2: will play shot Me Up. But he heard. He hears
Speaker 2: break up with Him and said, Okay, there's something here.
Speaker 2: So he starts calling all his friends in the radio world,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, we have a song on
Speaker 2: the radio with no record deal. So that never happens,
Speaker 2: but that's how it happened for us.
Speaker 1: Okay, break up with Him is starting to get radio action.
Speaker 1: Let's go back a chapter. The guy you hire as
Speaker 1: your manager, is he still your manager?
Speaker 2: He's still our manager?
Speaker 1: So who is it and how'd you find him?
Speaker 2: His name's Clinton Higham, He's he's Kenny Chesney's manager and
Speaker 2: he was working at this He has a company called
Speaker 2: Morris Higham Dale Morris as was partner at the time.
Speaker 2: Dale's responsible for Alabama And at the time, you know,
Speaker 2: we had we had secured it deal with c AA
Speaker 2: as a booking as a booking agent. But you know
Speaker 2: we're they're booking us for five hundred bucks a show,
Speaker 2: you know, and we'd like, okay, we need we need
Speaker 2: to find a manager. We took meetings all over town
Speaker 2: with every manager that we could, and we had actually
Speaker 2: made the decision to go with with another manager, and
Speaker 2: at the at the eleventh hour, Shane calls it says, hey,
Speaker 2: Clint him wants to meet with you guys, and we said, well, man,
Speaker 2: we we already kind of made our decision. He said,
Speaker 2: I know yet, you know, you haven't signed anything. Doesn't
Speaker 2: hurt to go meet with him. He's just he's really interested.
Speaker 2: So we said, okay, sure, what's it been hurt? And
Speaker 2: we walked out of that meeting, going, that's our guy.
Speaker 1: Okay, he's the top level manager. A lot of times
Speaker 1: top level managers don't want to get involved in developing acts.
Speaker 1: Why was he so eager?
Speaker 2: I think he he and Will Hitchcock, who's our day
Speaker 2: to day there they saw us play a couple of shows.
Speaker 2: Our songwriting was humming at that point, you know, like
Speaker 2: we knew how to make hits and it was being
Speaker 2: proven by everyone else that we were getting all these
Speaker 2: cuts from and and I don't know, to this day,
Speaker 2: I don't know he still is like, I don't know
Speaker 2: if I would do that again, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I you know, he's I don't
Speaker 2: know he's certainly, I don't think he certainly would do
Speaker 2: a band again. But uh it Will definitely really believed
Speaker 2: in us too, and and he and so Will gave
Speaker 2: him a hard self for for taking us on. And
Speaker 2: I don't know why he what he saw, but it
Speaker 2: had to be the songwriting, because I mean, there's we
Speaker 2: were you know, they took us. They were like, man,
Speaker 2: you guys sound great. You look like shit, though, so
Speaker 2: and we're like, we're broke, and they're like, okay, well
Speaker 2: go buy some here's some money, go buy some clothes
Speaker 2: at age and them and you know, like I go
Speaker 2: buy a cool jacket or something, you know, like you
Speaker 2: look like shit. So they helped us at that department.
Speaker 2: But I think, really honestly, it was just the songwriting,
Speaker 2: and we were definitely creating something that sounded different. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't know if we if we knew how different
Speaker 2: it sounded. But you know, when you get five guys
Speaker 2: together and you're creating music with that chemistry, it's gonna
Speaker 2: sound different than than anything that a solo artist that's
Speaker 2: using the same studio musicians as the next guy is
Speaker 2: gonna sound like. So we certainly had a different sound
Speaker 2: that seemed attractive to it.
Speaker 1: Okay, at what point do you switch in your mind
Speaker 1: from I'm a songwriter in the background to I believe
Speaker 1: in this band in the foreground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that took a long time because we had made
Speaker 2: a name for ourselves as songwriters, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, it felt like we were leaving that behind.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden there was this band thing, and
Speaker 2: we're like, man, we gambled on ourselves already once. I
Speaker 2: don't know if we could do that again, you know.
Speaker 2: So it did become really difficult to turn the songwriter
Speaker 2: switch off because we just weren't sure about the band.
Speaker 2: We just didn't know if that was ever going to
Speaker 2: take off. So we were still pitching all of our
Speaker 2: songs to other artists, and you know, we would write
Speaker 2: something in pitch and write something in pitch, and all
Speaker 2: the songs that wound up on our albums were and
Speaker 2: you know, turned down by every other artist. The only one,
Speaker 2: the only one we never pitched at that point in
Speaker 2: the early stages, was break up with them. We knew
Speaker 2: something was different there and something was happening, and we said, okay,
Speaker 2: don't don't pitch that song. So we started to make
Speaker 2: that turn of like, okay, we have to bet on
Speaker 2: ourselves a little bit here. But it took, I mean
Speaker 2: probably honestly into the second album, well into the second
Speaker 2: album before we realized, Okay, I think the band thing
Speaker 2: is probably gonna stick. We need to we need to
Speaker 2: take it a little bit more seriously.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have these self financed records. How do you
Speaker 1: get a major label deal?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that was such a process. Obviously, you know,
Speaker 2: we do showcases for labels and we'd go in there
Speaker 2: and play music and they would all turn this down
Speaker 2: because most of them did look at us as songs.
Speaker 2: They knew that they knew our background with songwriters. We
Speaker 2: were older. You know, we're in our thirties. We're going
Speaker 2: you know, you guys, and as I mentioned, we looked
Speaker 2: like shit, and you know, we're like, man, you guys
Speaker 2: are kind of old your songwriters, it's not really for us,
Speaker 2: you know. And we would circle up after after being
Speaker 2: turned down, and Clint would say, you know, what do
Speaker 2: you want to do? And we'd say we were just
Speaker 2: going to keep going. Man, if they don't like us,
Speaker 2: that's fine. We're still having fun. We liked what we
Speaker 2: were doing, so we would just keep going. And ultimately
Speaker 2: Sony turned us down, and then we were kind of
Speaker 2: all out of options to everyone in Nashville had turned
Speaker 2: us down, and so Dale Morris and Clint called their
Speaker 2: friend Doug Morris in New York and Uh and Julie
Speaker 2: Swidler in New York and said, man, we don't know
Speaker 2: what to do. We got these guys. They're getting radio
Speaker 2: play and nobody will take them, and we don't know
Speaker 2: what to do. So we go to New York and
Speaker 2: meet with Doug and Julie and and they called. They
Speaker 2: ultimately ended up calling Nashville Sony and said, you're signing
Speaker 2: Old Minion. So so we were forced into Naxville to
Speaker 2: through New York.
Speaker 1: So you're saying, even with all that satellite radio play
Speaker 1: which turns into to restural radio play, still no one
Speaker 1: wanted to sign.
Speaker 2: You still didn't do it.
Speaker 1: We were on.
Speaker 2: And also we had because of our connections a couple
Speaker 2: of reasons. One we had we shared a manager with
Speaker 2: Kenny Jesney, and secondly, Kenny had just recorded a song
Speaker 2: that Brad and I had written and it was going
Speaker 2: to be a single. So we had a Kenny Jesney
Speaker 2: connection we got and we got asked to be on
Speaker 2: his tour. So we're on a stadium tour. Was no
Speaker 2: record deal. So we're playing football stadiums, we're getting radio play,
Speaker 2: and they still would not sign us.
Speaker 1: I happened to like that save it for rainy Day.
Speaker 1: But moving on from there, you now they pressed the button.
Speaker 1: You now have success. To what degree do you feel
Speaker 1: the pressure to follow it up? And to what degree
Speaker 1: do you still feel the pressure? I think.
Speaker 2: I think because of the way it happened and how
Speaker 2: long it took and how much fun we were having,
Speaker 2: we didn't feel much pressure. We felt like, you know,
Speaker 2: it's we felt like we were in impostors for sure,
Speaker 2: and there's still an element of that that we carry
Speaker 2: with us. We don't really feel that much pressure. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, the first one, every success we had off
Speaker 2: of the first album was like, I cannot believe this
Speaker 2: has actually happened. This is amazing, and so we've always
Speaker 2: sort of adopted that attitude of like, man, at some
Speaker 2: point in time, it's this ride is going to be over,
Speaker 2: So whether that's tomorrow or in ten years, we will
Speaker 2: rioted man. So we definitely always just try to circle
Speaker 2: up within within ourselves and go, let's continue the only
Speaker 2: thing that got us here with writing music that we
Speaker 2: loved and producing it the way that we wanted to
Speaker 2: produce it, and and that has served us well. So
Speaker 2: that's ultimately what we always do. And we still know
Speaker 2: at some point it's going to be over and that's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how do you end up switching labels?
Speaker 2: There's a couple different We've had a couple of different
Speaker 2: little Yeah, we still have always been under Sony. It's
Speaker 2: just whether we were RCA or Ariosto Columbia. We had
Speaker 2: you know, some we had our first staff at at RCA.
Speaker 2: Our radio staff was was really close to us. We
Speaker 2: love them all. And then you know that the music
Speaker 2: business happens and people go different places and new people
Speaker 2: come in and the relationships aren't the same. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's COVID really then cod it comes into the picture,
Speaker 2: and we had had you know, one Man band was
Speaker 2: this huge hit and and then we tried to follow
Speaker 2: it up with with a song called some People Do
Speaker 2: That that was struggling on the radio, and you know,
Speaker 2: you start looking for reasons. I think, you know, you
Speaker 2: start calling the label going what's going on? Why is
Speaker 2: this one not working? We just had the biggest hit,
Speaker 2: and you get all excuses of like, well it's COVID,
Speaker 2: people don't want to play sad songs, and ultimately the
Speaker 2: relationship with the radio staff just didn't feel like it
Speaker 2: was serving us as well. I think and and Are,
Speaker 2: the label president at the time, uh called me and said,
Speaker 2: you know, what do you want to switch? And I
Speaker 2: was like, well, that seems kind of drastic. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's that bad, but uh, you know,
Speaker 2: but I was like, but that's an interesting idea. I
Speaker 2: don't know, let me let me think about it. So
Speaker 2: we we all talked and said, well, you know, why not,
Speaker 2: let's if that's what he if he thinks that will help, sure,
Speaker 2: So it really Then on top of that, a lot
Speaker 2: of our original staff had moved over to Aristo and
Speaker 2: so we knew we would be back with our original
Speaker 2: people again. So that was constant. We were like, well,
Speaker 2: if we move, maybe works, maybe doesn't, but we'll have
Speaker 2: our buddies over there again.
Speaker 1: So that was a big reason, and then you move
Speaker 1: on from there.
Speaker 2: Then we move on from there, and then that's kind
Speaker 2: of that one wasn't really that was no one's idea,
Speaker 2: but the labels they just kind of caused and said,
Speaker 2: this is this is what we think we're going to
Speaker 2: do with you guys. We think, you know, we need
Speaker 2: some we need some big fish over here. So you're
Speaker 2: that big fish. We want to put you over there.
Speaker 2: So you know, we just kind of werelong.
Speaker 1: Okay, So at this point, you know, even in the
Speaker 1: earlier once again, this is any only, but I could
Speaker 1: see all your awards, you know, in this low case.
Speaker 1: You know, you're a guy from Nowheresville, Virginia, not that
Speaker 1: a lot of the people in country music come from
Speaker 1: the metropolis necessarily, but you talk about imposter syndrome. You
Speaker 1: go up, you get the awards whatever. I mean, Externally,
Speaker 1: it's a top level band with everybody else who continues
Speaker 1: to have hits.
Speaker 2: What does it feel like internally, Yeah, it doesn't feel
Speaker 2: like that. We always feel like we're it's really I mean,
Speaker 2: it's really just been within the past couple of years
Speaker 2: that we've accepted that, you know, we've gone like, wow,
Speaker 2: we really did create something pretty large here. I think
Speaker 2: it was. I think it was really our first big
Speaker 2: arena headlining tour. You know, when you're traveling with seven
Speaker 2: eight buses and twelve semis and they all got your
Speaker 2: name on them, it's pretty hard to ignore, you know,
Speaker 2: it's pretty hard to ignore that you have established a foothold,
Speaker 2: you know, in this business. And I think too, I
Speaker 2: think we're a little bit. When you're in a band,
Speaker 2: it isolates you a little bit. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, inner artist relationships, not that we don't have them,
Speaker 2: but it's easier to work together as the solo artists.
Speaker 2: You know, they can jump in and collaborate on stuff
Speaker 2: a little bit easier than you know, a band of
Speaker 2: five guys can collaborate. So we end up, you know,
Speaker 2: not not through any anything, but just the nature of
Speaker 2: it being a little bit isolated from from the main group.
Speaker 2: It's at least what it feels like sometimes. I don't
Speaker 2: think anyone views us that way other than ourselves, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, some people write songs in fifteen minutes. Other people
Speaker 1: write songs over years, same song Leonard Cone Hallelujah. You know,
Speaker 1: Nashville writing sessions and they could be three hours one song.
Speaker 1: Old Dominion is going to make an album? How many
Speaker 1: songs do you write and how do you ultimately get
Speaker 1: the songs to the degree complete that you say these
Speaker 1: are the songs for the album.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's always an interesting process. We write constantly. We
Speaker 2: write on the road together, we write when we're home.
Speaker 2: So you know, over the years, we're writing hundreds of songs,
Speaker 2: and you know, we have a pretty good idea. Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, we we can write good songs all day long,
Speaker 2: but it's the great ones that we're looking for. So
Speaker 2: and then not only is it the great ones that
Speaker 2: you're looking for, it's the great ones that five guys
Speaker 2: agree on. So so that really whittles some down. We
Speaker 2: write pretty quickly, you know. We we typically complete the
Speaker 2: song in the same day, so it's usually from around
Speaker 2: eleven or ten in the morning till three in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: we pretty much are done and then we've We've also
Speaker 2: been fortunate enough to make some albums where one complete
Speaker 2: album and some songs on some other albums where we
Speaker 2: just go in the studio and write them right there
Speaker 2: in the studio. So that was that's always an interesting
Speaker 2: experiment too. But it is a long process of once
Speaker 2: it starts, get it down to we know we're going
Speaker 2: to go start cutting, Then the text messages start flying
Speaker 2: and everybody starts throwing out songs. What about this? What
Speaker 2: about this? What about this? There's usually probably two or
Speaker 2: three that everyone immediately knows that on that one's one
Speaker 2: for sure. Then it's rounding it out that becomes a conversation.
Speaker 2: And sometimes it doesn't happen until you're in the studio
Speaker 2: that moment, you know, where we're like, what are we
Speaker 2: going to do next? And then we pull up a
Speaker 2: list of songs that we think we might want to do,
Speaker 2: and then somebody might go, oh, I just remembered this one,
Speaker 2: and you'll play it, and everyone goes, yeah, let's try
Speaker 2: that one. So it does become it's a little bit
Speaker 2: of a fluid process.
Speaker 1: How do you end up splitting the songwriting credits.
Speaker 2: It's just because of the nature of our of how
Speaker 2: we got here, because we all moved here, or at
Speaker 2: least three of us moved here to be songwriters, and
Speaker 2: we established ourselves as songwriters with publishing deals first. That's
Speaker 2: just the way it's stayed. Whoever wrote the song gets
Speaker 2: the songwriting credit. There are bands I know that just
Speaker 2: split everything, but we never have really done that. It's
Speaker 2: always just been if you wrote the song, you get
Speaker 2: the credit.
Speaker 1: Okay, five guys in a bus in the van. You know.
Speaker 1: Legendarily there are band members who heed each other. How
Speaker 1: do you keep it even?
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, we don't eat each other. We actually get
Speaker 2: along quite well. It's it's quite a funny bus to
Speaker 2: be on. There's lots and lots of joking and laughing.
Speaker 2: And again, I think a good proportion of it comes
Speaker 2: from our age. You know, this all happened at a
Speaker 2: at an age where were drawn to conflict. You know,
Speaker 2: we all know we're all after the same thing. It's
Speaker 2: not to say that we that that we don't have conflicts.
Speaker 2: We certainly do. But it's much like a family, you know.
Speaker 2: It's it's like when your family comes to visit and
Speaker 2: you love them so much you also want to kill
Speaker 2: them sometimes, but when they leave, you know you're sad
Speaker 2: they're gone, and we get along quite well. It's a
Speaker 2: pretty it's a pretty spectacular thing that we've been able
Speaker 2: to spend that time, that much time on a bus together.
Speaker 2: You know, we still are all on the same bus Okay, let's.
Speaker 1: Go back specifically to your songwriting for higher era. A
Speaker 1: lot of people look at country radio and where these
Speaker 1: songs were hits and say, it's very cynical. To what
Speaker 1: degree are you sitting there writing songs and say, oh,
Speaker 1: I have to mention a truck, I have to mention church,
Speaker 1: I have to mention kids. Is that in your mind
Speaker 1: at all?
Speaker 2: No, that's not in my mind at all. I'm you know,
Speaker 2: if it calls for a truck, then okay. But I think,
Speaker 2: and maybe I've only written one or two songs will
Speaker 2: drug in it, and if anything, I try to avoid it.
Speaker 2: I try to I try to personally find the weirdest
Speaker 2: angle I possibly can and make it palatable.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's the challenge for me, is that you're only in
Speaker 2: any songwriting, whether it be for country radio or or
Speaker 2: or any any style of music, you're telling the same story.
Speaker 2: There's only a handful of there's only a handful of
Speaker 2: things that people listen to songs about. It's it's just like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's the most important things in people's life,
Speaker 2: so it's there. It's the human experience. So anything that
Speaker 2: kind of speaks to the human experience is what I
Speaker 2: want to write about. I don't really I don't really
Speaker 2: try to aim it towards towards country, you know, I
Speaker 2: just want to follow. I just want to follow that
Speaker 2: idea wherever it goes.
Speaker 1: Okay, we live in a very divided country politically and
Speaker 1: to great degree musically. Country music is bigger than it's
Speaker 1: ever before. But there are people in principle will not
Speaker 1: listen to country music. What the people who are not
Speaker 1: fans not get about today's country music?
Speaker 2: You know, I don't spend that much time thinking about
Speaker 2: that because there's plenty of music I don't like, you know,
Speaker 2: so you know, it's just not for me. And that's
Speaker 2: kind of what I always say, you know. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like what if the label wasn't gonna sign us,
Speaker 2: we weren't for them, So you know, if they don't
Speaker 2: like it, I get it, you know. And there are
Speaker 2: some things about just like what you mentioned, some of
Speaker 2: the citical songwriting can be. It can be a bit
Speaker 2: formulaic sometimes, so I can kind of get why that
Speaker 2: might turn people off. We like to pride ourselves on
Speaker 2: being One of our favorite compliments is there's lots of
Speaker 2: people that come up to and say we don't like country,
Speaker 2: but we like you guys, so we're pretty good. We're
Speaker 2: pretty happy with that. You know, country music has always
Speaker 2: kind of been this melting pot, no matter how much
Speaker 2: the traditionalists want to swear it isn't you know. At
Speaker 2: the same time that you know, Johnny Cash and all
Speaker 2: those guys were out there, there's like disco country happening,
Speaker 2: and you know, there's there's all kinds of different just
Speaker 2: variations on the genre that have always been there. So
Speaker 2: I think if you don't like it, you don't like it,
Speaker 2: that's that's fine, Okay.
Speaker 1: While you've been in the business, the business has changed. Traditionally,
Speaker 1: country music was a very controlled market. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of gatekeepers in Nashville, and it was all driven
Speaker 1: by terrestrial radio. You mentioned earlier that you originally broke
Speaker 1: on satellite radio. In addition, although at first country fans
Speaker 1: weren't streamers, they're big streamers now, bigger streamers than rock people.
Speaker 1: So from your viewpoint to what degreed has changed, listen,
Speaker 1: it's great to have a terrestrial radio hit, but is
Speaker 1: that the end on be all?
Speaker 2: It's not anymore. And we talk about this a lot
Speaker 2: all the time, because it is important to us. We
Speaker 2: were one of the you know, the door was closing
Speaker 2: behind us when we got over the radio. Streaming was
Speaker 2: just starting to happen, and you know, we had a
Speaker 2: large success because of radio, and that relationship is still
Speaker 2: very important to us, and it still directly affects us.
Speaker 2: But we spend a lot of time going what the
Speaker 2: hell is happening? You know, we spent a lot of
Speaker 2: time trying to figure out, you know, why a song,
Speaker 2: why a certain song does get on the radio and
Speaker 2: gets up to the top of the charts, and why
Speaker 2: a certain one doesn't. And you know, sometimes they look
Speaker 2: at the streaming numbers and that's why they play it. Well,
Speaker 2: sometimes they do their old school kind of research and
Speaker 2: that's why they don't play it. It's we are in
Speaker 2: a strange spot right now trying to figure all that out.
Speaker 2: And there's newer artists that are coming along. Some of
Speaker 2: them don't care about the radio and they're getting they're
Speaker 2: getting all they need through streaming and TikTok exposure. We
Speaker 2: just starnt that band. You know, we certainly still need
Speaker 2: to rely on both worlds and streaming and radio, but
Speaker 2: it certainly isn't to be all end all anymore, to what.
Speaker 1: Degree are you in demand on social media? TikTok, Instagram, wheels, x,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're on it a good bit. But we've luckily
Speaker 2: that sort of exploded after we had enough money to
Speaker 2: pay somebody to do it for us, because there's just
Speaker 2: no way, you know, you know, I'm forty seven years old.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to whip out my phone and try
Speaker 2: to make content. I'm just not going to do that.
Speaker 2: So and none of us are very good at it.
Speaker 2: So luckily we have people that help us do that,
Speaker 2: and it's our it's our job in that respect to
Speaker 2: keep it authentic. You know, if they come to us
Speaker 2: and want us to do some trend, we're going to go, no,
Speaker 2: that's no, we're not doing that. But it isn't necessary
Speaker 2: evil unfortunately, and I do feel bad. I do feel
Speaker 2: bad for the newer artists that can't afford someone to
Speaker 2: help them like that, because it's a it's a whole
Speaker 2: puzzle in itself and a full time job in itself
Speaker 2: to figure out what kind of content to create, the
Speaker 2: timing of the posting, how to post it when they
Speaker 2: should really just be con you know, concerned with creating
Speaker 2: good music, but now they have to think about what
Speaker 2: it looks like and what fifteen seconds to post to
Speaker 2: grab as much engagement as possible in order to get there,
Speaker 2: you know, their likes or hits or streams.
Speaker 1: To what degree is the country music world in your
Speaker 1: audience red as opposed to blue?
Speaker 2: It's a good question. I think our audience probably leans
Speaker 2: more blue, but I don't really know. You know, there's
Speaker 2: certainly the more vocal, more vocal artists are probably red.
Speaker 2: But in our crowd, that's not that's not even in
Speaker 2: the conversation. It's never something that we see at our shows.
Speaker 2: We don't see political stuff at our shows or or
Speaker 2: hear much of that at all. So and I don't
Speaker 2: know if that's our fans are just the vibe that
Speaker 2: we're trying to create in the environment that we're trying
Speaker 2: to create, but that's never something that we ever see
Speaker 2: in our shows.
Speaker 1: Okay. In closing a lot of people who will be
Speaker 1: listening to this are not familiar with Old Dominion's music.
Speaker 1: So you don't have to because you're all idiots. Star
Speaker 1: of the bands well established, But if someone is interested
Speaker 1: in checking you out, what is Old Dominion selling and
Speaker 1: where should they start.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, we're selling. We're trying to sell positivity
Speaker 2: and relatability and trying to bring some some levity into
Speaker 2: people's lives. With our shows especially, we're trying to leave
Speaker 2: people feeling better when they walk out of the building
Speaker 2: than they did when they came in. It's our goal
Speaker 2: to give people a break. There's enough crazy shit out there,
Speaker 2: so you know, we're trying to just put some smiles
Speaker 2: on faces. Not to say we don't have sad songs.
Speaker 2: We certainly do, but you need those. So we're just
Speaker 2: trying to create something that speaks to as many people
Speaker 2: as possible about their life and about the simple, simple
Speaker 2: aspects of it, whether that be their relationship or their
Speaker 2: job or whatever. We just want to We just want
Speaker 2: to be a nice accent or a nice little addition
Speaker 2: to their life, whether that be in celebration or in sorrow.
Speaker 2: We want to be there for those occasions.
Speaker 1: Well, Matthew, I want to thank you for being so
Speaker 1: open and honest. Really a lot of people are guarded.
Speaker 1: You're laying it all out there. You've had a ton
Speaker 1: of success. I wish you more success, and I want
Speaker 1: to thank you for taking this time.
Speaker 2: With my bidding. Yeah, absolutely, thank you Until next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left six