WEBVTT - Paul Janeway 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:13.280 Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsett's podcast. My guest 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.599 today is Paul Jane Way of Seeing Paul in the 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.200 Broken Bulls. Paul, you have a new album. Tell me 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:20.639 about it. 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.079 Oh, well, we're really excited. Uh, it's it feels kind 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:26.119 of like for us, kind of a refresh or renew 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.240 kind of thing for us. We've this is our sixth record, 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:35.080 and uh we've recorded it at Fame studios and muscle shows, 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.360 which you know, we've always had a connection with to 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:40.760 that area. Some of the guys from the band are 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.080 from there. Uh, some of the guys in the band 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.720 lived there, so we've always kind of had a connection there. 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.319 And we're really excited. I mean, like I said, we 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.080 felt like it's, like I said, it's our sixth record, 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:53.800 so we kind of felt like one through five we 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.280 kind of whatever book we were trying to write or 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.840 try to prove through ourselves or whatever it was, that's 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.800 kind of over. And now it feels like kind of 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:03.920 a renewed, refreshed thing because that and that's why we 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.960 went with the self titled record, because it felt like 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:08.640 the renewal or refresher. 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.679 What's the songwriting process for the band. 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.280 It's it varies. We've done it many different ways. Uh, 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:19.400 you know, we've done it. When we first started, it 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.360 was sitting in a room and working out the songs 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:24.640 right and maybe something will happen. And we kind of 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:27.520 got away from that just with technology and you know, 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:29.840 it's just easier to do to do bedroom demos and 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.560 build it from there and you know, all different qualities. 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.440 But we thought with this record, we were like, all right, 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.080 let's get back in this. Let's let's get back in 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.840 a room and play. And so we did. We did that, 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.760 which was great. Then we also I was working on 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.120 another project with a guy named eg White who ended 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:54.360 up producing this record, and me and him in London 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:56.560 ended up writing a couple of songs that only a 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:58.280 couple of those ended up on the record as well. 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:01.320 So how do you no Egg White? How did you 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:02.320 end up working with him? 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:11.280 So I have I have a solo deal with Records 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:16.320 as part of the Columbia Sony team and uh. And 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:18.360 so the band was kind of in a lull of 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.400 you know, we just weren't doing much and so I 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:24.040 was like, okay, I'm going to be an open book 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.760 instead of instead of turning everything down, which was my tendency. 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:29.840 I was like, I'm going to be an open book. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.800 I'll go write with people, I'll go try anything, and 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.919 if I you know, ultimately, if I don't like it, 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.520 I'm not going to use it, right and uh and 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.960 through that process we I met Egg and there was 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.639 just kind of instant chemistry and I we had similar 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:50.000 sensibilities and it just really it really clicked, and it 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.840 was it was you know, it's one of those I 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:54.639 didn't know if that was out there. You know, it's 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.960 like finding finding, finding a spouse or something. 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.200 Okay, lets let's back up for a second. You have 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:07.120 a solo deal with Records, which is its own company, 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.480 but now your albums are coming out on Ato. The 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:11.680 group albums, the. 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.160 Group albums are actually coming out. We were doing our 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:18.160 own label, but thirty Tigers is marketing industributing on so 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:19.560 it's a while. 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:24.400 Okay, I'm gonna walk through this. The first label is 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:26.720 single Lock. What is single Lock? 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:30.760 So Single Lock is a label out of Florence, Alabia. 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.760 Most of the muscle show the Shoals area and they 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.440 were friends of ours. They were starting this, you know, 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.040 starting this new label, and we weren't the first act 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.720 on it, but we were one of the first and 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.640 I think that one actually that label started ended up 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.160 being distributed through thirty Tigers as well, so we worked 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:52.640 we used thirty Tigers label services as well for that 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:53.680 first record. 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.280 Okay, yeah, let's get into a little business. First record, 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.600 Boy is released by Single Lock. Does the band own 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:03.000 it or does the label own it? 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:07.200 We own it? We actually, I guess I made that. 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.280 We had a ten year term on it and that 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.160 was released in twenty fourteen, so you can do the math. 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:14.880 We own it. 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:19.760 Okay, you make one record with single Lock, then you 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.320 start making with people can't see the air quotes, start 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.719 making albums with Records. What is records? 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:32.960 So Records initially was a spin off or it was 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:38.840 a part of Songs Publishing, which no longer exists, and 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:41.880 it was we had had such a good relationship with 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.200 them that when they proposed the label, we were like great, 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.600 you know, like we had a good relationship. So that 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.600 was at that time. The A and R was Ron 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:58.640 Perry and Barry Weiss and and so we just had, 0:04:58.680 --> 0:04:59.920 you know, we thought that was that would be the 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.919 best situation for for us at that point. And so 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.440 then We did two records with them and. 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.400 Time Out time Out who distributed the records. 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:11.599 Record Sony Sony. 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.760 Okay, but you also had a publishing deal with this company. 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:17.040 Yes, yes, we did. 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:18.039 How did that come to be? 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.200 Well, I mean they ended up giving us the most money. Uh, 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.680 I mean, you know, like and and they had done 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.280 some really I mean, to be to be honest, they 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.599 had done some really good things, like they had. We'd 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.080 gotten some placements, and it was just a good relationship, 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:35.440 you know what I mean. Like it's one of those 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.320 things that's I think that's what our business in a 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.600 lot of ways is about, is just having good relationships 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.760 and people telling you what they're gonna do, and they 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:45.080 do it and you go from there. 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:50.279 Okay, in the deal with songs, do you still own 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:50.880 the songs? 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.680 I I think that is a split that one is. 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.520 Okay, that's a split on the ownership. Does it ultimately 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:00.360 we've verted to you? 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:06.200 I think it does. I think I think it does. 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:11.440 Okay, Okay, you're in Alabama. Yeah, from the outside, it 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.160 looks like you're a little wet behind the years. No, 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.160 you're talking about Ron Perry and Barry Weiss. Those guys 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:18.839 have decades worth of experience. 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:19.400 That is true. 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.080 So you want to make a deal with those people. 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.560 You get a lawyer, you get a manager. What's the 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:26.760 first step on your end? 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.160 Oh, we have we had our we had we had 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.040 we had a manager, We had a lawyer. Look at 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:34.839 the date, you know, we had all of that stuff. 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:37.360 Okay, was it a music business lawyer? 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:37.760 Yes? 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:43.479 Yes, okay. So you make two records with records? Then 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.160 you shift to at O what's the thinking there. 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:53.960 Well, at that time we with records, it seemed I 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.159 don't you know, it seemed like what their goal for 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:01.479 us was was a different thing. You know. We are 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:06.440 kind of like, hey, it not that they not that 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.320 they not that they don't care about the music. It 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:09.840 was just that it was one of those things where 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:11.680 they were like, hey, I think they were kind of 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.960 thinking maybe pop hits or something of that nature, and 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:20.000 we're kind of like, that's not really us, you know 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.680 what I mean? Uh, you know what I mean, Like, well, 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.600 that's not us, that's just not us. That's not no 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.080 one's picking us to be on the cover of Vogue, Right. 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:37.520 So we came to a mutual agreement where they're like, hey, great, 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:39.240 we'll let you we'll let y'all, let y'all out, we 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:41.560 have more time with them, They said, you know, but 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.680 you know, Paul's solo thing can stay here, and then 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.520 y'all are free to do whatever you want. And at 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.080 the time we we were with Red Light Management and 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:54.280 it seemed like a good fit with ATO, and we 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.960 had two records that were I would say, left of 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:00.680 center is the best way I could say it, and 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:02.280 knew knew that, and we thought. 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:06.280 Oh wait, wait, slow down, forget other people's perception. That's 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.120 where left of center would describe it. What were you 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.520 trying to do and how do you feel about what 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:15.680 you were trying to do and what you accomplished on 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:16.440 those records. 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.600 I think when we first started, everyone was talking about 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.400 the retro soul stuff, and we felt as a band 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:25.760 it was it was proven it to ourselves. We felt 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.440 as a band we were more than that. We felt 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.240 like we could to ourselves prove that we can go 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.920 a little bit more musically somewhere else and do do 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:37.840 do all sorts of things which this band is capable 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.720 of doing. And it wasn't really about I mean, you 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.200 don't I hate saying this like you obviously want audiences 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:46.960 to like your music, but at the same time, like 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.040 if I got it into that, into this for that, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.520 like that's not that's not why I do it, But 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:55.360 it was kind of proven to ourselves that, like we're 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.800 also fans of Radiohead and Aphex Len and all sorts 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.400 of all sorts of stuff, and so those influences kind 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:06.160 of infiltrated the music, and I think we were trying 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:07.800 to prove to ourselves like, no, hey, we're a little 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:13.320 bit more than just like a novelty retro soul act. 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:21.480 Okay, you made those records. You made two after the 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:25.679 records were done, did you feel that you accomplish what 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:30.400 you wanted? And two what was the audience reaction and 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:31.360 how did that affect you? 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.120 Yes, I felt like we accomplished what we wanted. That 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:38.640 is the one satisfying thing that is I feel so 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.320 fortunate that we got away with that personally, like I do, 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.480 because like to be still having a career and touring 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:47.880 and going through that is a There's not a lot 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.080 of bands that can say that. So I feel like 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.600 we did. We accomplished what we wanted, which hints why 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.640 we kind of felt like this next record is is 0:09:55.720 --> 0:10:00.440 kind of a refresher, wenewed thing with the audience. Uh, 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.560 it was challenging for the audience. I think there's some 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:05.320 people that went with us and there's some people that didn't. 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.280 You know, I think, you know, when you're known for 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.880 one thing like we have a tiny desk or the 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:15.239 Letterman performance or all of those things, that's what people expect, 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.680 and then when they don't get that, it challenges them. 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.720 And it was definitely challenging music. Its challenging for us. 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:25.120 We were like, who this is out there? Uh, but 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.480 we felt like it felt right. It felt right to us, 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:31.800 and we felt like but the audience we released. So 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.360 the last record were released was Angels and Science Fiction 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.040 and it's very mellow. I don't think there's hardly any 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:41.840 horns on it. Very mellow record. And we try to 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.920 tour differently, like maybe do more seated listening room stuff, 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.760 and it's pretty obviously our audience or the audience didn't 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:54.160 have an appetite for it. And while I think that's 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.120 a beautiful record and I'm very proud of it, it just 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:58.480 it didn't seem like they were that into it, which 0:10:58.520 --> 0:10:59.760 is fine, I mean, you know what I mean, that's 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.160 just part of being that's part of having a career. 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:08.160 In this Okay, you have these two records where you 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:13.160 expand your horizons. They are not as commercially successful on 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.280 the road or on streams as the other ones. Do 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:20.640 you feel hampered by that or do you feel fuck man, 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:22.320 I want to have a career. Let's go back to 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.080 the soul thing. I don't. 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.480 I don't. I know this is crazy. I don't. I 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.839 don't feel that way. I think this is I'm proud 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.520 of those records, you know, I really am. I don't. 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.480 If I was gonna do I was in accounting school. 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:39.560 So if I want to do that and that's what 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:41.920 I was about, then the if the only thing to 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:46.559 me is the outcome of money with this, then well 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:48.400 there's not a lot of difference. So that's not it 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:50.640 is it. Don't get me wrong. It's important, you know, 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.720 it's a secondary outcome to what we do. But but 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:56.440 I don't. I don't look at it like that. I'm 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.120 very proud of those. I don't look at those and go, 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.240 oh God, like man, we we gotta get back to 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.000 the thing, you know what I mean, Like, we gotta 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.360 we gotta start getting those horns back in. It's just 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:07.360 I think I've said this, and I've said this to 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:12.439 our management, like this next record it it does it 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.240 coincide with maybe what people maybe want from us a 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:18.440 little bit more. Yeah, but that's not why we're there. 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.320 We're there because like going through that process with the 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.360 solo thing and writing and go and I really got 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.520 obsessed with the idea of great songwriting, which is not 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.080 saying that I wasn't, but it just felt like it 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.760 got leveled up a bit, and so that I was 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.959 chasing that dragon at that point, like writing just right, 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:39.760 not from a modern sense, I don't, not from a 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.520 modern pop sense, but from like a classic songwriting perspective, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:45.360 like someone like Jimmy Webb or something, you know what 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:50.640 I mean, Like trying to go go that route. That's 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.400 what fascinating. And it just kind of coincides with with 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:55.160 where we're at. 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.440 Okay, talking a little bit more business. You make two 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:03.720 records with Ato, you're with Red Light, now you're with 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.960 Q Prime and with thirty Tigers. What accounted for those changes? 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:16.760 I oh, boy, uh, I think I think for us, 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:22.280 it just felt it it felt like ownership of your 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.040 stuff was really important in this day and age owning 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:32.160 your things right, It felt like you know, with with 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.920 With at first, you know, we weren't when we it 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.520 was AMFM, and then they got absorbed into Q Prime. 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:45.320 We when we made that change, it felt like they 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:46.800 it just felt like they had a little bit more 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.480 grasp of the modern modern times maybe and and And 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.040 I think understood this band. I think that's what we've 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.319 come to realize over time, is like thirty Tigers was 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.400 great about understanding this band, not that others didn't, but 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:01.679 it was just they had the best grasp. And then 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:03.400 with management, it was kind of the same thing, like 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:06.200 what is this band because we're not you know, we're 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.559 not country like, we've done all sorts of genres, We've 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.280 done all sorts of things, and it just, you know, 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.440 it felt like the right fit. I mean, that's that's 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:14.880 I guess the best I could say. 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.480 Okay, let's slow it down a little bit. Does Ato 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:20.120 own those two records? 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.640 Yes, we will split those till in perpetuity. 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.480 Okay, So Saint Paul and the Broken Bones own half 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:36.880 of those or some percentage, yeah, half, Okay, So let's 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:41.800 talk about management. You're in one canoe, I mean, before 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.280 you jump into the other canoe. There must be a 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.120 process of wait a second, you know we're going in 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.600 the wrong direction, or we need better paddles or something. 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:52.160 What was going through your brain? 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.520 Uh, well, there was a lot of things going through 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:03.480 my brain. Management's really tough because you you kind of 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.320 speed date and then you have to get married, you know, 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.080 and that's really hard, and you don't really know what 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.600 you're getting until I would say at least a year 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:19.560 in you know what I'm saying. Even then, it's still difficult. 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:26.400 And we just felt like, you know, everybody promise you, 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.960 promises you the world, right, and we are a mid 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.760 sized touring act, so we do. We are going to 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.720 bring whoever we go to some money, and for me 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:38.440 it's a lot of money. For them it might not 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.760 be that much money, but for me it's a lot 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:45.600 of money. And so it you obviously have to give 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:47.600 people a chance and go through. But when there starts 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:49.680 to be certain signs of like, hey, this is not 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:54.400 the right fit. I talked to somebody on our team 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.280 and they were like, hey, bad management can or or 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:01.160 not the right fit can can burn you. It can 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:05.360 get you in real trouble. And so we we kind 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.560 of had to make a swift, swift decision and uh 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:10.840 and more good shape. 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:22.640 Okay, so you have a new management company. Every management 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.200 company is different. It's not like, you know, even working 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.720 for a big corporation. So what is the difference on 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:33.640 a more granular level working with am FM, which is 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:34.760 now part of Q Prime. 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.200 Well, I think I think they have a better grasp 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.840 of the times of what we're in, like I they 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.440 I think digital, the digital world. Like something for us 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.120 that we are not good at is social media. I 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.720 hate it with a pure and holy passion. We're not 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.880 good with YouTube stuff. But that's the world we're in now. 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.640 For example, like when we first started arted with them, 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.960 we had I think, I don't even think we had 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:09.840 a TikTok account right, so, which I was fine with, 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.200 I don't care. But they were like, hey, let's let's 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.800 do this. They had somebody I think, and this is 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.879 a great example. In January we had about four thousand followers. 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:24.720 Today we have ninety five thousand, and something went viral. 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.560 They were able to. It's really just capitalizing on when 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.760 something happens, when the luck comes, you know, being ready 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.080 when the luck comes. And I think the digital side 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:36.840 they had a really good understanding and we just kind 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:39.440 of knew we felt like dinosaurs in a lot of ways, 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.560 where we're like, you know, I still believe putting on 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.879 great shows leads to a career, but there was just 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.240 the digital side that we were really struggling with. And 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:51.760 it's not it was it's also just you know, personality 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.639 fits and teams. I think with really large management companies 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.840 there is an internal dynamic that they're trying. I mean, 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:04.560 they have a boss and so they're having to navigate 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.680 their their businesses and stuff. It's like and he needs 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.160 someone who's just like, what is there's no one more 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:14.840 focused on my career and our career than me. They're 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.919 just not. But you need someone who can go at 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:19.760 least get and get a little bit in the weeds 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.240 with you. And you know there's internal but like with 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.760 going to a MFM, like Air Frank owned the company, 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:27.960 you know what I mean, Like he's the boss and 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:32.800 there's no one else over him that they have to 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.040 you know, navigate, and you know that's just how it works. 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:44.080 Okay, So they say let's get deeper into social internet digital, 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:49.720 many people up until the very recently said sounds good. 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:54.879 They hire somebody or they hire a company. You and 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.640 the members of your band, how involved are you personally? 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:00.639 And what is posted on TikTok. 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.479 I get a message that says do you approve? And 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:06.640 I go yep, and that's it. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.679 Okay, I mean I haven't checked out all your TikTok clips. 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:12.439 What are those clips? Like? 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.520 Well, what we found is there was this is no joke. 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:21.280 We had a clip we did a cruise for, like 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:25.160 a New Orleans cruise, you know, and a small little 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.040 clip of that went viral on TikTok and I was 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.400 just like, okay, what you know what I mean so bizarre. 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.080 But what we have found in this particular song, what 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:36.080 we have found is that every time we post that 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.479 particular part of that song, it it gets, you know, 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:41.800 over one hundred to two hundred thousand views, and one 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.480 of them got over I'm gonna think two million or something, 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.639 you know, something nuts. And so what we do and 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.480 what they have found is that it's it's performing, which 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.000 I am so grateful for because I'll take a clip 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:55.000 of me performing any day of the week, right Like, 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.600 that's that's easy. It's not sitting on a pie or 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.080 doing some sort of trendy you know thing or whatever, 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.760 and so that's what they found is just like clips 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.639 are performing and and I'm sure you know with the 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.800 record release there'll be some more involvement, but but for us, 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.040 it's just about getting live footage because that is apparently 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.440 what people want from us. 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:22.920 Okay, i'd only seen you saw the Letterman performance. We'll 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.439 get back to that, hopefully saw the screen. I've seen you. 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.720 I am now talking to you. You are completely different 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:35.000 from my preconception. Okay, okay, and I only mean that 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:41.119 in a good way. Okay, You're humble, you're intelligent, you 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:48.280 have a sense of humor. So if you yourself, Paul Janeway, 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:52.040 were posting about you and your band or what you 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:56.760 did or anything, man, that would be magic on TikTok. 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:58.840 What's wrong with doing something like that? 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.840 You know what managements are gonna hear this, and now 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.760 they're gonna be like, hey, hey said it, I'm my back. 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:09.080 Oh god, uh, I know, I get it. I understand 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.400 what you're saying. I just it is it's just here's 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:14.840 the problem, Like, so you have to promote yourself and 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.120 I'm just not It's it's it's a hard personality it's 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:21.119 just a personality tick. But yes, you are, I have 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:23.040 trust me. You ain't the first one to say it, 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.960 which I appreciate, but uh, it's it's just I don't know, man, 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:27.639 I don't know. 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.200 Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. There's two elements here. 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:37.000 There's one playing at all and another promoting yourself. I 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.879 don't want to go anywhere and say I'm great, listen 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:44.360 to me do my stuff. I completely understand that, okay, 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:49.600 but as an artist. An artist is not solely what's 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.320 in the recording and what's on stage. There's much more 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:58.360 to that. So to illuminate that does not mean you're 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:00.360 selling out. You're hyping yourself. 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.440 Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, look, the whole band 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:08.359 has a really great dynamic, and there it's you know, 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:10.080 we've been doing this for twelve years and we don't 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:12.560 hate each other, so there has to be an element 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:16.720 of I hear you, I hear you, and I ain't 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.639 saying you're wrong. It's just it's just a heart. For 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:21.439 some reason, I just have a hard time with it, 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:23.480 and I think it probably I'll be honest with you, 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:25.199 I'll tell you what it probably is a self esteem. 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:27.840 You know what I mean because I think, who in 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:30.760 the hell wants to hear from me and cares what 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:33.080 I think or drink or eat or you know what 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:34.640 I'm saying. But I think that's what it. 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:39.200 Is, exactly what you're seeing. But I'll say two things. One, 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:43.000 it's like I always say, you never know what's going 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:45.359 to happen until you step out the front door. There 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:47.000 are a lot of things I didn't want to do, 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:49.040 and I went and led to all kinds of crazy shit. 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:51.200 There's a lot of things I went out and nothing happened. 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.600 But I'm just talking walking out the front door. Okay. 0:22:55.160 --> 0:23:00.280 The same thing which is interesting, which is obviously you 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:04.800 have no problem getting up on stage and performing. In addition, 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:10.439 you are a dynamic performer. Now they're like Howard Stern 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.639 famously in his first marriage he would talk on the radio, 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:17.240 come on, sit in his basement, not talk to anybody. Okay, 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:21.840 So do you get all your eas out on stage 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:24.720 and the rest of the time you're pretty isolated and 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:27.720 low key or you just don't want to display the 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:29.800 rest of your personality to the masses. 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:33.360 I think that there is a privacy aspect to it. 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:37.600 I think there's also because I think when you you 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:39.480 live by the sword and you die by the sword. 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:43.360 When it comes to social media, and I think when 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:46.439 you allow that in, you are allowing you know, there 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:49.480 is It's like I believe in criticism, right, music criticism 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:52.960 and things like that, because we're sitting here trying. You know, 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:55.000 you pay somebody to promote you toot your horn. Well, 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:57.199 there has to be a counter to that, just for 0:23:57.280 --> 0:23:59.879 someone to wave through. And I think with social media's 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:02.280 if you're gonna put your life out there, you have 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:05.159 to be open to the criticism that's gonna happen when you. 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:06.720 I mean we see that all the time with people 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:09.240 who have podcasts and they talk every day. Well, you're 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:11.639 gonna say something, you know what I mean, Like, no 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:13.360 one's perfect, we're all imperfect. 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:16.600 Wait wait wait wait, you don't have to say anything, 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:21.320 and they're gonna hate on you exactly. You know, I 0:24:21.359 --> 0:24:24.000 walked out the front door. It was a beautiful day, 0:24:24.160 --> 0:24:27.919 you piece of shit. Why didn't you stay home? Et cetera. 0:24:28.880 --> 0:24:32.280 That goes with the territory. But it's not only social media. 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:36.080 You play it all, you put your music out there. Yeah, 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:38.560 I know, I know they're gonna be people who hating 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:41.000 on you just for hating on you. 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:43.200 Yeah, yeah, I mean I know that that part doesn't 0:24:43.240 --> 0:24:45.120 really bother me, you know what I mean, Like that part, 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:47.840 I don't care about that. I mean people, I mean, 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:50.359 god knows, we've made records that I know. I was like, 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:52.639 I knew, like, ain't nobody going like this? But I 0:24:52.640 --> 0:24:56.760 don't care. But I think part of it, part of 0:24:56.960 --> 0:24:59.640 I think part of it is you live us or diabosourd. 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:02.359 I also think with social media, I just it's just 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:05.679 not my personality. I am my. I don't drink, I 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:09.040 don't smoke, I don't have many you know, vices. So 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:13.679 performing on stage and that moment of making music like 0:25:13.760 --> 0:25:17.360 that's that's my thing, Like that's where it's my outlet, 0:25:17.480 --> 0:25:21.159 and so it's where I get to be. I don't know, 0:25:21.200 --> 0:25:22.720 it's it's just where I get to be anything I 0:25:22.760 --> 0:25:25.359 want to be. And I love performing. I love being 0:25:25.400 --> 0:25:29.119 that vessel for people to feel something. You know, we 0:25:29.280 --> 0:25:32.800 just so desperately and need that. I think in generous 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:34.800 people Like that's why I tell everybody to talk about 0:25:34.800 --> 0:25:37.760 AI and stuff like shows ain't going anywhere, They're not 0:25:37.840 --> 0:25:41.880 going anywhere because people are gonna still need that connection 0:25:42.040 --> 0:25:44.960 and to and to be a tool or a vessel 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:47.840 for that for people to experience a comp whether it's 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:52.240 crying or laughing or or you know whatever. Like that's man, 0:25:52.640 --> 0:25:55.280 that's that's that's a powerful drug. If I could figure 0:25:55.280 --> 0:25:57.600 out how to bottle that up. I never leave home. 0:25:57.720 --> 0:26:00.520 But after that, like I am a little bit more 0:26:00.520 --> 0:26:03.399 low key, you know what I mean? Like I like people, 0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:05.639 but I just you know, I don't go out and 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:07.200 I got I got, you know, I got a four 0:26:07.280 --> 0:26:10.080 year old little girl, I got my wife. Like staying 0:26:10.080 --> 0:26:13.119 at home and being with them is pretty awesome to me. 0:26:14.480 --> 0:26:17.320 Okay, since you brought it up, you say you don't 0:26:17.400 --> 0:26:20.760 drink and you don't smoke. Did you used to drink? 0:26:20.840 --> 0:26:21.960 And did you used to smoke? 0:26:22.160 --> 0:26:26.600 Never? Have never. I grew up pretty religious. 0:26:26.600 --> 0:26:28.840 So your parents didn't drink or smoke either. 0:26:28.920 --> 0:26:30.879 I've never seen my mom or dad drink or smoke. 0:26:32.600 --> 0:26:36.480 So you're in the music world where a lot of 0:26:36.520 --> 0:26:41.680 people drink and smoke. Did people pressure you to drink 0:26:41.720 --> 0:26:45.320 and smoke? Are you comfortable when other people are drinking smokers? 0:26:45.320 --> 0:26:46.360 And a non issue? 0:26:46.840 --> 0:26:49.080 It's a non issue for me now. Early on, I 0:26:49.119 --> 0:26:51.240 never forget we did something in Nashville, and there was 0:26:51.320 --> 0:26:57.600 a old veteran guitar player who who told me, I said, 0:26:57.880 --> 0:27:00.800 you know, offer me something, you know, beer or something. 0:27:00.800 --> 0:27:03.280 I said, oh, no, thank you, I'm good. He said, 0:27:03.280 --> 0:27:05.199 you don't you know this, asked me and said you 0:27:05.200 --> 0:27:06.840 don't drink. And I said, no, I don't, I don't. 0:27:06.880 --> 0:27:08.880 He said, yeah, we'll see about that in a year. 0:27:09.520 --> 0:27:12.160 And I was just like, all right, man, I haven't 0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:15.879 have it so far, but uh it No. The guys 0:27:15.960 --> 0:27:18.000 loved it. The guys in the band loved it because 0:27:18.320 --> 0:27:20.560 when we were in the van, they knew they could 0:27:20.560 --> 0:27:22.920 do whatever they wanted to do and there was gonna 0:27:22.920 --> 0:27:25.520 be somebody that's gonna drive the van around, you know 0:27:25.560 --> 0:27:27.200 what I mean. They loved it. They were like, yeah, 0:27:27.320 --> 0:27:29.960 I love this guy doesn't drink, you know, a drink 0:27:30.040 --> 0:27:33.560 or do anything, and so uh yeah. So it it's 0:27:33.600 --> 0:27:35.080 a non issue to me, when, of course, when I 0:27:35.160 --> 0:27:37.000 was younger, it was a you know, it was a 0:27:38.320 --> 0:27:40.919 it was due to, you know, a religious thing. But 0:27:41.000 --> 0:27:43.880 now I don't, I don't. I mean, I don't care, 0:27:44.040 --> 0:27:45.479 you know what I mean, as long as long as 0:27:45.560 --> 0:27:49.320 everything's consensual and you your own person, do do whatever 0:27:49.359 --> 0:27:50.199 you want. To do you know. 0:27:51.640 --> 0:27:54.600 Okay, you say you grew up in a religious environment. 0:27:56.840 --> 0:28:00.640 Did you have to break away from that to go 0:28:00.720 --> 0:28:04.520 on this path or you just happen to be on 0:28:04.640 --> 0:28:07.320 this path and you're still religious. Tell me about your 0:28:07.359 --> 0:28:09.200 thoughts over this run. 0:28:09.480 --> 0:28:12.080 Well that's a loaded question, uh, you know, trying to 0:28:12.080 --> 0:28:19.160 get it all in for me. I grew up, yeah, 0:28:19.160 --> 0:28:22.119 growing up religious, you know, grew up where you you know, 0:28:22.280 --> 0:28:24.119 my church went through many things, but one of them 0:28:24.240 --> 0:28:27.960 was speaking in tongues and slaying the demons and he 0:28:28.200 --> 0:28:30.280 or healing and all that, all that stuff. You know, 0:28:30.320 --> 0:28:34.720 it's a small town, right, And and so I did 0:28:34.800 --> 0:28:36.520 grow out of love with that. You know. I think 0:28:37.480 --> 0:28:41.520 as anything, your worldview broadens, you know, like how how 0:28:41.760 --> 0:28:44.400 how people view certain things? You'd like? No, I don't. 0:28:44.440 --> 0:28:46.320 I don't agree with that. Like the part I'm attracted 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:49.640 to is is the love and acceptance and service. Those 0:28:49.680 --> 0:28:52.239 are the things that really stand out about it. And 0:28:52.280 --> 0:28:54.120 so I really fell out of love with it. And 0:28:54.160 --> 0:28:57.959 I started doing open mic nights in Birmingham, Alabama, and 0:28:58.040 --> 0:28:59.280 all I really want to because I know how to 0:28:59.280 --> 0:29:04.200 play guitar and sing, and and so I kind of 0:29:04.200 --> 0:29:06.120 fell out of love with it, and I'd never listened 0:29:06.120 --> 0:29:09.520 to till I was nineteen twenty. I'd never listened to 0:29:09.560 --> 0:29:13.560 a Beatles album in full. I'd never listened to you know, 0:29:13.640 --> 0:29:15.719 led Zeppelin, and you know what I mean, because I 0:29:15.800 --> 0:29:18.920 was just so sheltered from that, And so it was 0:29:19.320 --> 0:29:21.280 it was when you started listening to all these records, 0:29:21.320 --> 0:29:23.520 You're like, it was kind of like finding Jesus, because 0:29:23.560 --> 0:29:26.320 you're like, man, it's just a lot of music to 0:29:26.400 --> 0:29:28.640 listen to you And so I kind of got obsessed 0:29:29.520 --> 0:29:32.240 and and then that obviously led me down this path. 0:29:33.040 --> 0:29:35.480 And now I think at that point I had a 0:29:35.520 --> 0:29:39.120 lot of venom towards it. And now I think I'm 0:29:39.120 --> 0:29:43.360 in a place where I can find peace in it. 0:29:43.400 --> 0:29:45.760 And there's aspects of it that I feel like I 0:29:45.800 --> 0:29:47.960 should be applied to my life, like the service and 0:29:48.040 --> 0:29:53.360 love those things. But I have a hard time stepping 0:29:53.400 --> 0:29:56.760 in churches these days. It's it's it's it's a hard 0:29:56.760 --> 0:29:57.480 thing for me to do. 0:29:58.760 --> 0:30:05.360 Okay, you grew up. Was the external demonized or were 0:30:05.360 --> 0:30:06.400 you just unaware? 0:30:08.040 --> 0:30:12.880 Hum, that's a good question. Uh, it was definitely demonized 0:30:12.920 --> 0:30:16.320 to a degree. It wasn't just everything wasn't awful, But 0:30:16.360 --> 0:30:19.240 I remember It's funny, you know, having having a four 0:30:19.280 --> 0:30:23.440 year old and Halloween, and I remember early on going 0:30:23.520 --> 0:30:25.200 trick or treat, but then it turned into like, oh, 0:30:25.240 --> 0:30:28.160 this is the Devil's holiday and all that jazz, you 0:30:28.200 --> 0:30:30.080 know what I mean, when you're just like okay whatever 0:30:30.800 --> 0:30:33.760 and uh. And so my experience with Halloween stuff like that, 0:30:33.800 --> 0:30:36.120 I think it. I think it changed over time. I 0:30:36.120 --> 0:30:39.280 think that's just how I think culturally. You know, small 0:30:39.320 --> 0:30:43.240 town Alabama, you know, church being the epicenter like it, 0:30:43.360 --> 0:30:46.640 just those things changed over time. And I think I 0:30:46.680 --> 0:30:49.720 think initially it was just like hey, just not exposed 0:30:49.720 --> 0:30:52.440 the stuff. But I don't think that happens as much 0:30:52.480 --> 0:30:54.840 now because we have the Internet, you know what I mean, 0:30:54.960 --> 0:30:57.640 Like you are attached to a whole other world now. 0:30:58.520 --> 0:31:00.880 Though it can't get very echo chamber, you still have 0:31:01.040 --> 0:31:05.120 access to so many different things now than when you 0:31:05.160 --> 0:31:06.240 know then when I was going up. 0:31:07.200 --> 0:31:10.120 How about the radio. Were you listening to music radio 0:31:10.200 --> 0:31:10.640 growing up? 0:31:10.680 --> 0:31:10.840 Now? 0:31:11.160 --> 0:31:13.880 No? The only thing my dad would ever listen to 0:31:14.000 --> 0:31:17.200 was sports talk. And then there was a Christian radio 0:31:17.240 --> 0:31:19.600 station that was about that was about. 0:31:19.360 --> 0:31:22.640 It and Christian rock? Was that something you. 0:31:22.680 --> 0:31:23.880 Were in now? That was part of it? It was 0:31:23.920 --> 0:31:26.480 got old gospel too, you know. The only thing and 0:31:26.560 --> 0:31:28.680 that probably makes a lot of sense. The only thing 0:31:29.440 --> 0:31:31.400 that my mom would listen to that was, I guess 0:31:31.440 --> 0:31:36.480 really considered secular was the stylistics. The old seventies grouped 0:31:36.520 --> 0:31:40.920 the stylistics and Sam Cook and and all that stuff. 0:31:40.960 --> 0:31:44.240 So in old school Marvin Gay, you know before before 0:31:44.320 --> 0:31:46.440 what's going on? Or let's get it on Marvin Gay. 0:31:46.920 --> 0:31:49.840 But uh, and so probably makes a lot of sense. Uh, 0:31:51.040 --> 0:31:54.480 my mom, my cousin one time gave me a Nirvana 0:31:54.520 --> 0:31:59.360 CD and my mom threw it away, and so I 0:31:59.440 --> 0:32:08.080 never Yeah, that was it. 0:32:08.240 --> 0:32:11.000 Okay, So you grew up exactly where. 0:32:11.640 --> 0:32:14.520 Chelsea, Alabama, and. 0:32:14.200 --> 0:32:17.360 For those of us from the north feeniest although I 0:32:17.400 --> 0:32:19.719 live in Los Angeles now, where exactly is that? 0:32:19.960 --> 0:32:23.520 So Chelsea is about forty five minutes about where I 0:32:23.840 --> 0:32:29.160 about live to an hour south of Birmingham when I 0:32:29.200 --> 0:32:31.760 grew up. It's really an interesting place because when I 0:32:31.760 --> 0:32:34.400 grew up there, it was about eight hundred people and 0:32:34.440 --> 0:32:36.480 it is the when I got into high school, is 0:32:36.520 --> 0:32:39.040 the fastest, one of the fastest growing counties in the 0:32:39.120 --> 0:32:42.560 United States, and I think now about twenty thousand people 0:32:43.240 --> 0:32:46.400 lived there. Really, Yes, it's really bizarre. It's what was 0:32:47.000 --> 0:32:50.200 it blew up really quick. So when I was getting 0:32:50.200 --> 0:32:52.320 out of high school and I left basically so it's 0:32:52.600 --> 0:32:57.000 it's now. It is now. I lived in unincorporated the 0:32:57.080 --> 0:33:01.840 unincorporated land, but it's now a full I would argue, suburb, 0:33:02.000 --> 0:33:05.720 whereas when I grew up it was a pretty rural area. 0:33:06.280 --> 0:33:07.840 And would your parents do for a living? 0:33:08.880 --> 0:33:12.000 My dad works in paving in construction, and my mom 0:33:13.640 --> 0:33:18.440 was a or a nurse for a gynecologist. 0:33:19.720 --> 0:33:21.040 And do you have any siblings? 0:33:21.280 --> 0:33:24.680 I do? I have two younger sisters. I have you know, yeah, 0:33:24.680 --> 0:33:26.040 I got two younger sisters. 0:33:27.040 --> 0:33:31.600 And you broke away from this background upbringing. 0:33:32.120 --> 0:33:36.120 What happened with them, Well, you know what happens, I think, 0:33:36.440 --> 0:33:39.000 unfortunately with a lot of families in this situation. My 0:33:39.040 --> 0:33:41.800 parents got divorced when I was sixteen, and I think 0:33:41.840 --> 0:33:45.600 when that happens, your worldview changes a lot. And I 0:33:45.600 --> 0:33:47.480 think that was probably a pretty pivotal point for me 0:33:47.680 --> 0:33:50.240 as well, because you know, your parents aren't your heroes, 0:33:50.240 --> 0:33:51.560 and you know what I mean, Like, you go through 0:33:51.560 --> 0:33:54.520 all this this whole process, especially in a small town, 0:33:54.600 --> 0:33:57.520 small community, everybody knows about it, and it gets kind 0:33:57.520 --> 0:34:00.480 of ugly and all that stuff. And I think once 0:34:00.520 --> 0:34:04.120 that happened, it really changed all of us in a 0:34:04.120 --> 0:34:08.440 lot of ways. And so everybody's I would argue a 0:34:08.440 --> 0:34:10.880 little more worldly now, you know what I mean, just 0:34:10.920 --> 0:34:13.920 the best way. But my sister, you know, my sister, 0:34:14.239 --> 0:34:15.960 one of my sisters is an engineer and the other 0:34:16.000 --> 0:34:18.719 one is a social worker. So that's you know. 0:34:18.920 --> 0:34:23.399 So did you see the divorce coming and you said 0:34:23.400 --> 0:34:25.560 it changed you in a lot of ways? What ways 0:34:25.600 --> 0:34:26.120 were those? 0:34:27.560 --> 0:34:30.359 Definitely saw it. You know, I don't want to get 0:34:30.400 --> 0:34:33.520 too deep, but it was it was a there was, 0:34:33.560 --> 0:34:37.719 you know, an abusive atmosphere, was the nicest way I 0:34:37.719 --> 0:34:40.719 can say it. And I just grew up that way 0:34:40.880 --> 0:34:45.440 and so definitely saw it. Probably should have come a 0:34:45.480 --> 0:34:51.919 lot sooner than it did. And then, uh, I think 0:34:51.960 --> 0:34:57.239 for me, it it changed. It just changed. It changed. 0:34:57.280 --> 0:35:00.279 It changes how you feel about the world. And you know, 0:35:00.320 --> 0:35:03.040 you're you have these people that you that you're entrusted 0:35:03.080 --> 0:35:06.720 to and now they're you know, now they're getting divorced. 0:35:08.920 --> 0:35:14.960 Okay, so you're in Chelsea. How does this big transition happen? 0:35:15.719 --> 0:35:17.960 You graduate from high school? You would I mean, I 0:35:17.960 --> 0:35:19.040 don't know, how does it happen. 0:35:19.239 --> 0:35:25.200 Well, I didn't graduate from high school till a year later. I. Uh, 0:35:25.800 --> 0:35:28.000 my mom was pretty adamant about me going to school, 0:35:28.000 --> 0:35:29.560 and I was telling her, no, I don't want to 0:35:29.600 --> 0:35:32.080 go to school. And so we had, you know, you 0:35:32.120 --> 0:35:34.839 have one of those big blowoffs. And my dad at 0:35:34.840 --> 0:35:38.440 the time was living in an apartment, uh, two bedroom apartment, 0:35:38.680 --> 0:35:41.960 and uh, he was like, well, you can come live here, 0:35:42.000 --> 0:35:46.040 but he was driving two hours every morning, uh to 0:35:46.800 --> 0:35:48.560 or you know, to Aniston. So he's getting up at 0:35:48.560 --> 0:35:50.440 four thirty in the morning driving to work. So no 0:35:50.480 --> 0:35:52.800 one was taking making sure I was going to school. 0:35:53.200 --> 0:35:56.400 So I didn't go to school, and uh and uh. 0:35:56.480 --> 0:36:00.760 And then eventually I realized, like, all right, I can't. 0:36:01.120 --> 0:36:02.880 I gotta get my high school diploma. So I went 0:36:02.920 --> 0:36:05.600 to summer school, then went to it. I mean my 0:36:05.640 --> 0:36:07.959 whole I think most my senior year, I didn't even 0:36:08.440 --> 0:36:10.520 I didn't even I don't think I cracked the cracked 0:36:10.560 --> 0:36:14.439 the doors of that school. And so I went to So, yeah, 0:36:14.480 --> 0:36:16.480 I went to I went. It took me another year 0:36:16.480 --> 0:36:18.040 and a half to get my high school diploma. So 0:36:18.040 --> 0:36:20.120 I was supposed to graduate and I didn't. So it 0:36:20.160 --> 0:36:23.000 took me a while, which looking back at it now 0:36:23.080 --> 0:36:25.720 is fairly embarrassing. I should have I should have stuck 0:36:25.840 --> 0:36:27.560 with it, but you know, I was just a situation 0:36:27.640 --> 0:36:30.200 where I didn't have any you know what, my dad's fault. 0:36:30.239 --> 0:36:32.239 He's working, right, I should I should have gotten up 0:36:32.280 --> 0:36:36.359 and gone, but I just didn't go. And and then 0:36:37.560 --> 0:36:40.040 so then you know, I'm obviously lost, you know what 0:36:40.040 --> 0:36:41.840 I mean, I don't. I have no idea what I 0:36:41.840 --> 0:36:43.720 want to do with my life. I have no clue. 0:36:43.760 --> 0:36:46.160 And I was living with my dad and my sister 0:36:46.200 --> 0:36:48.120 moves in, so one of us had to sleep on 0:36:48.160 --> 0:36:52.560 the couch, and it was it was I looked back 0:36:52.600 --> 0:36:55.319 at it. I laughed now, but it was not laughing then, 0:36:55.520 --> 0:36:57.680 you know what I mean. It was not laughing, but 0:36:57.760 --> 0:37:00.400 I look at it and I was it's And so 0:37:00.560 --> 0:37:03.279 then you know, I was, I was having to figure 0:37:03.320 --> 0:37:06.120 out my life, you know. And music, I mean, there's 0:37:06.160 --> 0:37:07.799 not there's not a ton of stuff that's come out 0:37:07.840 --> 0:37:11.120 of burning him. And music didn't seem like I loved creating, 0:37:11.160 --> 0:37:15.359 but it doesn't seem like an option. And and and 0:37:15.400 --> 0:37:16.960 I was I never forget. I was working at a 0:37:16.960 --> 0:37:19.719 tanning bed. I know, with this this skin right here, 0:37:20.080 --> 0:37:22.120 it's a level. Look, you know what I mean. But 0:37:22.239 --> 0:37:25.160 I was working at a tanning bed my Uh it 0:37:25.200 --> 0:37:26.560 was because I didn't have a car, so I could 0:37:26.600 --> 0:37:29.400 walk there, and uh they let me go. So finally 0:37:29.440 --> 0:37:31.719 I swallowed my pride. That did the thing. Because my 0:37:31.719 --> 0:37:34.120 Papal worked in paving in construction. He was a mechanic. 0:37:34.320 --> 0:37:36.239 My dad worked in paving in construction. I was like, 0:37:36.520 --> 0:37:38.960 that was the family lineage, right, working working on the 0:37:39.040 --> 0:37:41.560 roads and things. And I thought I had to swallow 0:37:41.600 --> 0:37:44.600 my pride and say, Dad, hey, can you help me 0:37:44.640 --> 0:37:47.680 out and get me a job. And he put in 0:37:47.760 --> 0:37:50.680 a good word and I started working for a mechanic 0:37:50.719 --> 0:37:53.400 shop as a gopher and I'd cut the grass and 0:37:53.480 --> 0:37:58.280 all that stuff. And so he and so in that time, 0:37:58.560 --> 0:38:00.640 I'm still playing. I still loved and you know what 0:38:00.640 --> 0:38:02.600 I mean, But it just I do an open mic 0:38:02.680 --> 0:38:06.080 here there. I end up meeting this guy named Jesse Phillips, 0:38:06.280 --> 0:38:09.719 who is the bass player in this band. Uh to 0:38:09.719 --> 0:38:12.920 this day, me and him grew into a really great 0:38:12.960 --> 0:38:16.279 relationship and he still he was the best man at 0:38:16.320 --> 0:38:18.319 my wedding. Like we still I loved. I love him 0:38:18.320 --> 0:38:23.640 to death. And he had I had a little record 0:38:23.680 --> 0:38:26.719 collection and I had talking heads remain in light and 0:38:26.760 --> 0:38:28.760 he saw that and he's like, I think we're gonna 0:38:28.760 --> 0:38:34.120 be friends, and and uh, and so I got let 0:38:34.160 --> 0:38:36.000 go at the mechanic shop in two thousand and eight 0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:38.160 when all the economy went down. And to be fair, 0:38:38.200 --> 0:38:40.120 I wasn't great at that job, you know what I mean, 0:38:40.239 --> 0:38:42.160 Like I mean I had to be there at six 0:38:42.160 --> 0:38:44.280 point thirty in the morning. I am not a morning person. 0:38:44.320 --> 0:38:46.640 But it was just part of life, right, And when 0:38:46.680 --> 0:38:49.040 the economy went down, and then so I was on 0:38:49.120 --> 0:38:51.200 unemployment for like three or two or two and a 0:38:51.239 --> 0:38:54.479 half three years and didn't have much going I really 0:38:54.480 --> 0:38:58.359 didn't and uh, but still playing music with Jesse. And 0:38:58.400 --> 0:39:02.760 then met a girl and she is now my wife. 0:39:03.440 --> 0:39:05.880 Met her and I knew I had to do something. 0:39:06.160 --> 0:39:08.800 I was like, I gotta I gotta make something on myself. 0:39:08.840 --> 0:39:12.040 So I went to community college. Still play music, but 0:39:12.080 --> 0:39:15.920 nothing really happening. Went to community college. Then decided, okay, 0:39:17.000 --> 0:39:19.840 you know, I was had a job at a sporting 0:39:19.840 --> 0:39:23.840 good store, going to community college. She stuck with me, 0:39:24.480 --> 0:39:29.799 and then finally I was going into a county school 0:39:29.840 --> 0:39:35.000 at UAB here in Birmingham, and my and Jesse's like, hey, man, 0:39:35.120 --> 0:39:38.439 I'm about to move on to can we just kind 0:39:38.480 --> 0:39:42.000 of write this a little EP or something of our 0:39:42.320 --> 0:39:45.520 musical friendship and we'll always be friends. That ended up 0:39:45.520 --> 0:39:47.000 being Saint Paul and the Broken Bones. 0:39:47.440 --> 0:39:50.319 Okay, let's go back. Yes, you were living in this 0:39:50.440 --> 0:39:54.839 religious environment. How much was music a part of that? 0:39:55.400 --> 0:39:58.759 And how much did you sing, play or whatever? My mom? 0:39:59.000 --> 0:40:00.879 I mean, I sang some I was four years old. 0:40:00.920 --> 0:40:04.319 I sang solos in church. My mom plays piano, she 0:40:04.400 --> 0:40:08.960 sings too. It's really really interesting that, you know. My 0:40:08.960 --> 0:40:12.959 mom's relationship with music was something I knew when something 0:40:13.000 --> 0:40:16.120 bad had happened to her because I'd hear the piano 0:40:16.200 --> 0:40:19.480 being played. It's a So that was always kind of 0:40:19.520 --> 0:40:24.799 my relationship with music, right, and so we played all 0:40:24.840 --> 0:40:26.120 the time. Now I sang all the time, but I 0:40:26.160 --> 0:40:28.280 never thought. I never thought I was a lead singer. 0:40:29.000 --> 0:40:31.880 I had a pastor that was very adamant about me 0:40:31.960 --> 0:40:34.920 singing background. I think you probably saw how much I 0:40:34.960 --> 0:40:37.600 loved it. And he's like, no, we gotta treat treat you, 0:40:37.680 --> 0:40:41.439 gotta treat this fellow humility. And uh so he would 0:40:41.520 --> 0:40:43.319 kind of he would have me sing background, and I never, 0:40:43.440 --> 0:40:46.280 So I never never thought I was much of a singer, 0:40:46.440 --> 0:40:50.239 you know, so I never really got that until I 0:40:50.280 --> 0:40:52.759 went to open mics. But yeah, it was around. I 0:40:52.760 --> 0:40:54.160 was around it a lot. 0:40:54.400 --> 0:40:58.160 Okay, At what point, I mean when you talk about 0:40:58.160 --> 0:41:04.520 owning remaining late, what starts this transition into secular music? 0:41:05.160 --> 0:41:06.799 How do you discover what goes on? 0:41:07.400 --> 0:41:09.000 Well, I mean really, for me, what it was is 0:41:09.040 --> 0:41:10.960 once you kind of get out of that world, right, 0:41:11.160 --> 0:41:14.800 you get out of that small kind of religious world, 0:41:14.840 --> 0:41:18.120 it was just kind of an explosion of of like 0:41:18.360 --> 0:41:21.680 music discovery, right, And I'm just like, and it's gonna 0:41:21.719 --> 0:41:24.680 be bad. And I know I shouldn't say this, but 0:41:24.760 --> 0:41:31.200 it was the time of of pirrating music, so you 0:41:31.200 --> 0:41:33.239 know what I mean, So I could. I had I 0:41:33.280 --> 0:41:37.480 had an external hard drive with I mean millions of stuff, 0:41:37.480 --> 0:41:39.440 you know what I mean, and I just downloaded and 0:41:39.560 --> 0:41:42.440 listen to it and listen to it and listen to it. Really, 0:41:42.440 --> 0:41:45.440 what's really funny is one of the people that I 0:41:45.520 --> 0:41:48.040 really loved after this kind of you know, you go 0:41:48.080 --> 0:41:50.360 read a magazine or you know what I mean, and 0:41:50.400 --> 0:41:52.160 you would just kind of go all over the place. 0:41:52.600 --> 0:41:54.520 One of the people I really loved that was that 0:41:54.680 --> 0:41:57.120 was really and I'm glad I do because now it's 0:41:57.160 --> 0:42:00.439 it's funny. It's Tom Waits. And the reason I tom 0:42:00.480 --> 0:42:03.000 Waits is because when I would listen to his records, 0:42:03.360 --> 0:42:05.520 it sounded like the old lady in our church who 0:42:05.520 --> 0:42:09.440 played played, uh, played piano, and I got this, like 0:42:10.040 --> 0:42:13.960 his style kind of match some of it. And so 0:42:14.200 --> 0:42:16.359 I just I devoured everything, you know what I mean, 0:42:16.360 --> 0:42:19.400 because you could at that time like I just devoured everything, 0:42:19.480 --> 0:42:21.560 and so I would just I think I still have 0:42:21.600 --> 0:42:23.680 that hard drive somewhere. This is all of everything. So 0:42:23.719 --> 0:42:26.359 I loved. What was interesting for me is I love 0:42:26.440 --> 0:42:29.080 the stuff that made my ears perk up a little bit, 0:42:29.560 --> 0:42:32.640 you know what I mean. That wasn't so like standard things, 0:42:32.719 --> 0:42:35.960 and so obviously something like talking heads that made you go, 0:42:36.000 --> 0:42:38.600 oh what what's that? And so I kind of fell 0:42:38.640 --> 0:42:41.440 in love with that. And so that's that was the journey, 0:42:41.440 --> 0:42:44.080 and it was it became, no kidding, an obsession. And 0:42:44.120 --> 0:42:47.240 I'm talking when I woke up, I listened to music, 0:42:47.480 --> 0:42:49.000 you know, go in the bed, I mean from all 0:42:49.160 --> 0:42:52.839 when I could cut the grass and listen with my headphones. Man, 0:42:53.360 --> 0:42:55.359 that was it my favorite thing to do. We would 0:42:55.480 --> 0:42:58.080 escort the big equipment in Alabama, you know, big old 0:42:58.120 --> 0:42:59.960 pavers and stuff, and I'd get to escort them with 0:43:00.040 --> 0:43:03.719 my little truck, and man, I'd listen to records all day, 0:43:04.040 --> 0:43:07.600 all day. And that's really kind of where it began. 0:43:08.680 --> 0:43:12.880 Okay, just to get the timing right. Did this start 0:43:12.960 --> 0:43:15.400 when your appearents got divorced or you moved in with 0:43:15.480 --> 0:43:17.439 your father? When did this transition happen? 0:43:17.480 --> 0:43:18.839 I think when it moved in when I moved in 0:43:18.840 --> 0:43:22.280 with dad, because I was he wasn't in the community anymore, 0:43:22.360 --> 0:43:24.680 you know what I mean, Like he was outside of it, 0:43:24.719 --> 0:43:27.319 and you just you feel lost, You feel lost at sea. 0:43:27.360 --> 0:43:31.440 And music has always kind of been that that that 0:43:32.560 --> 0:43:35.000 compass to kind of lead you in the right direction 0:43:35.160 --> 0:43:37.000 or or I mean, you know, we all that. I 0:43:37.040 --> 0:43:40.040 think that's why we all we all have flashbowl memories 0:43:40.080 --> 0:43:42.960 of music and albums and songs and and so that's 0:43:42.960 --> 0:43:45.880 where music just kind of it always felt somewhat spiritual 0:43:45.920 --> 0:43:46.080 to me. 0:43:47.480 --> 0:43:50.759 Okay, when you were going to these open mics, where 0:43:50.800 --> 0:43:52.760 were the open mics? And what were you doing? 0:43:54.400 --> 0:43:56.360 They were open mind? There was I think there was 0:43:56.360 --> 0:43:59.040 a place called the Oasis Bar that was I think 0:43:59.080 --> 0:44:00.640 I was the first one I did down in Burma. 0:44:00.719 --> 0:44:02.560 It was just in Birmingham. I mean I never played 0:44:02.600 --> 0:44:03.080 anywhere else. 0:44:03.200 --> 0:44:06.560 Okay, just so I understand, Chelsea is like forty five 0:44:06.600 --> 0:44:10.160 minutes from Birmingham. When you move in with your father, 0:44:10.320 --> 0:44:11.840 how far from Birmingham are you? 0:44:12.360 --> 0:44:16.160 I think it's like fifteen fifteen minutes. Oh close, close, Yeah, 0:44:16.200 --> 0:44:17.960 it was close. It was close to downtown. 0:44:18.120 --> 0:44:20.400 And so when you would go to these open mics, 0:44:20.520 --> 0:44:22.359 you had a car, how'd you get there? 0:44:22.480 --> 0:44:24.319 I did have a car. I did have a car 0:44:24.400 --> 0:44:27.160 for a little bit. You know, you'd bum ridse with 0:44:27.280 --> 0:44:28.960 friends or whatever you needed to do. 0:44:29.080 --> 0:44:33.080 Okay, so you find out there's an open mic, you 0:44:33.239 --> 0:44:35.480 go there, no one knows who are you sign up? 0:44:36.080 --> 0:44:39.960 It's your little time on stage. What do you actually do? Uh? 0:44:40.600 --> 0:44:42.680 Funny enough, you would think, oh, he'd probably do a 0:44:42.719 --> 0:44:45.279 cover or two. I would play songs I wrote, and 0:44:45.280 --> 0:44:47.520 that was it. That's us all. That's the only reason 0:44:47.600 --> 0:44:50.680 I learned to play guitar was the right songs I wrote. 0:44:51.040 --> 0:44:52.840 Just to be clear, when did you pick up the 0:44:52.840 --> 0:44:54.240 guitar and start writing songs? 0:44:54.880 --> 0:44:57.440 It's funny enough. I'm in church when I was about 0:44:57.719 --> 0:45:00.800 I'd say about thirteen started playing guitar. 0:45:02.640 --> 0:45:07.240 Okay, you're living with your father, you own a guitar, 0:45:07.960 --> 0:45:12.440 you're writing songs. What is the thought process of going 0:45:12.480 --> 0:45:16.000 to the open mic because you are going to expose yourself? 0:45:16.480 --> 0:45:17.680 What was going through your head? 0:45:18.800 --> 0:45:20.440 I think it was just an outlet, you know what 0:45:20.520 --> 0:45:22.800 I mean? Like I remember, because you know, I would 0:45:23.040 --> 0:45:26.520 I preached in church a little bit, and I love 0:45:26.920 --> 0:45:30.360 that kind of performance thing. And there was something about 0:45:30.440 --> 0:45:33.520 about me internally that just really loved that performing in 0:45:33.560 --> 0:45:36.480 front of people. And and I mean I was nervous 0:45:36.520 --> 0:45:39.640 as hell, don't get me wrong, but I just had 0:45:39.680 --> 0:45:41.960 that something within me is like, hey, I really enjoy this. 0:45:42.560 --> 0:45:44.960 It brings me a lot of joy. Go do it. 0:45:45.040 --> 0:45:46.680 And I would go do it, and then then I'd 0:45:46.680 --> 0:45:47.080 go do it. 0:45:48.080 --> 0:45:50.319 Okay. How many times did you go to the open mic? 0:45:50.440 --> 0:45:51.920 Oh? I don't know. It was a lot. 0:45:52.760 --> 0:45:55.719 Okay, so you went. How long would they play? How 0:45:55.760 --> 0:45:58.040 many people were there? And what kind of reaction did 0:45:58.080 --> 0:45:59.399 your original material get? 0:46:00.320 --> 0:46:03.480 Uh? It would vary. Sometimes there'd be three people there 0:46:03.520 --> 0:46:05.920 and sometimes there'd be twenty people there. You know, it 0:46:05.960 --> 0:46:09.799 was whatever. I think that's when I realized, Okay, maybe 0:46:09.840 --> 0:46:12.560 I'm not a bad singer because I wasn't a great 0:46:12.560 --> 0:46:14.560 guitar player as good enough, you know what I mean. 0:46:15.000 --> 0:46:18.880 But it got a reaction and people would woo or whatever, 0:46:18.880 --> 0:46:23.040 and I was like, oh, okay, maybe maybe I got something, 0:46:23.080 --> 0:46:27.000 you know what I mean. And so you kinda try 0:46:27.040 --> 0:46:29.879 and I don't know deal with Oh. 0:46:29.960 --> 0:46:34.360 Okay, did you find you got a reaction pretty quickly 0:46:35.160 --> 0:46:37.600 or deeper in your mic appearances? 0:46:37.800 --> 0:46:40.760 It was pretty immediate. It was pretty immediate. 0:46:41.719 --> 0:46:45.040 Okay, that feels good, but you're not the only one 0:46:45.080 --> 0:46:48.000 on stage. When you were over, do you say, well, 0:46:48.080 --> 0:46:51.759 that felt good and I'm pretty good or that felt good, 0:46:52.200 --> 0:46:55.080 but Jesus, the ten other people are better than me. 0:46:58.000 --> 0:47:02.800 This is funny. I remember being like I'd see somebody 0:47:02.840 --> 0:47:06.760 and I mean, I think I sing better than this person, 0:47:07.120 --> 0:47:08.560 you know what I mean. You would do that kind 0:47:08.600 --> 0:47:13.680 of thing because I do have an internal competition type thing, 0:47:13.760 --> 0:47:16.399 which as you, I think you kind of get older, 0:47:16.440 --> 0:47:18.680 you kind of just have to realize you focus on yourself. 0:47:18.719 --> 0:47:21.000 But there was still at that time like, oh man, 0:47:21.160 --> 0:47:24.080 like there'd be people doing well, you know what I mean, 0:47:24.239 --> 0:47:26.640 and I think I think I could do better, you 0:47:26.680 --> 0:47:28.720 know what I'm saying. You'd have that mechanism area. 0:47:29.360 --> 0:47:31.880 Just to go back, when you're going to school, are 0:47:31.920 --> 0:47:35.040 you playing sports, are you doing competition or you're more 0:47:35.160 --> 0:47:35.879 stitting at home. 0:47:36.440 --> 0:47:37.719 Well, when I was in high school, I did. I 0:47:37.760 --> 0:47:39.080 definitely played played sports. 0:47:40.360 --> 0:47:51.319 But after that, no, okay, we're in this game. And 0:47:51.400 --> 0:47:53.520 how do you meet the woman who becomes your wife? 0:47:54.160 --> 0:47:55.640 I went on a date with a roommate. 0:47:55.960 --> 0:47:57.400 How did you end up going out a date with 0:47:57.440 --> 0:47:58.000 a roommate? 0:47:58.960 --> 0:48:01.120 It's a laws. I look, man, I was in a 0:48:01.120 --> 0:48:05.200 long relationship. I I you know, I'm I'm I'm a 0:48:05.440 --> 0:48:07.759 serial monogamous. I guess is the best way to say. 0:48:08.040 --> 0:48:13.080 Uh I? Uh I. I got out of long term 0:48:13.120 --> 0:48:15.839 relationship and it felt really lost because the music thing 0:48:15.880 --> 0:48:18.239 hadn't happened, and I wasn't you know, I was in 0:48:18.239 --> 0:48:23.080 her weird place. And so through mutual friends meet her roommate. 0:48:24.440 --> 0:48:26.359 I'm not sure I was exactly ready to go out 0:48:26.400 --> 0:48:29.880 on the date. Went on one date, and uh, Caroline 0:48:29.960 --> 0:48:33.719 was there at her at the at the the her 0:48:33.760 --> 0:48:36.719 friends have they lived together, and I was like, man, 0:48:36.920 --> 0:48:38.920 I like that girl. But I've already you know what 0:48:38.920 --> 0:48:42.160 I mean, I've already that this has already happened, you know, like, 0:48:42.239 --> 0:48:44.719 it's we've already went on a date. I don't know, 0:48:44.800 --> 0:48:47.320 And then I knew pretty pretty much. I was like, 0:48:47.480 --> 0:48:49.000 I don't know if this is for me. I don't 0:48:49.320 --> 0:48:51.920 I still probably wasn't in the best place to be 0:48:52.000 --> 0:48:54.040 dating anybody, and I don't you don't even really know 0:48:54.160 --> 0:48:56.920 for roommate was that interested. But Caroline I liked and 0:48:57.040 --> 0:49:01.480 I thought she's really smart and beautiful, and she she 0:49:01.560 --> 0:49:03.640 had a scholarship to go to Georgetown to get her 0:49:03.680 --> 0:49:07.440 masters and I just thought, this girl is so above me, 0:49:07.560 --> 0:49:11.440 class and just classy and just really kind. All these 0:49:11.440 --> 0:49:14.680 things right, all the all the things, and uh so 0:49:14.760 --> 0:49:17.680 about I'd say about I'd say about six months later, 0:49:17.800 --> 0:49:22.120 we start kind of I don't know, texting or something, 0:49:22.160 --> 0:49:24.000 you know what I mean, where you start going okay, 0:49:25.000 --> 0:49:27.880 And then we were like, uh oh, I think I 0:49:27.960 --> 0:49:29.799 think we're I think we're into each other, all right, 0:49:29.840 --> 0:49:32.640 So how do we navigate this? And she was leaving 0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:35.840 no jokes, she was leaving two months for DC. She 0:49:35.960 --> 0:49:37.960 was in Birmingham and she was leaving for two months 0:49:38.440 --> 0:49:39.920 or she was leaving it two months to go to 0:49:39.960 --> 0:49:43.359 school to get her master's at Georgetown. And so we 0:49:43.360 --> 0:49:44.839 were hanging out a lot, you know what I mean, 0:49:44.880 --> 0:49:46.160 And we were kind of can I think we like 0:49:46.239 --> 0:49:48.200 each other and so on and so forth. Then when 0:49:48.200 --> 0:49:50.759 she moved to d C. We both said hey, cause 0:49:50.760 --> 0:49:53.920 I was like, I you do not. I am unemployed 0:49:53.960 --> 0:49:56.400 living with my dad. You do not need to stay 0:49:56.440 --> 0:49:59.319 here for me, you know what I mean, like go 0:49:59.360 --> 0:50:03.160 to go oh, go to Georgetown, right and uh and 0:50:03.200 --> 0:50:05.080 then we said, hey, we'll see what happens, you know, 0:50:05.160 --> 0:50:07.960 Like time she moved to Georgetown in about two weeks 0:50:08.000 --> 0:50:10.200 in we were like, uh, we gotta do the long 0:50:10.280 --> 0:50:13.040 distance thing. And that's what we did and uh and 0:50:13.120 --> 0:50:15.000 so it all worked out. 0:50:15.360 --> 0:50:18.759 Okay, where did she go up to undergrad. 0:50:18.880 --> 0:50:21.960 To Sandford University which is a private university in Birmingham. 0:50:22.760 --> 0:50:25.359 And did she stick it out at Georgetown? You did? 0:50:25.560 --> 0:50:28.560 You got a full ride and got her masters and 0:50:28.640 --> 0:50:34.040 want to her masters in literature. Okay, just to go 0:50:34.160 --> 0:50:38.080 back a step, you say you're a serial monogamous. So 0:50:38.160 --> 0:50:42.080 you're someone who had a lot of girlfriends before Caroline. No, 0:50:42.239 --> 0:50:45.279 I I've just I was pretty I was kind of 0:50:45.280 --> 0:50:47.160 a one woman kind of guy. Though. If I was in, 0:50:47.640 --> 0:50:49.720 I was in, you know what I mean, Like probably 0:50:49.719 --> 0:50:52.120 you know what I mean I was in like I 0:50:52.120 --> 0:50:54.560 I was like very loyal and and that kind of 0:50:54.560 --> 0:50:58.080 thing may be the wrong terminology for it, but that's 0:50:58.320 --> 0:50:59.160 that's how I was. 0:51:00.760 --> 0:51:03.480 But you weren't. I mean, there are a lot of 0:51:03.480 --> 0:51:06.640 people I was sitting home playing the guitar, too scared 0:51:06.680 --> 0:51:09.279 to talk to girls. It wasn't until I was a star. 0:51:09.600 --> 0:51:12.640 You were with the ladies all long. 0:51:13.000 --> 0:51:17.560 Yeah. Yeah, I had girlfriends previous of being in St. 0:51:17.560 --> 0:51:18.400 Paul and Brother Bones. 0:51:18.480 --> 0:51:24.000 Yes, so you Caroline is your age older younger. She's 0:51:24.000 --> 0:51:28.759 three years younger, three years younger. Okay, so when you 0:51:28.840 --> 0:51:32.360 meet her, she's like twenty two and you're like twenty five. 0:51:33.360 --> 0:51:35.399 I would say I was. It was more like I 0:51:35.440 --> 0:51:39.000 was twenties. Well, yeah, that's that's close. That's actually yeah, 0:51:39.000 --> 0:51:42.040 you're right, GotY Jesus, we've known each other that long. 0:51:42.080 --> 0:51:47.480 Wow, Okay, Okay, she finishes grad school. What does she 0:51:47.640 --> 0:51:48.080 then do? 0:51:49.520 --> 0:51:51.960 So she had a lot, you know, a lot more 0:51:51.960 --> 0:51:55.480 options than I did. She knew she wanted to come 0:51:55.520 --> 0:51:58.400 back to Birmingham because we had, you know, we were dating. 0:51:58.400 --> 0:51:59.960 We were pretty I mean obviously at that point, very 0:52:00.080 --> 0:52:04.040 seriously dating. So she comes back to Birmingham and she 0:52:04.239 --> 0:52:10.680 goes back to she works for Sanford University. She works there. 0:52:11.040 --> 0:52:12.880 I can't remember her exact role. I know that she 0:52:13.000 --> 0:52:18.040 ended up being the associate director of the Honors program 0:52:18.160 --> 0:52:22.200 of the Honors college there, and so that's what she 0:52:22.320 --> 0:52:23.960 ended up doing for a while. 0:52:25.120 --> 0:52:31.560 Okay, you're living with your dad. What does she say? 0:52:32.160 --> 0:52:34.400 Did she say it? I like you, but you gotta 0:52:34.440 --> 0:52:36.239 get it together. You got to go to school. How 0:52:36.239 --> 0:52:37.840 did you end up going to community college? What was 0:52:37.920 --> 0:52:38.600 going on there? 0:52:38.760 --> 0:52:42.520 That's exactly what happened. So she I always tell this 0:52:42.520 --> 0:52:45.759 story her. She's from Bristol, Tennessee, and I go up 0:52:45.800 --> 0:52:47.560 there to meet her parents, and her parents are some 0:52:47.600 --> 0:52:50.080 of the sweetest, best people in the world. And I 0:52:50.120 --> 0:52:52.840 had only two outfits for three days and her parents 0:52:52.880 --> 0:52:56.080 cried when they met me because they were like, this 0:52:56.239 --> 0:53:00.960 is the guy you bring home. This is it. It's unemployed. 0:53:01.600 --> 0:53:04.000 You know, I ain't got no ambit, doesn't seem like 0:53:04.160 --> 0:53:07.640 anything's going for him or anything. And she saw I mean, 0:53:07.800 --> 0:53:10.480 I I it is true that it is. She's the 0:53:10.560 --> 0:53:13.360 reason why this happened because she had a little faith 0:53:13.400 --> 0:53:17.520 in me. But yeah, that basically what happened was she 0:53:17.640 --> 0:53:20.879 was like, hey, I really like you, but you got 0:53:20.880 --> 0:53:23.279 to get a job, like you gotta have something going on. 0:53:23.800 --> 0:53:26.640 And she's like and I was like, yeah, you're right. 0:53:26.640 --> 0:53:28.400 I mean, she was right, And I didn't realize it 0:53:28.400 --> 0:53:30.239 at the time. I was probably depressed, you know what 0:53:30.320 --> 0:53:32.759 I mean. But you don't realize it necessarily when you're 0:53:32.760 --> 0:53:34.680 in it, and then you get out of you Oh, 0:53:34.800 --> 0:53:36.840 that's definitely not in a good place, you know what 0:53:36.920 --> 0:53:40.719 I mean. So, yeah, I worked at a job. I 0:53:40.760 --> 0:53:42.440 worked at it. I got a job at a phibit 0:53:42.480 --> 0:53:47.560 sporting good store, a sporting good store, making less working 0:53:47.600 --> 0:53:51.080 at sporting good short store than I wasn't unemployment and uh, 0:53:51.280 --> 0:53:53.840 which you know. But and then went to community and decided, 0:53:53.840 --> 0:53:56.280 all right, I really got to do something. If I'm 0:53:56.280 --> 0:53:59.120 going to keep this girl, I gotta I got So 0:53:59.160 --> 0:54:02.279 I went to community college in Birmingham. 0:54:02.840 --> 0:54:04.880 So how long did you go to school that time? 0:54:05.280 --> 0:54:08.800 I went for two years, I guess, however you graduate 0:54:08.840 --> 0:54:10.799 community college or however, you know what I mean, like, 0:54:11.360 --> 0:54:15.440 however that works. And then and then went to UAB 0:54:15.560 --> 0:54:19.680 which is a you know, a four year university for accounting, 0:54:19.920 --> 0:54:24.160 and lasted I think two semesters there and then and 0:54:24.200 --> 0:54:27.359 then the then my life got blown up with the band. 0:54:29.280 --> 0:54:33.920 Okay, you have a four year old, how do you 0:54:34.080 --> 0:54:36.680 ultimately decide to have a kid, because it's not soon 0:54:36.719 --> 0:54:38.360 after you meet her. 0:54:39.080 --> 0:54:41.200 Well, I mean when we first met, I don't think 0:54:41.400 --> 0:54:43.200 kids were a thing that we were thinking about. I 0:54:43.239 --> 0:54:48.160 think we were both fairly ambitious maybe, and we were 0:54:48.200 --> 0:54:52.160 just like you know, I always tell the story though 0:54:52.560 --> 0:54:55.200 we uh, we played a show, We played some shows 0:54:55.200 --> 0:54:58.680 in Japan and my wife, my wife came and we 0:54:59.120 --> 0:55:02.520 did like a full week of Japan and we'd already 0:55:02.520 --> 0:55:04.880 traveled and gotten to do all this amazing stuff, you know, 0:55:04.960 --> 0:55:07.440 the band, the band and her job at that point, 0:55:08.320 --> 0:55:12.120 and we both were like, Okay, we've done about it. 0:55:12.400 --> 0:55:16.480 I've lived ten lifetimes at this point, I think, and 0:55:16.640 --> 0:55:18.520 we were like, if we're gonna have a kid, this 0:55:18.640 --> 0:55:22.520 is the time to do it. And we did and it, 0:55:22.719 --> 0:55:25.000 I mean, as everyone said, the most cliche thing was 0:55:25.000 --> 0:55:27.680 the best decision we ever made. And all of the right, 0:55:27.760 --> 0:55:30.600 all those things right, and it is, it's it's the 0:55:30.640 --> 0:55:32.440 good thing is And what I love is that my 0:55:32.560 --> 0:55:35.840 daughter is growing up in a house of love, you 0:55:35.880 --> 0:55:37.719 know what I mean? And that's I don't I don't 0:55:37.840 --> 0:55:40.239 everybody not everybody gets that, and I think that's a 0:55:40.280 --> 0:55:42.839 really beautiful thing. But yeah, that's it was. Yeah, that's 0:55:42.880 --> 0:55:45.759 when we Japan will always hold a special place in 0:55:45.800 --> 0:55:48.479 my heart because that's kind of when we decided, all right, 0:55:49.360 --> 0:55:49.960 let's do this. 0:55:51.360 --> 0:55:55.560 Okay, Saint Paul and the broken bones starts to happen. 0:55:56.080 --> 0:56:00.360 Does your wife continue to work? Is she's still working now? 0:56:00.960 --> 0:56:04.600 Yes? She she? I mean she had to. I mean, 0:56:05.480 --> 0:56:07.920 you know, this our business, like I make a decent 0:56:08.000 --> 0:56:10.920 living and I live in Alabama, but it ain't you 0:56:10.960 --> 0:56:14.440 know what I mean, we make it work and uh 0:56:14.480 --> 0:56:16.720 so we have we have to have two incomes though. 0:56:17.680 --> 0:56:21.200 I mean, unfortunately, my wife moved to the nonprofit sector 0:56:21.560 --> 0:56:24.120 here recently, you know, not you know a few years ago, 0:56:24.800 --> 0:56:28.040 and unfortunately, as I'm sure a lot of people know, 0:56:28.080 --> 0:56:34.360 that sector has been decimated here, uh since January. And 0:56:35.000 --> 0:56:38.480 so she is, she's she's she's sad to start her 0:56:38.480 --> 0:56:41.640 own thing and everything, but she yeah, she's been. I'm 0:56:41.680 --> 0:56:43.799 proud of her. But it's been a it's been a 0:56:43.800 --> 0:56:44.520 long journey. 0:56:45.560 --> 0:56:50.200 Okay. Alabama is a unique place. I certainly know people 0:56:50.280 --> 0:56:55.120 live in Birmingham, very sophisticated. Okay, but when it comes 0:56:55.160 --> 0:57:00.200 to states and esteem and the rest of the population 0:57:00.400 --> 0:57:05.160 you got there, Mississippi, Alabama, maybe Louisiana. So tell us 0:57:05.200 --> 0:57:07.919 about Alabama and what people who don't live there don't 0:57:07.920 --> 0:57:08.640 get about it. 0:57:09.160 --> 0:57:13.960 What they don't get about it. People can be really 0:57:14.080 --> 0:57:18.680 kind here. I know, Southern hospitality is a real thing. 0:57:20.760 --> 0:57:24.680 I think that you. I think people would be surprised 0:57:24.840 --> 0:57:28.560 by you know, there's if when your neighbors with somebody 0:57:28.600 --> 0:57:31.440 like you would take the shirt off your back and 0:57:31.440 --> 0:57:33.080 and help, you know what I mean, and help people. 0:57:33.120 --> 0:57:36.840 I think that's part of it. Uh though I don't 0:57:37.480 --> 0:57:39.840 it's funny. I think a lot of people go they 0:57:40.280 --> 0:57:43.400 go to the intelligent stuff. But I like to point 0:57:43.400 --> 0:57:46.440 out that we build, you know, build rockets in Huntsville, 0:57:47.440 --> 0:57:50.480 so we have literal rockets, scientists that live in the state. 0:57:50.840 --> 0:57:53.640 So it isn't all you know what I mean. It 0:57:53.640 --> 0:57:58.840 ain't all overalls and hayseeds and racism, you know. So 0:57:59.280 --> 0:58:03.640 it's a it's a I I have my issues with it, 0:58:03.680 --> 0:58:08.200 of course I live here, but I also it's a 0:58:08.200 --> 0:58:13.200 beautiful state. I have, it's affordable and you can have 0:58:13.720 --> 0:58:16.400 I mean, to me, what's really interesting is in Birmingham 0:58:16.400 --> 0:58:18.560 we have one of the best hospitals in the country. 0:58:19.080 --> 0:58:23.040 We have great education in Birmingham or you know, around Birmingham. 0:58:23.160 --> 0:58:27.919 So I think people it's honestly like it's a great 0:58:28.080 --> 0:58:30.480 it is. It is a great place to live. And 0:58:30.560 --> 0:58:33.240 I don't think I think people kind of him in Hall, 0:58:33.360 --> 0:58:38.200 especially up in the northeast. But it's like, no, there 0:58:38.200 --> 0:58:41.280 are good things that happen here, and there's also bad 0:58:41.320 --> 0:58:42.200 things that happen here. 0:58:43.720 --> 0:58:47.040 Okay, you have this buddy. The buddy says he's gonna 0:58:47.080 --> 0:58:51.680 move on, let's record our stuff as an EP. What 0:58:51.840 --> 0:58:52.720 happens then. 0:58:54.920 --> 0:58:57.920 Well, uh he he is the social butterfly, so he 0:58:58.000 --> 0:59:00.160 knows everybody else is gonna play on the record, and 0:59:00.200 --> 0:59:05.800 so he browan who's the guitar player in this band? Alan, 0:59:05.920 --> 0:59:07.760 who's the trumpet player in this band? And he knew 0:59:07.800 --> 0:59:13.520 the trombone player and the drummer. And we all, you know, 0:59:13.560 --> 0:59:15.160 we had to see it through, you know what I mean. 0:59:15.160 --> 0:59:17.840 Once we started making it, we went, uh oh, we 0:59:17.880 --> 0:59:18.840 got to see this through. 0:59:19.240 --> 0:59:21.200 Okay, let me let me just stop for a second. 0:59:21.600 --> 0:59:24.040 You're with the woman. She becomes your wife at some point, 0:59:24.080 --> 0:59:27.480 I don't know when, but you're with hers solidly you're 0:59:27.560 --> 0:59:31.360 going to school. What is going on in your musical life? 0:59:31.760 --> 0:59:34.960 Are you still playing open? What is going on before 0:59:35.000 --> 0:59:36.280 you decide to make this EP? 0:59:36.640 --> 0:59:39.000 Me and Jesse are playing together, and we'd play at 0:59:39.000 --> 0:59:41.400 his house and we'd do little coffee shop events and 0:59:41.400 --> 0:59:44.080 stuff like that, Like there's really not It wasn't anything 0:59:44.080 --> 0:59:52.560 of major scale for sure, and so we we we 0:59:52.600 --> 0:59:54.680 are just doing that and we'd I played his house 0:59:54.720 --> 0:59:55.600 and so on and so forth. 0:59:55.680 --> 1:00:02.000 Okay, is the dream there at all? Is it still there? 1:00:02.760 --> 1:00:07.240 Is the hunger still there? What's going through your mind? 1:00:07.280 --> 1:00:10.080 The dream was to sell out a Bottle Tree Cafe 1:00:10.160 --> 1:00:14.880 in Birmingham, Alabama, which was a two hundred and ten 1:00:14.960 --> 1:00:19.600 cap room. That was the dream. I mean, to this day, 1:00:20.200 --> 1:00:22.280 the only thing I have framed from our career is 1:00:22.320 --> 1:00:24.480 the sold out sign when we sold that place out 1:00:24.480 --> 1:00:30.720 one time. That was the dream. So it's I don't 1:00:30.720 --> 1:00:33.760 want to say your goals changed though, right Like you 1:00:33.800 --> 1:00:36.560 accomplish that and you go, all right, what's next? And 1:00:36.600 --> 1:00:39.520 then it was like, oh, really I work security at Bonnaroo. 1:00:39.520 --> 1:00:41.200 I want to play Bonnaroe. W Well, we played Bonnarue 1:00:41.200 --> 1:00:43.480 in twenty fourteen, and then you know, and now the 1:00:43.840 --> 1:00:47.080 goal is Red Rocks and we and we want to 1:00:47.120 --> 1:00:49.520 headline Red Rocks. That's the goal now with this band. 1:00:49.880 --> 1:00:52.400 And so we've just changed the goals. So the U 1:00:52.760 --> 1:00:56.200 the drive's still there. The drive still there is just 1:00:56.240 --> 1:00:59.640 we just have had to change the goals a few times, 1:00:59.680 --> 1:01:00.800 which is an amazing feeling. 1:01:01.800 --> 1:01:07.680 Okay, let's go back, you're gonna record this EP. Jesse's 1:01:07.680 --> 1:01:12.480 a social butterfly, starts pulling the people together. So what happens? 1:01:13.080 --> 1:01:16.680 So we do a so we're you know, we we 1:01:16.840 --> 1:01:20.040 start selling selling real tickets in Birmingham, you know what 1:01:20.080 --> 1:01:21.600 I mean? Like we did what? 1:01:22.040 --> 1:01:24.760 Whoa wha wha wait wait you're playing with Jesse in 1:01:24.800 --> 1:01:28.280 his house. Yeah, how do you end up selling tickets? 1:01:28.360 --> 1:01:30.520 Is the EP done and people wear the EP? Or 1:01:30.520 --> 1:01:31.360 do you start playing out? 1:01:31.360 --> 1:01:33.080 How do you start playing out? We started the EP, 1:01:33.320 --> 1:01:35.880 you know, it's not really done, but we start playing out. 1:01:36.240 --> 1:01:38.400 And is it a big band? Like it turns out 1:01:38.400 --> 1:01:38.600 to be? 1:01:38.760 --> 1:01:41.720 Yeah, it's it was at that point. I think it 1:01:41.840 --> 1:01:44.000 was six At that point. I don't think we had 1:01:44.040 --> 1:01:47.040 it and it's all original material, all original material for 1:01:47.040 --> 1:01:50.000 the most part. Now we did because we played the 1:01:50.040 --> 1:01:54.080 same place like once every two weeks, which is not 1:01:54.440 --> 1:01:57.320 just supposed to do right. We did start doing things 1:01:57.400 --> 1:02:01.840 where we would do like Otis Blo in its entirety 1:02:02.120 --> 1:02:06.120 or a Wilson Pickett record in its entirety, just to 1:02:06.240 --> 1:02:08.400 like change it up, you know what I mean, like 1:02:09.000 --> 1:02:11.120 chant chant, to do something different. So we did that. 1:02:12.120 --> 1:02:15.320 We did that as well. So but for a large 1:02:15.320 --> 1:02:18.160 part of it was I mean, we we were touring on. 1:02:18.280 --> 1:02:21.040 We were doing original materials then throwing a cover in there, 1:02:21.560 --> 1:02:22.560 you know, ever so often. 1:02:23.320 --> 1:02:27.280 Okay, so what's the timeline you start to make this record? 1:02:27.680 --> 1:02:30.800 You have a band, you start playing out, how long 1:02:30.840 --> 1:02:33.040 does it take till the record is finished? And then 1:02:33.080 --> 1:02:34.120 what happens after that? 1:02:34.400 --> 1:02:36.960 So the EP gets done, it's a pretty easy you 1:02:37.000 --> 1:02:39.360 know that there's nobody's releasing it. We just have it. 1:02:39.400 --> 1:02:42.960 We own it. There's nothing nothing to it, right, We're 1:02:43.080 --> 1:02:46.720 we're not chasing management or anything like that. We just 1:02:47.000 --> 1:02:50.520 have it. Uh. But what's interesting is we had a 1:02:50.520 --> 1:02:55.240 friend of Jesse's or a friend of ours, had this 1:02:55.520 --> 1:02:59.320 I think it was called Rhythm and Roots televised thing 1:02:59.400 --> 1:03:03.680 and Nash and that that's it was. And she had 1:03:03.720 --> 1:03:06.120 reached out to Jesse and was like, hey, would y'all 1:03:06.160 --> 1:03:09.919 be interested in doing this, and and we were like, sure, 1:03:10.080 --> 1:03:12.880 why not? And so, I mean, there's the clips out 1:03:12.880 --> 1:03:14.960 there of a song that we had to make up 1:03:14.960 --> 1:03:18.080 the day before because we didn't have enough material to play. 1:03:18.880 --> 1:03:24.360 But some uh are someone saw the video of us, 1:03:24.560 --> 1:03:26.520 said when that video went out, someone saw that video 1:03:27.120 --> 1:03:29.360 and they reached out and said and they knew Brown 1:03:30.480 --> 1:03:33.240 and they reached out and said, hey, is this serious? 1:03:33.240 --> 1:03:35.960 And and and it was uh, it was Tracy who 1:03:36.000 --> 1:03:39.480 was a manager, and she was you know, and she 1:03:39.480 --> 1:03:43.520 she uh then that then once she got involved, everything changed. 1:03:44.840 --> 1:03:50.000 Go tell me, well, I mean she she you know, 1:03:50.120 --> 1:03:54.000 she knew she had she she manages Jason Isbell and 1:03:54.120 --> 1:03:57.320 you know, Jason, Jason is what Jason is. At that time, 1:03:57.360 --> 1:03:59.560 he wasn't you know what I mean, he was just 1:03:59.640 --> 1:04:03.680 kind of starting for him. But she knew, she she 1:04:03.920 --> 1:04:05.440 you know, she knew like, hey, we got to get 1:04:05.440 --> 1:04:08.520 a booking agent. We have to you know, see what 1:04:08.560 --> 1:04:11.520 the label situation. But we had met funny enough, we 1:04:11.560 --> 1:04:16.640 had met single Lock a month or two before we 1:04:16.720 --> 1:04:19.600 met her. So we had single Locks like, hey, we'll 1:04:19.640 --> 1:04:22.560 get you a van. And we were like, okay, sounds great. 1:04:22.640 --> 1:04:25.400 That sounds like a great record deal. And so we 1:04:25.400 --> 1:04:27.960 we we did that. We we uh so we had 1:04:27.960 --> 1:04:30.320 to deal with them and made a record, then made 1:04:30.320 --> 1:04:33.720 a record with them and with Ben Tanner and so 1:04:34.960 --> 1:04:37.240 we you know, it was you had to navigate all 1:04:37.280 --> 1:04:38.880 that and it was just get on the road. 1:04:39.960 --> 1:04:42.919 Okay, Just could be clear. How did Single Lock find 1:04:42.920 --> 1:04:45.000 out about you? And how many gigs had you done 1:04:45.040 --> 1:04:46.000 before they did? 1:04:46.360 --> 1:04:50.360 How many ge We had only done maybe fifteen to 1:04:50.440 --> 1:04:53.560 twenty gigs before Single Lock found out about us, which 1:04:53.680 --> 1:04:56.160 wasn't a lot that not as a band. You know, 1:04:56.320 --> 1:04:58.600 everybody else in the band had played, you know, ton 1:04:58.840 --> 1:05:01.640 I had, but as a band, we hadn't played a lot. 1:05:01.760 --> 1:05:05.720 So but single locke Ben Tanner and you know browing 1:05:06.200 --> 1:05:08.840 the guitar players from Muscle shoals from that area, so 1:05:09.040 --> 1:05:12.120 from Florence and so he he knew Ben and they 1:05:12.200 --> 1:05:16.040 reached out and and uh and we were like, I 1:05:16.080 --> 1:05:20.120 mean nobody was, no one cared, you know what I'm saying, Like, 1:05:20.360 --> 1:05:23.040 no one cared. And so we were like, oh, yeah, 1:05:23.080 --> 1:05:26.080 someone's interested, and they're like gonna provide us free recording 1:05:26.120 --> 1:05:29.800 time and a free van, and it's like, yeah, these 1:05:29.840 --> 1:05:32.520 are our guys. And then then that happened, and then 1:05:32.520 --> 1:05:36.080 I would say about two months later we Tracy, Tracy 1:05:36.240 --> 1:05:39.720 found out about us, and it kind of all but 1:05:39.840 --> 1:05:43.000 it was just and then it was just like tour, 1:05:44.080 --> 1:05:44.720 get on the road. 1:05:44.760 --> 1:05:50.000 Wait a second, you have a professional manager, but it's 1:05:50.000 --> 1:05:52.000 not like you've been on the road regularly, have a 1:05:52.040 --> 1:05:53.640 lot of recordings. You want to tour. Who the hell 1:05:53.680 --> 1:05:55.320 is gonna book you? Where the hell you gonna play? 1:05:56.760 --> 1:06:02.160 Great question, my friend, that's a great question. Uh we 1:06:02.160 --> 1:06:05.680 we I mean we uh we were booking in our 1:06:05.720 --> 1:06:09.040 sales for a hot minute. But once Tracy got involved, 1:06:09.160 --> 1:06:11.080 it was very much like we got to get a 1:06:11.080 --> 1:06:15.520 booking agent to handle this. And and so once we 1:06:15.760 --> 1:06:18.320 it's went south by southwest you still did that thing, 1:06:18.480 --> 1:06:23.000 you know, and you'd go down there and we got 1:06:23.040 --> 1:06:26.720 hooked up with a high road touring Frank Riley and 1:06:26.760 --> 1:06:30.320 Brian Jonas and Brian's Brian's one of my favorite people 1:06:30.360 --> 1:06:32.640 on the planet and he's the books us to this day. 1:06:34.680 --> 1:06:38.160 And it was just anything and we did anything. We 1:06:38.200 --> 1:06:42.280 would We would play by Misfah's, we would play weddings, 1:06:42.320 --> 1:06:45.080 we would do if there was I mean, if there 1:06:45.160 --> 1:06:49.040 was money at all, anything we'd go do it, and 1:06:49.040 --> 1:06:51.600 and that really we had had a record. We'd had 1:06:51.600 --> 1:06:55.520 our debut record, Half the City, cut in January because 1:06:55.520 --> 1:06:59.680 the band started in July twenty twenty twelve, and then 1:06:59.720 --> 1:07:04.080 we had had a full length album recorded by January 1:07:04.160 --> 1:07:06.480 twenty thirteen. But we sat on that record for a 1:07:06.560 --> 1:07:09.320 whole year and toured on a record that wasn't out. 1:07:10.800 --> 1:07:12.120 When was the logic there? 1:07:13.000 --> 1:07:14.600 I think it was. I mean, I think it was 1:07:14.600 --> 1:07:16.240 just getting getting it. We were kind of, you know, 1:07:16.280 --> 1:07:19.560 we were greener than Goose shit, and we needed to 1:07:19.600 --> 1:07:22.040 get some shows under our belt. 1:07:22.800 --> 1:07:27.720 And in that year, how many times did the band play? 1:07:28.160 --> 1:07:33.640 Oh, I don't know, it was. I mean I know 1:07:33.720 --> 1:07:36.480 in twenty fourteen when Half the City came out, we 1:07:36.480 --> 1:07:39.919 were out three hundred days. 1:07:40.960 --> 1:07:54.280 Okay, just to stay there, let's go back. You have 1:07:54.320 --> 1:07:58.200 a professional manager, Tracy, you have this deal with single 1:07:58.240 --> 1:08:01.320 Locke sit on it for you. What does she then 1:08:01.480 --> 1:08:03.720 say about getting a record deal? 1:08:04.600 --> 1:08:06.400 Well, I mean we we had the single lock thing, 1:08:06.480 --> 1:08:08.360 so she's she. I think her thing was like, hey, 1:08:08.760 --> 1:08:11.320 we need to get thirty Tigers involved, and we did 1:08:11.880 --> 1:08:14.040 and they were a great partner, and so that really 1:08:14.120 --> 1:08:17.160 I think that process helped. So there that was the 1:08:17.439 --> 1:08:18.880 That was the label, you know what I mean, Single 1:08:18.920 --> 1:08:22.439 lock was the label. And and then thirty Tigers came 1:08:22.479 --> 1:08:25.439 in and I think helped with a lot of a 1:08:25.439 --> 1:08:28.519 lot of things as well. So it was a it 1:08:28.560 --> 1:08:30.720 was an interesting thing, you know what I mean, because we, 1:08:31.640 --> 1:08:33.000 like I said, we didn't know our ass from the 1:08:33.040 --> 1:08:36.400 hole in the ground. So we we were like, someone's interested, great, 1:08:36.479 --> 1:08:40.840 you know what I mean, And so we figured we 1:08:40.880 --> 1:08:42.680 got that figured out, and it you know, and it 1:08:43.439 --> 1:08:46.760 and so we tour twenty thirteen. I mean it was 1:08:47.000 --> 1:08:48.719 I mean, I was I don't know, I was gone. 1:08:48.960 --> 1:08:52.519 I remember being home a lot and uh. And then 1:08:52.560 --> 1:08:54.320 we turned around and did it again the next year 1:08:54.360 --> 1:08:56.719 when Half the City came out in February twenty fourteen. 1:08:57.560 --> 1:09:01.000 Okay, there are eight people in the band, where there 1:09:01.000 --> 1:09:03.719 were six at at time. You're an unknown act going 1:09:03.760 --> 1:09:05.280 on the road. How the hell do you make it 1:09:05.320 --> 1:09:06.240 work economically? 1:09:08.160 --> 1:09:11.559 Well, you got a wife. Our girlfriend is living at home, 1:09:12.000 --> 1:09:15.400 working a job in our one bedroom apartment. I had that. 1:09:17.439 --> 1:09:19.400 What about the other members of the bed They all, 1:09:19.600 --> 1:09:20.320 we all all. 1:09:20.200 --> 1:09:21.680 Of them kept their jobs, you know what I mean, 1:09:21.760 --> 1:09:26.080 or we all had to. Luckily, Jesse worked for a 1:09:26.479 --> 1:09:28.880 music shop that he knew really well, and they were 1:09:29.080 --> 1:09:32.880 very understanding, you know what I mean, And Browing was 1:09:32.880 --> 1:09:37.639 painting houses. A couple of guys were still in college 1:09:37.680 --> 1:09:42.360 sort of, so they I think one took an online 1:09:43.320 --> 1:09:45.360 Like we just made it work, you know what I mean, 1:09:45.400 --> 1:09:49.120 whether we had to, we just we knew, just made 1:09:49.160 --> 1:09:49.519 it work. 1:09:50.280 --> 1:09:53.920 It's hard enough to keep a three or four piece 1:09:54.040 --> 1:09:57.960 being together. How do you keep an eight piece being together? 1:10:01.040 --> 1:10:03.720 You share the revenue, but. 1:10:03.800 --> 1:10:07.479 Even someone's got a piece with eight ways, I agree 1:10:07.520 --> 1:10:08.000 with you. 1:10:08.080 --> 1:10:12.240 Like I said, I ain't a millionaire, you know what 1:10:12.280 --> 1:10:12.599 I mean. 1:10:12.880 --> 1:10:16.760 Okay, so there been some band member changes. Is it 1:10:16.800 --> 1:10:20.040 because somebody came and said, you know, I love this, 1:10:20.720 --> 1:10:24.080 I just can't do this anymore. I don't have any money. 1:10:24.200 --> 1:10:26.120 Or did you basically say hey, we want to make 1:10:26.160 --> 1:10:28.280 a change. How did the members change? 1:10:28.400 --> 1:10:32.360 It was each one had, you know, had its own thing, 1:10:32.400 --> 1:10:34.400 like we had some We had some to say, hey, 1:10:34.439 --> 1:10:36.000 they just weren't fit for touring like that. And to 1:10:36.040 --> 1:10:37.439 be fair, I don't know a lot of people who 1:10:37.479 --> 1:10:40.320 were fit to tour three hundred days out of the year, 1:10:40.840 --> 1:10:42.720 you know what I mean, Like, I really don't. It's 1:10:42.720 --> 1:10:45.720 a really hard thing to do. Luckily we're not at 1:10:45.760 --> 1:10:50.160 that point now. But yay, we had some and then 1:10:50.160 --> 1:10:53.920 we had some that, like you know, it's there needed 1:10:53.920 --> 1:10:55.840 to be a change made, whether you know there was 1:10:55.880 --> 1:10:57.240 personal thing, you know what I mean, you know how 1:10:57.280 --> 1:11:00.639 it is. We've we've only we've had we have change 1:11:00.720 --> 1:11:03.920 drummer and trombone player and that's that's it. 1:11:05.080 --> 1:11:08.200 Okay, So how many people in the band today? Eight 1:11:09.439 --> 1:11:12.679 and you've only changed two members in the whole time we. 1:11:12.640 --> 1:11:16.439 Had Yeah, well we had a saxophone player in but 1:11:16.520 --> 1:11:17.800 he it was kind of one of the it was 1:11:17.880 --> 1:11:19.040 kind of one of us that he had a family. 1:11:19.880 --> 1:11:22.639 So it's yeah, of the original six. 1:11:23.000 --> 1:11:28.559 Yes, just too okay, So you have these eight people, 1:11:29.040 --> 1:11:31.320 you go on the road, just split the money eight ways, 1:11:31.360 --> 1:11:32.400 whatever the net may be. 1:11:34.200 --> 1:11:38.920 Well, it's tricky because we have we have five we 1:11:39.000 --> 1:11:42.840 have owners in the LLC, right, some are not owners, 1:11:42.840 --> 1:11:47.439 some or not. It's really it's actually fairly complicated. I 1:11:47.439 --> 1:11:50.960 feel bad for our business manager, but you know, that's 1:11:51.040 --> 1:11:55.000 why they get paid. So we have five owners that 1:11:55.040 --> 1:11:58.920 were a part of the original, uh situation, and then 1:11:58.960 --> 1:11:59.840 we have three who are not. 1:12:01.120 --> 1:12:03.360 Okay, so there are three side men. So pay on 1:12:03.400 --> 1:12:06.120 the road is different. Yes, what about on the records? 1:12:06.640 --> 1:12:07.200 Same thing? 1:12:07.560 --> 1:12:07.640 No? 1:12:08.479 --> 1:12:12.559 We uh like this last record we went uh thirty ten. 1:12:13.040 --> 1:12:14.760 I got thirty percent, they got ten. 1:12:15.200 --> 1:12:20.320 All explain that to me? 1:12:20.320 --> 1:12:23.840 Meaning that so when we wrote the songs or Royal 1:12:24.080 --> 1:12:26.639 Royalty side and writing side, we just do a flat 1:12:27.200 --> 1:12:29.880 thirty thirty. I get thirty percent and then each other 1:12:29.920 --> 1:12:30.920 member gets ten percent. 1:12:34.280 --> 1:12:36.600 Okay, how'd you come up with thirty? How'd you come 1:12:36.680 --> 1:12:37.400 up with the numbers? 1:12:37.800 --> 1:12:42.280 Well, it just makes well because it's a nice round number. Typically, 1:12:42.280 --> 1:12:44.519 when you write lyrics, you know, they people are like, oh, 1:12:44.560 --> 1:12:47.599 fifty percent, and it just can't. That can't work in 1:12:47.640 --> 1:12:50.240 our in our world, you just can't. I can't take 1:12:50.280 --> 1:12:50.960 fifty percent. 1:12:52.720 --> 1:12:55.520 So you're writing No one else is writing lyrics? 1:12:55.880 --> 1:13:01.400 Uh no, no, no, and oh ok with the band songs. 1:13:01.960 --> 1:13:06.640 Okay, when you go to write a song, this is 1:13:06.640 --> 1:13:09.760 like Elton John time. What comes first? The lyrics are 1:13:09.880 --> 1:13:10.439 the music. 1:13:12.600 --> 1:13:15.720 It varies. Sometimes there's a phrase that makes sense, and 1:13:15.760 --> 1:13:18.360 then sometimes the music makes sense. You know what I mean. 1:13:18.400 --> 1:13:21.040 You just kind of build it from either way and 1:13:21.160 --> 1:13:21.720 go from there. 1:13:22.960 --> 1:13:29.000 Okay, so let's go back. We're in this narrative. Does 1:13:29.040 --> 1:13:30.880 the Letterman appearance happen. 1:13:31.720 --> 1:13:35.800 Funny enough, the Letterman appearance was a blessing and a 1:13:35.880 --> 1:13:41.519 curse because we that appearance happened January twenty fifteen. We've 1:13:41.560 --> 1:13:46.360 already toured a year on our debut record, okay, so 1:13:46.400 --> 1:13:50.600 we were already pray to the end. So it was 1:13:50.720 --> 1:13:55.320 January twenty fifteen, and then the Letterman thing happens, and 1:13:55.360 --> 1:13:58.040 we're like, oh my god, we got to get back 1:13:58.080 --> 1:14:01.080 out on the road, you know what I mean. And 1:14:01.439 --> 1:14:03.080 I mean it was amazing, it was, and I'm so 1:14:03.120 --> 1:14:05.120 grateful for but it was It's like we were kind 1:14:05.120 --> 1:14:06.559 of at the tail end, you know what I mean. 1:14:06.600 --> 1:14:08.679 Like we were like, hey, we had a great run. 1:14:09.040 --> 1:14:11.479 That was a lot of fun. We're selling you know, 1:14:12.120 --> 1:14:14.559 two to four hundred ticket, two hundred to four hundred 1:14:14.560 --> 1:14:16.960 tickets in a market, which is great, right, that's a 1:14:17.000 --> 1:14:21.360 great that's a fun place to be, you know. And 1:14:21.439 --> 1:14:26.000 then the Letterman thing happens and we're like, oh, okay, 1:14:26.080 --> 1:14:28.679 we got to keep going because you have to capitalize 1:14:28.680 --> 1:14:28.840 on them. 1:14:30.880 --> 1:14:35.000 Okay. I don't know who you are. All of a sudden, 1:14:35.040 --> 1:14:38.760 my email starts blowing up about this Letterman appearance. What 1:14:38.840 --> 1:14:40.479 was it like on your side of the fence. 1:14:42.320 --> 1:14:44.680 I mean, it was a TV appearance. I don't know 1:14:44.720 --> 1:14:46.200 what you know what I mean, way we do what 1:14:46.240 --> 1:14:49.639 we do, like, I don't. I the only thing because 1:14:49.640 --> 1:14:53.360 I didn't, I didn't watch it because it's it's it's 1:14:53.439 --> 1:14:58.880 kind of tough watching yourself perform on television. But what 1:14:58.960 --> 1:15:02.040 I remember about it is he does this amazing intro 1:15:02.240 --> 1:15:04.160 at the top of the before we play. It's an 1:15:04.200 --> 1:15:07.960 amazing intro, and I thought, you know, not doing much TV. 1:15:08.120 --> 1:15:10.160 I just thought, oh they cut that part out and 1:15:10.200 --> 1:15:13.479 then he just you know, and then it's the introduction, right, 1:15:13.560 --> 1:15:16.000 And then I heard the introduction was still in there, 1:15:16.160 --> 1:15:17.840 and then I was like, oh my god, Like that 1:15:18.040 --> 1:15:21.040 is a game changer, you know what I mean. I don't. 1:15:21.320 --> 1:15:24.600 For me, like, I don't think the performance was particularly amazing, 1:15:25.160 --> 1:15:26.320 you know what I mean, it was kind of what 1:15:26.400 --> 1:15:29.080 we do at that point. I mean, I actually think 1:15:29.080 --> 1:15:31.400 we do better now than we did that we did then. 1:15:32.200 --> 1:15:34.439 But I knew with that introduction being a part of it, 1:15:34.479 --> 1:15:40.080 I was like, Okay, this is this could do do something. 1:15:42.160 --> 1:15:42.639 And it did. 1:15:43.880 --> 1:15:46.439 Okay, it's a different era ten years ago. TV means 1:15:46.479 --> 1:15:50.559 something doesn't really mean anything today, right, you hear you're 1:15:50.600 --> 1:15:54.400 gonna be a Letterman before you even go on. What 1:15:54.479 --> 1:15:57.280 do you think? I don't know. 1:15:57.640 --> 1:16:00.559 I mean I'm happy, you know what I mean, Like 1:16:00.600 --> 1:16:04.320 I don't I mean, I'm thrilled that we're getting I mean, 1:16:04.680 --> 1:16:05.080 we put it. 1:16:05.080 --> 1:16:08.719 A different way. Anybody who's been in this world knows 1:16:09.800 --> 1:16:13.080 that your big break is not usually what you expected 1:16:13.200 --> 1:16:15.680 to be. You say, oh, this is gonna and then 1:16:15.720 --> 1:16:18.759 you do it, nothing happens, and then there are things 1:16:19.400 --> 1:16:22.160 you may not even want to do that turn into 1:16:22.200 --> 1:16:24.680 a big thing. But at the time, being on a 1:16:24.760 --> 1:16:30.240 Letterman was you know, a top slot. So were you thinking, well, 1:16:30.320 --> 1:16:32.639 you know that this could really turn into something. 1:16:33.560 --> 1:16:36.320 I know, I knew that it was important. I mean, 1:16:36.320 --> 1:16:37.920 don't get me wrong, Like I knew that it was 1:16:37.960 --> 1:16:40.320 an important thing, but I just, I mean, we were 1:16:40.320 --> 1:16:42.120 so afraid it was the end of that, you know, 1:16:42.120 --> 1:16:44.080 I mean the end of twenty fourteen. I'd just gotten 1:16:44.160 --> 1:16:49.240 married like a month before the Letterman performance, and I was, 1:16:49.600 --> 1:16:51.439 I mean, I was. It was just like it was 1:16:51.479 --> 1:16:54.160 just like going to another gig. It was like, you know, 1:16:54.200 --> 1:16:57.240 you knew it was important and you knew you had 1:16:57.280 --> 1:17:00.200 to do it, but it wasn't something that I thought, oh, well, 1:17:00.560 --> 1:17:03.360 this is going to change the game. I was honored. 1:17:03.760 --> 1:17:05.960 I always wanted to do Conan O'Brien, like that was 1:17:06.000 --> 1:17:09.840 my goal because I loved Conan O'Brien, which we ended 1:17:09.880 --> 1:17:14.120 up doing. And so Letterman, I mean I understood the 1:17:14.160 --> 1:17:16.559 history of it and all that, but I just it 1:17:16.640 --> 1:17:18.599 was I don't know, you know what I mean, Like 1:17:18.680 --> 1:17:20.280 it's one of those things like I didn't I didn't 1:17:20.280 --> 1:17:21.800 think it would have the impact it did for sure. 1:17:21.800 --> 1:17:24.720 I mean there's two things that we've done that we 1:17:24.880 --> 1:17:27.680 just rolled up and did, and that is that and 1:17:27.680 --> 1:17:30.120 a Tiny Desk are the two things that we have 1:17:30.200 --> 1:17:33.679 done that I hear about more than anything. And it's 1:17:33.720 --> 1:17:36.439 just funny thinking back to it, because like it wasn't 1:17:36.479 --> 1:17:38.800 like this big like we're about to we're about to 1:17:38.800 --> 1:17:40.240 do Letterman, you know what I mean, Or we're about 1:17:40.240 --> 1:17:42.720 to do Tiny Desk. It was like, oh, or we're 1:17:42.720 --> 1:17:45.280 here to play. We do the thing, like that's what 1:17:45.320 --> 1:17:45.799 we did. 1:17:47.240 --> 1:17:49.320 Okay, So going back to Letterman, you do it, you 1:17:49.360 --> 1:17:52.280 talk about the curse element that you have to capitalize 1:17:52.280 --> 1:17:55.840 on it. So how much did you work after Letterman for. 1:17:55.760 --> 1:17:57.479 The rest of the year. I mean, we we had to. 1:17:57.560 --> 1:17:59.320 It was hard to find time because you know, it's like, hey, 1:17:59.360 --> 1:18:02.320 you gotta make a new record, right, But it was 1:18:02.320 --> 1:18:05.280 hard to find time. I never forget we were, you know, 1:18:05.640 --> 1:18:08.000 trying to find some other producer or well, you know 1:18:08.000 --> 1:18:10.320 what I mean. And man, it was just like it 1:18:10.360 --> 1:18:12.640 was two days of something that we fit in a 1:18:12.680 --> 1:18:14.599 tour and it was just like, how can you even 1:18:14.720 --> 1:18:17.680 tell what's going on? So eventually you just have to 1:18:18.160 --> 1:18:21.320 learn the word no and uh, which is a hard 1:18:21.479 --> 1:18:24.040 thing to do in that moment. And so we had 1:18:24.040 --> 1:18:27.120 to carve out time. But yeah, I mean, basically because 1:18:27.400 --> 1:18:29.479 it was so impactful, we had to turn around and 1:18:29.520 --> 1:18:32.960 go back on tour and start keep playing shows. And 1:18:32.960 --> 1:18:35.400 we played and played and blade and then we finally 1:18:35.400 --> 1:18:38.120 found some time I think towards towards the winner of 1:18:38.120 --> 1:18:40.759 twenty twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen. 1:18:41.120 --> 1:18:48.040 Okay, a being this large, it's a dynamic enterprise. Certainly 1:18:48.080 --> 1:18:50.120 you've been doing it in excess of a decade at 1:18:50.160 --> 1:18:55.320 this point in time. Can you open for somebody or 1:18:55.320 --> 1:18:57.559 do you have to be the headline or how does 1:18:57.600 --> 1:19:01.439 it work? We can open, That's not what I mean. 1:19:01.560 --> 1:19:05.200 Of course you can open, but can someone follow you. 1:19:06.400 --> 1:19:12.760 I hope not. I hope not. I hope. I hope 1:19:12.760 --> 1:19:15.360 when we open up for people that they go, all right, 1:19:15.400 --> 1:19:17.120 don't have to bring my working boots today. 1:19:18.840 --> 1:19:21.000 So at this point in time, how many dates a 1:19:21.080 --> 1:19:21.720 year do you work? 1:19:23.400 --> 1:19:26.639 M I'd say we're still at one hundred and fifty 1:19:26.720 --> 1:19:26.880 or so. 1:19:28.000 --> 1:19:30.040 And of that one hundred and fifty, how many times 1:19:30.040 --> 1:19:31.040 are you the headliner? 1:19:33.640 --> 1:19:39.080 M I would say seventy to eighty percent. 1:19:40.160 --> 1:19:46.280 Okay, you go to a show. Every show is different, 1:19:46.360 --> 1:19:50.560 even if the set list is identical. Do you basically 1:19:50.640 --> 1:19:54.479 say I know what we do, like hit the stage 1:19:54.520 --> 1:19:58.599 and we do it or are you judging audience reaction 1:19:59.200 --> 1:20:04.240 and if they're not with you reach out and grab them. 1:20:04.560 --> 1:20:07.880 I mean to me, it's about entertaining the audience, right, 1:20:10.800 --> 1:20:14.519 I think one skill. You know, I'm not a bad singer, 1:20:14.560 --> 1:20:16.240 but I think one skill I do have and I 1:20:16.280 --> 1:20:18.360 definitely learned it in churches, how to read a crowd. 1:20:19.000 --> 1:20:21.880 And we have had moments where it's like this crowd 1:20:21.880 --> 1:20:24.000 ain't here and we got to figure out how to 1:20:24.000 --> 1:20:25.920 get them. So that's what we do. We get them, 1:20:26.040 --> 1:20:28.360 you know, we we either we change the set. I'll 1:20:28.600 --> 1:20:32.120 change the set mid mid show and we will. You know, 1:20:32.160 --> 1:20:34.839 we're you know, we're live musicians. There ain't no tracks, 1:20:35.200 --> 1:20:37.000 so we can do that. We can. It ain't a 1:20:37.040 --> 1:20:38.639 hard thing to be like, hey, we're gonna play something 1:20:38.640 --> 1:20:42.200 else different on this next you know, this next song 1:20:42.240 --> 1:20:45.320 to try and grab the audience. And it depends. I mean, 1:20:45.800 --> 1:20:48.519 early on, people didn't know who we were, so yeah, 1:20:48.560 --> 1:20:51.880 you're definitely like you gotta grab. I was my my 1:20:51.880 --> 1:20:54.280 philosophy early on is if someone came and saw us, 1:20:54.560 --> 1:20:57.800 you're either leaving or staying, and that's it. There ain't 1:20:57.840 --> 1:21:00.439 no I'm gonna You're gonna either be a part of this, 1:21:00.560 --> 1:21:02.760 You're getting out of here, and that's it. That's your 1:21:02.800 --> 1:21:05.960 only options. And uh, and that was the that was 1:21:06.000 --> 1:21:08.360 the thought and the theory. Then now you know, we're 1:21:08.360 --> 1:21:11.559 a little bit more well known, so it's you know, 1:21:11.600 --> 1:21:13.519 they kind of people know kind of what to expect, 1:21:13.560 --> 1:21:15.160 and you try to do something in the show that 1:21:15.200 --> 1:21:18.400 they don't expect, and you try to change the set. 1:21:18.560 --> 1:21:20.840 You know, we look at the top five stream songs 1:21:20.880 --> 1:21:23.599 on Spotify and we make sure we play those songs 1:21:23.600 --> 1:21:27.040 and then everything else is up for grabs, and so 1:21:27.120 --> 1:21:29.240 we try to make the show you know, we have 1:21:29.320 --> 1:21:31.920 people to see us twelve times and so we need 1:21:31.960 --> 1:21:33.920 to you know, change it up a little bit. But yeah, 1:21:33.920 --> 1:21:36.680 I still man, I still want the audience. I want 1:21:37.560 --> 1:21:39.519 it is a way better playing to an audience that 1:21:39.600 --> 1:21:42.439 you that you have had, that you've gotten to not 1:21:43.439 --> 1:21:46.439 and uh and I still I still want. I still 1:21:46.439 --> 1:21:48.600 treat it. I don't treat it much differently in that 1:21:49.160 --> 1:21:51.000 you win one person at a time. So if there's 1:21:51.040 --> 1:21:53.040 somebody in the front row that's not having a good time, 1:21:53.400 --> 1:21:56.040 you're either gonna stay or you're gonna leave. But I'm 1:21:56.040 --> 1:21:57.559 gonna pay attention, you know what I mean. 1:21:57.880 --> 1:22:01.280 A little bit more specific. When you try to win 1:22:01.320 --> 1:22:04.000 over people in the audience, other than changing the set list, 1:22:04.360 --> 1:22:07.160 what do you literally do to try to get them 1:22:07.160 --> 1:22:07.840 on board? 1:22:08.160 --> 1:22:12.320 I mean, I'll go go to them, get in the audience, 1:22:12.640 --> 1:22:15.400 go say hello, Go you know what I mean, Like 1:22:16.160 --> 1:22:18.360 get in there, get in their face a little bit, 1:22:18.439 --> 1:22:20.320 you know what I mean, Like engage with them, make 1:22:20.360 --> 1:22:22.479 sure that they know that, make sure that they know 1:22:22.560 --> 1:22:26.040 that you know, they exist, and you get I get 1:22:26.080 --> 1:22:29.200 within it, and then you you know, like there's certain 1:22:29.200 --> 1:22:31.719 moments now where we know, like there's a big note 1:22:32.160 --> 1:22:35.280 coming right that I'm gonna sing and I'll know then 1:22:35.400 --> 1:22:37.840 like okay, that either gets somewhere it doesn't, or do 1:22:37.960 --> 1:22:41.120 something kind of funny or goofy and it makes them laugh, 1:22:41.320 --> 1:22:44.320 you know what I mean? Just whatever, that's I feel 1:22:44.320 --> 1:22:46.880 like that's the job, right, Like, if you can't do that, 1:22:47.080 --> 1:22:49.840 what the hell are you doing on stage? You know, 1:22:50.000 --> 1:22:51.200 doing the lead singer thing? 1:22:58.439 --> 1:23:00.320 And how do you get hooked up with? Ron Perry 1:23:00.320 --> 1:23:01.560 and Barry Weiss? 1:23:01.840 --> 1:23:03.719 They just you know, were fans of the first record 1:23:04.000 --> 1:23:09.040 and they they they reached out and signed us. They 1:23:09.360 --> 1:23:11.920 you know, Ron was ain't r for songs and got 1:23:12.000 --> 1:23:14.200 us on board with the publishing and it was a 1:23:14.200 --> 1:23:15.240 good relationship from there. 1:23:16.520 --> 1:23:22.040 Were they the only ones interested? No, so you're on 1:23:22.200 --> 1:23:24.160 Letterman all of a sudden the phone starts to ring 1:23:24.200 --> 1:23:25.320 to houst the cliche. 1:23:25.600 --> 1:23:29.680 Yeah, that that I think with half the city, and 1:23:29.720 --> 1:23:32.360 then the Letterman thing happened. Yeah, there was plenty of people, 1:23:32.760 --> 1:23:34.240 But I mean, to be fair, we were with songs. 1:23:34.360 --> 1:23:36.479 I this is what I remember. This is so funny. 1:23:36.840 --> 1:23:38.439 I was literally in New York and we had got 1:23:38.439 --> 1:23:41.599 we had gotten our songs. You would have been with songs, 1:23:42.040 --> 1:23:44.759 and we got paid our advance that's that fourth quarter 1:23:44.880 --> 1:23:48.000 of twenty fourteen. And I remember getting a tax bill 1:23:48.360 --> 1:23:53.920 while I was in New York before Letterman, so I 1:23:54.040 --> 1:23:56.680 was I could just tell you, my friend, it was not. 1:23:56.920 --> 1:23:59.720 I was like, oh my god. When I got that 1:23:59.760 --> 1:24:01.760 TAXI be and have a wife for like, hang on 1:24:02.040 --> 1:24:04.040 what now? You know you think about all the things 1:24:04.040 --> 1:24:05.559 you're going through with the money, and then you get 1:24:05.560 --> 1:24:08.439 that tax Ben You're like, no, no, a lot of 1:24:08.479 --> 1:24:09.519 that's going to taxes. 1:24:10.439 --> 1:24:11.360 Do you own a house? 1:24:11.680 --> 1:24:13.719 I do? I do? I mean I own a house. 1:24:13.760 --> 1:24:18.519 And that's why we were living in Alabama. Man, it's 1:24:18.560 --> 1:24:21.320 a lot more affordable. Uh and I sure do. 1:24:22.360 --> 1:24:26.559 Okay, what made you go with songs and records as 1:24:26.560 --> 1:24:27.759 opposed to anybody else? 1:24:29.120 --> 1:24:30.720 That's what they sold us. You know, we kind of 1:24:30.760 --> 1:24:35.200 thought in our minds like, you know, we had creative 1:24:35.200 --> 1:24:39.960 control whatever that means these days, you know, I've I've 1:24:40.040 --> 1:24:42.320 learned since that creative control is one of those things 1:24:42.360 --> 1:24:43.760 like yeah, you can have it and you can do 1:24:43.800 --> 1:24:46.360 what you want. But they got if they don't put 1:24:46.360 --> 1:24:48.760 money behind it, it don't matter, you know what I mean. 1:24:50.920 --> 1:24:52.280 I think we just had a good relationship. But I 1:24:52.320 --> 1:24:54.240 think I mean this day, like at the solo things 1:24:54.280 --> 1:24:57.080 with Barry. You know, Ron's moved on to Columbia, but 1:24:57.120 --> 1:24:59.280 like the solo things with Barry and he you know, 1:25:00.439 --> 1:25:02.040 he's we still have I think we still have a 1:25:02.080 --> 1:25:03.000 decent relationship. 1:25:04.160 --> 1:25:07.519 And so okay, these are two guys, very experienced. Yes, 1:25:08.040 --> 1:25:11.599 what degree did they give you input or did they 1:25:11.640 --> 1:25:12.360 leave you alone? 1:25:13.320 --> 1:25:15.400 I mean they they cared. I mean, there's no doubt 1:25:15.400 --> 1:25:17.160 about that. I mean, I think you know what I mean, 1:25:17.280 --> 1:25:22.519 like they they had their thoughts on things, but they 1:25:23.760 --> 1:25:25.200 I mean, we did what we wanted, you know what 1:25:25.280 --> 1:25:28.000 I mean. Like we would either go, yeah, that sounds 1:25:28.000 --> 1:25:30.559 great or absolutely not, and we wouldn't do it. And 1:25:30.600 --> 1:25:34.200 that's what we would do. And for the most part, 1:25:34.320 --> 1:25:36.679 it wasn't that bad, you know, I think I think 1:25:36.680 --> 1:25:39.160 there was, but this is this is my thing, and 1:25:39.160 --> 1:25:41.519 this is what I say. Like, were there times that 1:25:41.600 --> 1:25:43.559 I think they probably had, you know, a vision for 1:25:43.600 --> 1:25:47.439 the band that the band wasn't Yeah, of course, but 1:25:47.680 --> 1:25:50.080 I don't. Their goal was to make the band huge, 1:25:50.160 --> 1:25:52.559 you know what I mean. It wasn't. It wasn't to 1:25:52.640 --> 1:25:54.040 be like, oh, you know, I want to It's like 1:25:54.080 --> 1:25:55.400 they wanted it to be huge, and they had their 1:25:55.400 --> 1:25:58.759 idea what that is and and and it was probably 1:25:58.760 --> 1:26:01.000 a little bit different than the band thought to some degree. 1:26:01.120 --> 1:26:04.200 But I mean our third record was we met the 1:26:04.240 --> 1:26:06.400 producer through them, you know what I mean. So like, 1:26:07.479 --> 1:26:10.400 I don't know, I don't that relationship. I don't. I 1:26:10.400 --> 1:26:13.160 don't really regret that much at all, and still have 1:26:13.240 --> 1:26:14.000 it with Bear Okay. 1:26:14.800 --> 1:26:18.360 Yeah, eight members in the band, five were in the LLC. 1:26:19.479 --> 1:26:22.640 Everyone does not agree all the time. How do you 1:26:22.720 --> 1:26:24.600 decide on decisions? 1:26:24.840 --> 1:26:26.599 This is how we this is how we kind of work. 1:26:27.520 --> 1:26:32.120 I get to be president, okay, and then we got Congress, right, 1:26:33.240 --> 1:26:37.880 and sometimes Congress can maybe overrule, but they all understand it. 1:26:37.920 --> 1:26:40.920 If I don't, I'm not into it, it probably ain't 1:26:40.920 --> 1:26:44.639 gonna happen, uh, you know what I mean. So that's 1:26:44.720 --> 1:26:48.519 kind of how it works. I do my damnedest to 1:26:48.640 --> 1:26:51.760 make sure that they are heard and their input is 1:26:51.800 --> 1:26:54.519 considered one hundred percent, and it needs to be because 1:26:54.520 --> 1:26:57.000 sometime there's been moments where I thought something was the 1:26:57.080 --> 1:26:59.519 right idea and they said something. I'm like, well that's 1:26:59.560 --> 1:27:03.040 a really good point, you know what I mean. But 1:27:03.200 --> 1:27:06.240 ultimately small things they don't care. They're like, Paul, do 1:27:06.320 --> 1:27:08.800 your thing when it comes to big decisions like record 1:27:08.880 --> 1:27:11.519 labels and management and stuff like that, they are one 1:27:11.600 --> 1:27:14.559 hundred percent. They have input and they have say and 1:27:14.600 --> 1:27:17.040 that's kind of how we It's worked well that way. 1:27:18.240 --> 1:27:21.080 I mean, obviously we're still here, right and we have 1:27:21.120 --> 1:27:24.040 a system in place that has worked. But they kind 1:27:24.040 --> 1:27:26.560 of for the most part, they kind of leave me, 1:27:26.760 --> 1:27:28.760 you know, they'll leave me to it. And I enjoy it. 1:27:28.880 --> 1:27:32.120 I enjoy the business aspect of this, I really do. 1:27:32.200 --> 1:27:34.960 I think it's a fact, is an incredibly fascinating business. 1:27:35.320 --> 1:27:38.720 It is an ever changing business. And and so I'm 1:27:38.720 --> 1:27:41.160 able to kind of compartmentalize the business side and the 1:27:41.200 --> 1:27:44.639 creative side. I don't I don't let them bleed, because 1:27:44.680 --> 1:27:46.320 the moment you start doing that's the moment you start 1:27:46.320 --> 1:27:47.000 getting in trouble. 1:27:48.840 --> 1:27:51.880 How did it become same Pawn, the Broken Bones, the 1:27:52.000 --> 1:27:53.960 name and how many other names before that? 1:27:54.640 --> 1:27:57.040 Well, Jesse the bass player came up with a name 1:27:57.080 --> 1:27:59.920 because of this, you know. He he wanted like Martha 1:28:00.120 --> 1:28:01.960 Reeves and the Vandellas, you know what I mean, he 1:28:02.000 --> 1:28:05.320 want and uh, you know, and I was like whatever, 1:28:05.760 --> 1:28:08.240 and he was, you know, the Saint Paul, Saint Paul 1:28:08.320 --> 1:28:11.800 thing about the church background and all that kind of stuff, 1:28:11.800 --> 1:28:15.120 and then the Broken Bones. I mean, the first song 1:28:15.160 --> 1:28:17.360 we wrote together for this was Broken Bones, and Pocket 1:28:17.439 --> 1:28:18.960 Change was is a song on the first record and 1:28:19.080 --> 1:28:23.000 the EP, and it it kind of made sense. And 1:28:23.520 --> 1:28:25.120 I mean it was one of those that was it 1:28:25.479 --> 1:28:27.400 and it was one of those names that stayed. We 1:28:27.520 --> 1:28:30.639 never thought anything about it. We just oh, we'll change 1:28:30.640 --> 1:28:35.040 the name later, and then later never came. And that's 1:28:35.080 --> 1:28:35.800 what we are now. 1:28:37.200 --> 1:28:43.320 Okay, you've traveled the world. You came to popular culture late, 1:28:43.720 --> 1:28:46.880 but you must have had pinched me moments meeting certain people. 1:28:47.400 --> 1:28:48.439 Can you tell me about that? 1:28:49.439 --> 1:28:52.639 Oh? Absolutely. I mean we've gotten to meet Elton John. 1:28:54.720 --> 1:28:56.400 This is the name drop part of that. This is 1:28:56.439 --> 1:28:59.760 the name drop part right. Yeah, you know we've gotten 1:28:59.720 --> 1:29:03.679 to meet Elton John. We've gotten to meet the Rolling Stones, 1:29:03.720 --> 1:29:09.080 we opened up for them a few times. I mean, 1:29:09.200 --> 1:29:13.840 we've gotten to meet Herbie Hancock, someone that we really, 1:29:13.880 --> 1:29:16.800 really really admire. We've gotten to meet all sorts of 1:29:16.800 --> 1:29:21.799 folks and and honestly, you know, I I look at someone. 1:29:22.000 --> 1:29:23.800 We got to we got to do something. If there's 1:29:23.840 --> 1:29:27.280 a local or it's not local, it's the egal Justice Initiative, 1:29:27.280 --> 1:29:29.080 which is in Montgomery, Alabama. We got to meet a 1:29:29.080 --> 1:29:31.519 guy named Brian Stevenson, who I think is one of 1:29:31.520 --> 1:29:34.280 the one of my heroes, you know, just heroes people 1:29:34.320 --> 1:29:36.240 like that. Those are the people more that I admire. 1:29:36.320 --> 1:29:38.680 Musicians are great. I love meet, Don't get me wrong, Like, 1:29:39.240 --> 1:29:40.840 there ain't a lot of people that have met Elton 1:29:40.880 --> 1:29:42.800 John and the Rolling Stalls. You know, I get that, 1:29:42.880 --> 1:29:45.519 and I understand that. But for me, it's it's more 1:29:45.560 --> 1:29:48.040 people that that kind of dedicate their life life to 1:29:48.080 --> 1:29:50.920 service that I really do admire. But yeah, I've gotten 1:29:50.880 --> 1:29:52.320 to meet all sorts of people. Man, I've gotten to 1:29:52.320 --> 1:29:54.640 meet all sorts of people that I never thought in 1:29:54.680 --> 1:29:56.960 a thousand years that I would meet. 1:29:57.000 --> 1:30:01.280 And Okay, Elton is a real MU music fan, and 1:30:01.400 --> 1:30:03.639 he's gonna know who you are. He will have listened 1:30:03.680 --> 1:30:06.920 to your music, you know. Well, let's put it this way. 1:30:06.960 --> 1:30:10.880 I know the promoters of the Stones, okay, and the 1:30:10.920 --> 1:30:14.479 Stone I know people. Let's put it this way. Did 1:30:14.520 --> 1:30:16.519 you meet Mick and Keith and did they know who 1:30:16.520 --> 1:30:16.920 you were? 1:30:17.479 --> 1:30:17.679 Yes? 1:30:18.920 --> 1:30:22.000 Yes, that must have felt that must have made like wow, 1:30:22.720 --> 1:30:22.880 Well I. 1:30:22.840 --> 1:30:25.160 Didn't grow up with the Rolling Stones, so I was 1:30:25.200 --> 1:30:27.320 like cool. Now, let me tell you this. The rest 1:30:27.360 --> 1:30:29.880 of the guys in the band were shitting their pants. 1:30:30.320 --> 1:30:34.479 I mean they they they were like, oh my good, 1:30:34.560 --> 1:30:36.439 like they were nervous. I was just kind of like, 1:30:37.040 --> 1:30:38.240 I mean it was I knew it was cool, and 1:30:38.280 --> 1:30:40.200 I'm not trying to downplay it. I'm really not. But 1:30:40.240 --> 1:30:42.360 I didn't grow up with them, you know what I mean. 1:30:42.400 --> 1:30:46.960 I didn't grow up with them. So Keith uh was 1:30:47.000 --> 1:30:50.000 a big fan of was. I had an interview with 1:30:50.040 --> 1:30:52.680 the Rolling Stones writer that was like, Hey, I have 1:30:52.760 --> 1:30:55.599 asked Keith for many years what his favorite band, new 1:30:55.680 --> 1:30:57.240 up and coming band is, and he never gives me 1:30:57.280 --> 1:31:01.200 an answer. And he said, y'all's name the time, and 1:31:01.240 --> 1:31:03.519 he's like, so I had to interview you to see 1:31:03.720 --> 1:31:06.439 what the hell is this about? And I was just 1:31:06.479 --> 1:31:08.360 like cool, I mean, you know, but you know Kisa 1:31:08.400 --> 1:31:11.080 Old he loves Otis Redding and you know, he's got 1:31:11.120 --> 1:31:12.920 you know what I mean, Like he loves that stuff. 1:31:12.960 --> 1:31:17.000 And so they were super nice and I got to 1:31:17.000 --> 1:31:20.120 hang out with them a little bit and and yeah, 1:31:20.120 --> 1:31:21.920 it was it was a pretty amazing experience. 1:31:22.479 --> 1:31:25.240 Okay, see you make this leads record. You're working with 1:31:25.280 --> 1:31:29.320 thirty Tigers, which is more of a marketing enterprise. What's 1:31:29.360 --> 1:31:30.679 the budget for this record? 1:31:31.880 --> 1:31:38.120 What is the budget? I mean it's it's six digits, 1:31:38.240 --> 1:31:40.360 you know, it's mid six digits. 1:31:41.320 --> 1:31:42.400 And it's all your money. 1:31:43.080 --> 1:31:47.120 Oh yeah, well, I mean yeah, so you know how 1:31:47.120 --> 1:31:50.240 that works? Like right, you know, like yes, sort of? 1:31:52.680 --> 1:31:54.479 Well did you have to save up the money? 1:31:54.560 --> 1:31:56.240 No, we did not have to save up the money. No, 1:31:56.320 --> 1:31:58.120 we got it. We got it from we got it 1:31:58.160 --> 1:31:58.920 from thirty tigers. 1:32:00.560 --> 1:32:04.400 Okay, so let's go back to what you were saying, 1:32:04.479 --> 1:32:08.759 being with you still have a solo deal? Does Barry 1:32:08.800 --> 1:32:10.440 expect you to make a record. 1:32:10.920 --> 1:32:13.320 We're working on? I mean, we're working. They're not. They 1:32:13.479 --> 1:32:17.400 they are. They're patient, man, They're patient, you know what 1:32:17.439 --> 1:32:19.479 I mean. Like they they're just like they want the 1:32:19.560 --> 1:32:20.519 right song, right thing. 1:32:20.880 --> 1:32:23.120 What's going to be different about that as opposed to 1:32:23.160 --> 1:32:24.519 a band record? 1:32:24.920 --> 1:32:27.479 I mean, it's not within the band enterprise, you know 1:32:27.479 --> 1:32:31.400 what I mean, Like, it's not it's working with another 1:32:31.439 --> 1:32:35.240 producer or you know, maybe maybe a third in the room, 1:32:35.439 --> 1:32:38.200 you know what I mean? Like whatever, whatever it might be, 1:32:38.280 --> 1:32:40.600 I don't I don't. I think that's the problem with 1:32:40.640 --> 1:32:43.320 that project in general is that I'm not really sure. 1:32:43.560 --> 1:32:47.080 But they're they're really patient, which I'm grateful for, you 1:32:47.160 --> 1:32:48.680 know what I mean, Like they're not pressing me like hey, 1:32:48.720 --> 1:32:50.200 we gotta we gotta get you know what I mean. 1:32:50.240 --> 1:32:52.559 Like something will pop up and I'll be like, yeah, 1:32:52.600 --> 1:32:54.479 hey that sounds you know, if I like the song, 1:32:54.560 --> 1:32:57.200 if I like the producer or a song or whatever 1:32:57.240 --> 1:32:59.080 it might be, I'll be like, yeah, let's let's give 1:32:59.120 --> 1:33:00.639 it a try. See if I like getting. If I don't, 1:33:00.680 --> 1:33:03.120 then we go from there. But they're not They're not 1:33:03.160 --> 1:33:03.759 in any hurry. 1:33:03.960 --> 1:33:07.040 Okay, So tell me again how you meet Egg and 1:33:07.080 --> 1:33:08.280 how that proceeds. 1:33:08.840 --> 1:33:15.800 So I was with it was working on the solo, 1:33:15.920 --> 1:33:19.920 this working solo stuff, and he they flied me out 1:33:19.920 --> 1:33:22.240 to London and I work with a few people and 1:33:22.320 --> 1:33:24.280 it was it was kind of a disaster trip in 1:33:24.280 --> 1:33:27.720 a lot of ways. But the last day I work 1:33:27.800 --> 1:33:31.160 with Egg and we write this song and it's it's 1:33:31.200 --> 1:33:34.120 not on the record, but it was a great song. 1:33:34.520 --> 1:33:36.560 And then and we were just like oh, and I 1:33:36.560 --> 1:33:39.800 think Barry and Everybody's like ooh, that song, that's it, 1:33:39.840 --> 1:33:41.960 you know what I mean, Like wow, And so I 1:33:42.000 --> 1:33:44.400 go back over there and then I think, what kind 1:33:44.400 --> 1:33:46.439 of happens we write together. We write a lot of 1:33:46.439 --> 1:33:51.000 stuff together. It kind of I think with Barry and them, 1:33:51.280 --> 1:33:53.559 they kind of go okay, like this stuff's good, but 1:33:53.800 --> 1:33:55.880 you know, I don't think it really got them going. 1:33:56.040 --> 1:33:58.760 So we're like, okay, we'll is whatever right, you know, 1:33:58.960 --> 1:34:03.479 like whatever, just kind of sitting in it. Then some 1:34:03.520 --> 1:34:07.439 of the guys in the band here the songs, and 1:34:07.479 --> 1:34:10.120 they go what the hell is going on here? Like 1:34:10.160 --> 1:34:13.280 why are we not? You know? And I was like, well, 1:34:13.320 --> 1:34:17.720 you know, it's just where it goes, which you know 1:34:17.800 --> 1:34:20.040 is definitely frustrated in there, you know what I mean. 1:34:20.040 --> 1:34:24.160 But it's like, hey, what do you do? So the band? 1:34:24.160 --> 1:34:26.919 Here is it? We have? We started having a discussion. 1:34:26.960 --> 1:34:29.120 We talked to records like, hey, is it okay if 1:34:29.200 --> 1:34:31.280 we get a song or two of these you know 1:34:31.320 --> 1:34:35.559 what I mean? Like, which they were fine with. And 1:34:35.600 --> 1:34:39.240 then then uh then it then it turned into the 1:34:39.240 --> 1:34:41.880 band gets together rights. Then we're going, who's producing this record? 1:34:42.760 --> 1:34:45.559 And Egg hadn't produced the band record since the nineties. 1:34:46.920 --> 1:34:50.320 Oh it was like you know what I mean, like 1:34:50.400 --> 1:34:53.960 he he did doesn't leave London, he just doesn't. And 1:34:54.000 --> 1:34:56.240 so we I was like, oh and we had back. 1:34:56.360 --> 1:34:58.760 We were already talking about like backup. But I was like, hey, 1:34:59.760 --> 1:35:01.920 you know, everyone's like, well, let's just see if he's 1:35:01.920 --> 1:35:05.080 interested in producing. He's made these cool, cool, good sounding demos. 1:35:05.080 --> 1:35:07.439 So we were like maybe. And I was like, hey, 1:35:07.800 --> 1:35:10.559 all right, I want we want you to produce this 1:35:10.640 --> 1:35:14.640 record band songs and a couple of me and him songs. 1:35:15.320 --> 1:35:18.160 Would you be willing to come to Alabama to Fame 1:35:18.240 --> 1:35:26.360 studios and record and produce? And he was He was 1:35:26.400 --> 1:35:28.559 like that sounds like a great idea. I just have 1:35:28.640 --> 1:35:32.040 to figure out who's gonna walk my dog? And I 1:35:32.120 --> 1:35:35.639 was like what, and that's that's And once he figured 1:35:35.640 --> 1:35:38.360 that out, he he said yes, and he came over 1:35:38.720 --> 1:35:40.480 and it was an amazing experience. 1:35:40.760 --> 1:35:43.320 Okay, let's go back. Yeah, how those songs you wrote 1:35:43.360 --> 1:35:47.919 with egg? When you start writing songs with the band, 1:35:47.680 --> 1:35:49.360 how do you do that? What does that look like? 1:35:50.960 --> 1:35:52.680 We just we were we were we There was a 1:35:52.680 --> 1:35:55.439 studio up in in uh in muscle shows that we 1:35:55.520 --> 1:35:57.640 could did. We have a really great rate on We 1:35:57.720 --> 1:36:00.640 know the the engineer that works there, and we go. 1:36:01.439 --> 1:36:03.960 It's funny. Birmingham used to be the place where we 1:36:04.000 --> 1:36:06.040 could all meet and not have to pay for hotels. 1:36:06.600 --> 1:36:08.720 But Now Muscle Sholes is because we have a few 1:36:08.760 --> 1:36:10.839 people that live there and we can stay at their houses. 1:36:10.880 --> 1:36:15.280 So we stay up there basically for free, and we 1:36:15.439 --> 1:36:17.799 just rent the studio for not it's not it's nothing. 1:36:18.320 --> 1:36:19.640 And we just sit in the room and write and 1:36:19.680 --> 1:36:21.840 we can record this great because we can record the 1:36:21.880 --> 1:36:27.000 demos and it's a really cheap rate and it's and 1:36:27.000 --> 1:36:29.519 we have an engineer there, and so we just sit 1:36:29.560 --> 1:36:32.599 in the room and write and we just see what happens. 1:36:32.920 --> 1:36:41.439 Okay, Sheffield, Alabama, Muscle Shoals, Florence legendary place. Is there 1:36:41.520 --> 1:36:45.320 really anything there, anything special? Or just the fact that 1:36:45.360 --> 1:36:47.479 the swampers just happen to be there? 1:36:49.160 --> 1:36:51.200 Now, why would you ask a question like that. Of course, 1:36:51.200 --> 1:36:53.280 it's all in the water. You just take a dip 1:36:53.320 --> 1:36:54.920 of the water and you drink it and everyone can 1:36:54.920 --> 1:37:03.000 play amazing music. That's what happens. Uh That. No, I 1:37:03.040 --> 1:37:05.720 think I think truly what it is is you know 1:37:05.840 --> 1:37:10.360 that especially was a moment in time, right. But I 1:37:10.360 --> 1:37:13.680 also think here's the thing about muscle that area and 1:37:13.720 --> 1:37:18.439 people And I know I get it, people are playing 1:37:18.479 --> 1:37:21.160 in studios less and less, you know, doing home stuff 1:37:21.160 --> 1:37:24.800 and stuff like that. But you have world class studios 1:37:24.840 --> 1:37:27.080 that are still up and running and are maintained for 1:37:27.120 --> 1:37:29.760 the most part now because of grants and all sorts 1:37:29.800 --> 1:37:33.920 of stuff. And they're fairly inexpensive compared to a Nashville 1:37:34.680 --> 1:37:38.519 or LA or places like that. So it economically, it 1:37:38.640 --> 1:37:41.519 just makes way more sense. And the other thing, there 1:37:41.520 --> 1:37:44.439 ain't as many distractions up there as there is in 1:37:44.520 --> 1:37:47.519 Nashville or LA. There ain't no ain't nobody gonna have 1:37:47.560 --> 1:37:50.240 a meeting in muscle Shoals. Ain't nobody gonna have to 1:37:50.240 --> 1:37:53.400 go talk to the Spotify people in muscle Shoals, do 1:37:53.439 --> 1:37:55.559 you know what I mean? And so you have the 1:37:55.640 --> 1:37:59.240 ability to just sit and play. I mean, that's for us. 1:37:59.280 --> 1:38:01.080 It makes sense for us, Like we don't go to 1:38:01.160 --> 1:38:03.519 Nashville to do that. We don't go down you know 1:38:03.560 --> 1:38:05.360 what I mean, Like we don't go to Birmingham now 1:38:05.600 --> 1:38:08.479 because it just makes way more economic sense to go 1:38:08.560 --> 1:38:11.200 up to muscle shows and for what especially for what 1:38:11.240 --> 1:38:13.479 we do. And there's people there that work, you know 1:38:13.520 --> 1:38:17.519 what I mean. Like there there is still you do feel, 1:38:18.040 --> 1:38:21.040 especially being from here, and it's a region, it's regional, right, 1:38:21.479 --> 1:38:26.479 being from here, there is a you do feel like 1:38:26.520 --> 1:38:28.760 that there's people walk in the street, you know, like 1:38:28.840 --> 1:38:32.000 Davidhood and all Spooner Old and all these guys who 1:38:32.040 --> 1:38:33.639 play down you know, they used to do a gig 1:38:33.680 --> 1:38:35.880 at the you know, on a Friday night, who've played 1:38:35.880 --> 1:38:38.320 on records that you could never even dream about playing on, 1:38:39.040 --> 1:38:41.400 you know what I mean. And there is that legacy, 1:38:41.400 --> 1:38:42.880 and some of the guys that grew up there like 1:38:42.920 --> 1:38:46.760 just what you grow up around, and so there is 1:38:47.920 --> 1:38:52.439 there is a maybe a legacy to uphall uphold that 1:38:52.560 --> 1:38:54.800 you feel that obligation a little bit, you know, not 1:38:54.880 --> 1:38:57.240 that I don't necessarily feel like we're a part of 1:38:57.280 --> 1:39:01.240 that or anything, a very small part maybe, but that 1:39:01.320 --> 1:39:03.040 that is that is real, you know what I mean. 1:39:03.040 --> 1:39:05.840 But as far as like I mean, how many people 1:39:05.880 --> 1:39:08.679 just sitting in a room, I mean, it's a special 1:39:08.720 --> 1:39:11.000 moment in time and just playing and and you have 1:39:11.040 --> 1:39:13.160 to have talent, of course, but there's yeah, to me, 1:39:13.280 --> 1:39:16.759 and especially with our band, it's about chemistry and that 1:39:16.760 --> 1:39:18.880 that's hard to come by, you know, And I don't 1:39:18.920 --> 1:39:20.599 think a lot of people do it as much anymore. 1:39:28.320 --> 1:39:33.360 Okay, recall had theme, everybody played it fame and then 1:39:33.960 --> 1:39:37.160 a bunch of guys went over and created Muscle Shoal 1:39:37.320 --> 1:39:41.080 Sound Studios. How'd you end up with? Theme? Does Muscle 1:39:41.160 --> 1:39:43.759 Shoal Sound Studios really exist anymore? 1:39:44.160 --> 1:39:48.800 It does? It's it is muscle show sound, like I 1:39:48.920 --> 1:39:51.439 want to say, is it doctor dre or somebody put 1:39:51.479 --> 1:39:54.560 a lot of money into it and it's it's revamped. 1:39:54.560 --> 1:39:58.920 It's it is more museine Zen MUSEUMI I guess, more 1:39:59.400 --> 1:40:01.720 more of a music zim type place. But you can 1:40:01.800 --> 1:40:04.120 you can record in there. I mean they're still they 1:40:04.160 --> 1:40:06.320 have an engineer that works there, Like there's you can 1:40:06.360 --> 1:40:10.599 record it. Muscle shows Sound and Fame I know, has 1:40:10.640 --> 1:40:13.040 gone through a lot of work to get to where 1:40:13.080 --> 1:40:16.479 they When we first started, it wasn't bad to record there. 1:40:16.520 --> 1:40:18.240 It's just like there's there was kind of a lot 1:40:18.240 --> 1:40:20.160 of ghost in the machine, you know what I mean, 1:40:20.200 --> 1:40:23.120 where you're like you hit the hit hit a button 1:40:23.160 --> 1:40:25.880 and you you know what I mean, that kind of thing. 1:40:26.120 --> 1:40:28.200 But they've really done an amazing job of making that 1:40:28.240 --> 1:40:31.839 place a great place to record now for modern times. 1:40:33.560 --> 1:40:35.320 So yeah, I mean there's still there's still you can 1:40:35.360 --> 1:40:37.759 still do it the old What is funny though about 1:40:37.800 --> 1:40:39.880 Fame and this is like I said, I get it. 1:40:40.040 --> 1:40:41.760 I know it's it's a point of revenue for them. 1:40:42.120 --> 1:40:44.600 The only concession you have to make is they do 1:40:44.720 --> 1:40:50.519 tours every day at the studio, so you have you 1:40:50.600 --> 1:40:53.160 have like a uh like I think it was like 1:40:53.400 --> 1:40:55.000 they were really good about it, but you there was 1:40:55.080 --> 1:40:58.360 there was usually about a twenty minute part of the 1:40:58.479 --> 1:41:01.360 day where they were gonna come to the studio you're recording, 1:41:01.479 --> 1:41:03.800 so you had to stop recording and we'd hide in 1:41:03.880 --> 1:41:06.599 the in the desk, you know, in the in the 1:41:06.600 --> 1:41:07.680 control room. 1:41:08.000 --> 1:41:10.479 That's funny, Okay. So how much time did it take 1:41:10.520 --> 1:41:11.519 to record the record? 1:41:12.240 --> 1:41:17.559 Took a week a week, that is fast. We did well. 1:41:17.680 --> 1:41:20.080 I say that I don't want to I don't want 1:41:20.080 --> 1:41:22.840 to miss misspeak. We did a week of tracking with 1:41:22.960 --> 1:41:26.920 the band and me singing roughs, and then did another 1:41:27.960 --> 1:41:31.800 couple days of me singing, and then you know, you 1:41:31.880 --> 1:41:36.200 go through your whole process of you know, making the 1:41:36.280 --> 1:41:37.840 sounds right and all that jazz. 1:41:37.880 --> 1:41:41.280 Okay, did egg do any pre production before you went 1:41:41.320 --> 1:41:41.880 in the studio? 1:41:43.280 --> 1:41:44.960 I mean he brought over I'll tell you this man, 1:41:45.000 --> 1:41:48.880 he brought over some damn expensive mics. I know that. Uh, 1:41:48.960 --> 1:41:50.479 he brought him in and brought him in in a 1:41:50.520 --> 1:41:52.680 duffel Back because he didn't want to check him in, 1:41:52.760 --> 1:41:54.800 so he I was like, you carried a duffel Back 1:41:55.200 --> 1:41:58.440 with a sixty thousand dollars MiCT and on the airline, 1:41:58.560 --> 1:42:01.840 you crazy fella. But he brought some of those. He 1:42:01.880 --> 1:42:05.280 had some of those amazing, you know, amazing vocal mics 1:42:05.280 --> 1:42:07.880 with them. But I mean there was, like I said, 1:42:07.880 --> 1:42:09.920 we had we had demoed out pretty you know, we 1:42:10.000 --> 1:42:13.360 knew the songs, so we had demoed out pretty good. 1:42:13.360 --> 1:42:16.080 But uh, there was a lot of where and I 1:42:16.080 --> 1:42:19.479 think I think where he's just incredibly special, especially with 1:42:19.560 --> 1:42:23.120 our band, was there were a few songs I was like, 1:42:23.160 --> 1:42:25.439 the arrangement just wasn't right, you know what I mean, 1:42:25.479 --> 1:42:28.960 It just wasn't right. And like any great producer would do, 1:42:29.680 --> 1:42:32.040 he was like, hey, this isn't right. Let's and we 1:42:32.360 --> 1:42:34.280 experimented and then we found the right and it was 1:42:34.320 --> 1:42:37.960 like it made the song good to great and that 1:42:37.960 --> 1:42:39.599 that's what was really special about it. 1:42:40.520 --> 1:42:42.800 And those are the arrangements. How about you wrote some 1:42:42.960 --> 1:42:44.600 songs with him? The are the ones you wrote with 1:42:44.600 --> 1:42:47.040 the band? Did he give any input and change to 1:42:47.080 --> 1:42:47.799 the other songs? 1:42:48.040 --> 1:42:50.519 I mean it was his, That's that was the thing 1:42:50.520 --> 1:42:52.800 that me and him talked about was like, this is 1:42:52.840 --> 1:42:55.719 your record. You are producing this record. There's not band 1:42:55.800 --> 1:42:59.720 songs or egg songs. I think only two ex me 1:42:59.760 --> 1:43:05.920 and songs ended up on the record. And he he 1:43:05.920 --> 1:43:07.879 he is an like I said, he's a very interesting 1:43:07.920 --> 1:43:13.760 person because he knows what he wants and so he 1:43:13.760 --> 1:43:15.280 he's like, my name is gonna be on this, Like 1:43:15.320 --> 1:43:18.599 he put input on everything, which I it was great. 1:43:18.640 --> 1:43:21.080 It's great to be challenged. I think at this point 1:43:21.120 --> 1:43:23.519 when you you get kind of fat and happy, right 1:43:24.200 --> 1:43:25.920 and you think, oh, yeah, I know what to do. 1:43:26.000 --> 1:43:28.120 I've been doing this now a few times, and it's like, no, 1:43:28.240 --> 1:43:30.360 I like, I like when people challenging. You know, they 1:43:30.360 --> 1:43:33.919 don't have to be assholes, but I like getting challenged 1:43:33.960 --> 1:43:36.519 a bit. And you know, and I think he definitely 1:43:36.520 --> 1:43:41.760 did that for everybody in a very uh British way. 1:43:43.000 --> 1:43:44.960 Go a little deeper, tell me more. 1:43:45.600 --> 1:43:48.519 Well, I mean he would he would I never forget 1:43:48.520 --> 1:43:52.280 like vocal producers like him doing vocals with me and 1:43:52.320 --> 1:43:55.479 he would uh he would say, oh, you know, he would. 1:43:55.680 --> 1:43:58.320 We would talk about soft and hard and he's like, no, 1:43:58.360 --> 1:43:59.760 you need to open up more. You need to be 1:43:59.800 --> 1:44:02.240 a little bit off tune here, you know what I mean? Like, 1:44:02.280 --> 1:44:04.439 which I was like, who in the hell tells you that? 1:44:05.040 --> 1:44:07.599 You know what I'm saying? Like like, but he was like, 1:44:07.840 --> 1:44:10.560 it has more feeling there, that has more you know 1:44:10.600 --> 1:44:12.360 what I mean? And he's like, you know, and I 1:44:12.400 --> 1:44:15.840 could do head to chest really quick. And so we 1:44:15.920 --> 1:44:17.679 had to make that debate like all right, we're going 1:44:17.720 --> 1:44:20.160 through the through the head voice, but let's you know, 1:44:20.400 --> 1:44:23.920 can you go sweep into from head to voice kind 1:44:23.920 --> 1:44:25.760 of you know what I mean? Like all sorts of 1:44:25.760 --> 1:44:28.400 stuff is a vocal producer that I was like, this 1:44:28.439 --> 1:44:32.040 is a new level. Cause sometimes this isn't anock only boby, 1:44:32.040 --> 1:44:34.920 but sometimes I go they they either he did he's 1:44:34.960 --> 1:44:37.880 singing and go oh well that's great, and it's like, okay, 1:44:37.960 --> 1:44:40.240 well if I can do that, then i'd have done 1:44:40.240 --> 1:44:42.479 that on my own. I need someone to go, hey, 1:44:42.479 --> 1:44:45.080 can you you know what I mean? And he really did. 1:44:45.080 --> 1:44:47.479 I know, he challenged me, which I loved. I loved 1:44:47.479 --> 1:44:51.440 getting you know what I mean, I really did. 1:44:50.640 --> 1:44:51.959 And what'd you do for an engineer? 1:44:52.479 --> 1:44:54.479 We got Matt ross Bang, who had produced the last 1:44:54.520 --> 1:44:58.040 two records, which Matt ross Bang is an I mean 1:44:58.280 --> 1:45:01.040 if you want someone. That's what we were trying to do. 1:45:02.200 --> 1:45:03.720 Because we had no idea how it was going to 1:45:03.800 --> 1:45:06.480 go with Egg, we it could have been a complete disaster, 1:45:07.120 --> 1:45:08.880 you know what I mean. And so I had to 1:45:08.880 --> 1:45:11.400 ask Matt Is, like, hey man, can you come in 1:45:11.479 --> 1:45:15.479 and and like just make sure that this you know, 1:45:15.920 --> 1:45:19.160 and because he had done engineering with Dave Cobb and 1:45:19.280 --> 1:45:21.400 you know, he's producing now and he produced our other 1:45:21.439 --> 1:45:24.599 records and we're we're you know, we're friends outside of this, 1:45:25.439 --> 1:45:27.679 and which you know, I didn't know how he'd feel, 1:45:27.720 --> 1:45:31.720 but he was. MAT's Matt's amazing and I knew that 1:45:31.960 --> 1:45:34.559 organic part that we wanted to capture because we didn't 1:45:34.560 --> 1:45:37.519 want it to be a super polished record. Matt being there, 1:45:37.520 --> 1:45:40.640 I knew would help that process. But we didn't know 1:45:40.640 --> 1:45:43.760 how Egg and Matt would work. We didn't know. We 1:45:43.800 --> 1:45:45.480 didn't know if that was going to be a disaster, 1:45:47.640 --> 1:45:49.880 but it ended up being in the studio one of 1:45:49.920 --> 1:45:51.320 the best experiences I've ever had. 1:45:52.200 --> 1:45:55.760 What did uh Matt say about being demoted? 1:45:57.080 --> 1:45:59.559 He did? He It was one of those one of 1:45:59.560 --> 1:46:02.559 those that you're like, I I and I for me, 1:46:02.600 --> 1:46:04.600 I was like I understand whatever he says, do you 1:46:04.640 --> 1:46:05.880 know what I mean if he's like, hey, man, no, 1:46:06.000 --> 1:46:08.559 I've I've produced the last couple of records, Like I 1:46:08.600 --> 1:46:11.600 just feel like maybe that's not my thing. But but 1:46:11.680 --> 1:46:13.880 I was like, I have to make the call because 1:46:14.479 --> 1:46:18.720 I know he's a great fit. And and then he 1:46:18.760 --> 1:46:21.080 gets compensated for it, right like it's a it's a gig. 1:46:21.200 --> 1:46:24.840 So uh, he was Matt. You'd have to know Matt. 1:46:25.080 --> 1:46:27.880 He he's a he's a good dude, and and it 1:46:27.960 --> 1:46:30.200 was a but yeah, no, I mean I definitely I 1:46:30.479 --> 1:46:32.599 didn't I thought he would say no. I mean I did, 1:46:32.640 --> 1:46:34.760 because he had produced the last two records and done 1:46:34.760 --> 1:46:37.400 a phenomenal job. It was just with the egg stuff 1:46:37.400 --> 1:46:39.000 having we didn't know how many of the X songs 1:46:39.000 --> 1:46:40.360 were going to be on there, and we just thought 1:46:40.400 --> 1:46:43.320 it was a it was an interesting fit and uh 1:46:43.400 --> 1:46:45.200 and we never knew I didn't know how Matt would 1:46:45.200 --> 1:46:49.200 act or react, and Matt's amazing and and and just 1:46:50.600 --> 1:46:54.040 to make that work was a really was was I'm ill. 1:46:54.080 --> 1:46:55.240 I'll be eternally grateful. 1:46:56.680 --> 1:46:58.800 Okay, how long ago was the record cut? 1:47:00.040 --> 1:47:04.280 When did we cut this thing? January? So how do 1:47:04.320 --> 1:47:04.960 you feel. 1:47:04.680 --> 1:47:07.000 About waiting almost a year for the record to come. 1:47:06.840 --> 1:47:13.000 Out, buddy, that is it is torture. It is torture. 1:47:13.040 --> 1:47:15.519 I mean we went through this thing because it took 1:47:15.600 --> 1:47:19.320 us a while to get the sound right, you know, 1:47:19.400 --> 1:47:22.360 we just because we did it that way. It took 1:47:22.439 --> 1:47:26.040 us a long time to get the mixing right and 1:47:26.240 --> 1:47:29.479 wear everything laid. And Egg, once again, is a very 1:47:29.479 --> 1:47:32.759 particular person, so it took a long time. And Egg's 1:47:32.760 --> 1:47:36.240 also super busy. You know, he's doing writing sessions constantly, 1:47:36.280 --> 1:47:39.320 so figuring out his schedule and the mats producing stuff 1:47:39.360 --> 1:47:42.720 and all of that intertwining. It took much longer than 1:47:42.760 --> 1:47:46.600 we thought. So we debated. We were like, okay, we 1:47:46.680 --> 1:47:50.720 thought the thing would be out by May or you 1:47:50.760 --> 1:47:54.599 know whatever, and just that process took a long time. 1:47:54.680 --> 1:47:57.960 I mean, what's been beautiful about this is it feels 1:47:58.000 --> 1:47:59.920 worth it. If it didn't feel worth it, I'd be 1:48:00.280 --> 1:48:02.320 really upset. But we were gonna do a fall tour, 1:48:03.000 --> 1:48:05.840 you know, album release tour, and then we kicked it 1:48:05.880 --> 1:48:11.360 to the spring. We're doing the European European UK tour 1:48:11.400 --> 1:48:14.920 and in the winter, so like we this I I 1:48:15.000 --> 1:48:17.000 was supposed to not have time for stuff like this 1:48:17.000 --> 1:48:20.160 this time of year, but it's just how it fell. 1:48:21.080 --> 1:48:23.559 Economically, you guys can afford to stay home. 1:48:26.280 --> 1:48:29.840 It's funny you asked that. I'll tell you this. It's 1:48:29.880 --> 1:48:33.880 been a lot of Aldie and Turkey sandwiches. Uh, that's 1:48:33.880 --> 1:48:38.120 a that's just where we're at. But uh, we we 1:48:38.120 --> 1:48:40.000 we we make it work. We can make it work. 1:48:40.040 --> 1:48:43.240 We're we're we're doing the best we can as far 1:48:43.240 --> 1:48:47.320 as that goes. Like I said, it's affordable to live here, 1:48:47.400 --> 1:48:51.080 so it makes it. But yeah, you you talk about 1:48:51.200 --> 1:48:53.920 thinking you're doing a fall tour and then moving it 1:48:53.960 --> 1:48:58.719 to the spring. Yeah, economically that was like who okay, Oki, 1:48:59.280 --> 1:49:00.840 But I do think it's the right decision. You just 1:49:00.880 --> 1:49:01.719 got to figure it out. 1:49:03.000 --> 1:49:05.839 And what does the band mean in the UK and Europe? 1:49:07.320 --> 1:49:10.280 Well, uh, the good thing is they're going to service 1:49:10.360 --> 1:49:12.280 the record this time. We've had a few of those 1:49:12.400 --> 1:49:15.960 where they haven't serviced the record over there. It's been 1:49:16.000 --> 1:49:18.559 a trial over there. We haven't given up on it. 1:49:20.720 --> 1:49:26.679 We break even. I do. I'm very optimistic about this record. 1:49:26.880 --> 1:49:30.240 I'll just I don't Maybe it's just me being a 1:49:30.240 --> 1:49:33.000 hopeless romantic, but we you know, we can sell two 1:49:33.040 --> 1:49:37.400 thousand tickets in London. We sell you know, close to 1:49:37.439 --> 1:49:43.840 two thousand in Amsterdam. So we can do okay, But 1:49:44.400 --> 1:49:48.120 we've had a few records where just nobody's really worked them, 1:49:48.360 --> 1:49:49.880 you know what I mean, Like I can't tell you 1:49:49.960 --> 1:49:53.280 that I mean, and which is always really frustrating because 1:49:53.520 --> 1:49:55.519 that is a market for us that can be something, 1:49:56.720 --> 1:49:57.439 but it just hasn't. 1:49:57.560 --> 1:49:59.599 So how many tickets do you sell in the US? 1:50:00.040 --> 1:50:01.280 What kind of venues. 1:50:02.960 --> 1:50:05.599 We I mean, we can sell. I mean it depends. 1:50:05.600 --> 1:50:08.679 It's gone down a little bit, but we can sell 1:50:09.920 --> 1:50:11.800 we I mean, like we sold out the Beacon Theater 1:50:11.880 --> 1:50:14.799 last time we played in New York, which is nothing 1:50:14.800 --> 1:50:18.400 to sniff at. Right in the South, we can sell 1:50:18.439 --> 1:50:21.920 some tickets, which is not typical of a ton of 1:50:22.000 --> 1:50:26.080 artists unless your country. So I would say we're in 1:50:26.160 --> 1:50:33.360 that like three to fifteen hundred one thousand range. 1:50:33.640 --> 1:50:38.680 Okay, Now the record's going to come out. What's going 1:50:38.760 --> 1:50:41.960 to be different from any other record? And what are 1:50:42.000 --> 1:50:45.080 your hopes this time around? And what are people doing 1:50:45.400 --> 1:50:47.840 that they're not doing before? Other than social media? 1:50:48.400 --> 1:50:51.040 Well, I mean we've had some people write about sushi 1:50:51.040 --> 1:50:51.719 and Coca cola. 1:50:52.600 --> 1:50:54.000 Yeah I heard about that. 1:50:54.160 --> 1:50:56.920 Did you hear about that? Uh? Yeah, we've had I 1:50:56.960 --> 1:50:58.479 told I told I told our team. I was like, 1:50:58.479 --> 1:51:00.240 we just need to make that the bio. That's about 1:51:00.240 --> 1:51:03.240 the best description. It was scary how these things were 1:51:03.280 --> 1:51:05.000 right about it. We were like, oh, I got especially 1:51:05.000 --> 1:51:10.200 you brought up money. He's like, yep, he's right. But 1:51:10.240 --> 1:51:12.360 we had that which you know, it's funny I heard, 1:51:12.560 --> 1:51:14.720 you know, I heard a lot about that, as you 1:51:14.760 --> 1:51:21.479 can imagine. I think, you know it's I mean, you 1:51:21.560 --> 1:51:24.160 know this, and you're in this. You're what makes a 1:51:24.160 --> 1:51:26.479 difference anymore. And I really don't know. What I have 1:51:26.920 --> 1:51:29.200 come to realize is that you just build your own mountain. 1:51:30.280 --> 1:51:33.120 And whether it's through social media or YouTube or whatever 1:51:33.160 --> 1:51:37.440 it might be, you build your own mountain, okay, and 1:51:38.400 --> 1:51:42.160 building your own mountain. Just get good at that. And 1:51:42.600 --> 1:51:44.400 I think for us, we have a bunch of live 1:51:44.439 --> 1:51:47.120 stuff that were released, like as far as performances that 1:51:47.160 --> 1:51:51.479 were releasing around the record were you know, radio stuff 1:51:51.520 --> 1:51:54.000 is doing well triple A. But once again, I don't 1:51:54.040 --> 1:51:58.240 know what that means anymore. Some of the streaming numbers 1:51:58.240 --> 1:52:00.400 have been good, like in our world, been good. It's 1:52:00.439 --> 1:52:02.960 not like it's you know, you know what I'm saying. 1:52:03.080 --> 1:52:05.000 I will say this though we've had two records like 1:52:05.920 --> 1:52:08.439 I know what momentum, A little momentum feels like, and 1:52:08.439 --> 1:52:09.960 I know what it you know, I know what no 1:52:10.040 --> 1:52:12.439 momentum feels like. And I will say there's a little 1:52:12.479 --> 1:52:16.679 momentum with this that feels good, especially in the UK 1:52:17.000 --> 1:52:20.680 and EU, and that's that's a much better feeling. I'll 1:52:20.680 --> 1:52:25.240 say that. I think that this record we have for 1:52:25.320 --> 1:52:29.400 the longest done a like conceptual records, like where there's 1:52:29.400 --> 1:52:31.720 a concept that we kind of build around it, so 1:52:31.760 --> 1:52:34.000 it's not as much it's more about the concept than 1:52:34.000 --> 1:52:37.040 it is maybe the songs. And we approach this record 1:52:37.040 --> 1:52:41.519 as like every song needs to be the song, build 1:52:41.520 --> 1:52:43.960 it that way, and we've funny enough, I know, this 1:52:44.080 --> 1:52:47.040 is crazy. We've never built a record that way. It's 1:52:47.080 --> 1:52:49.280 always been like, well, what's the vibe, how's the vibe fit? 1:52:49.320 --> 1:52:54.040 It's like, no best song wins, So the ten best 1:52:54.080 --> 1:52:56.840 songs And that's how we've written the record, which is 1:52:57.520 --> 1:52:59.600 I know it's counter to what a lot of people do, 1:52:59.680 --> 1:53:02.840 but that's or you know, usually that's how most people 1:53:02.880 --> 1:53:04.599 write records. But that's the first time we've ever really 1:53:04.600 --> 1:53:06.280 done that. And so that's what we did. 1:53:07.920 --> 1:53:09.639 Well, you know, I was going to ask you some questions. 1:53:09.680 --> 1:53:13.760 You answered about today's you know, crazy landscape. But you 1:53:13.840 --> 1:53:16.840 have to build your own mountain. You know exactly what's 1:53:16.880 --> 1:53:18.920 going on. It's you know, it's hard to feel what's 1:53:18.960 --> 1:53:24.080 going on. Spoke about momentum. I think we've covered it, Paul, 1:53:24.880 --> 1:53:27.600 it's been great talking to you. As I said earlier, 1:53:28.000 --> 1:53:31.639 you never knew who somebody is in or talk to him. 1:53:31.720 --> 1:53:33.320 What I have to ask what did you What did 1:53:33.360 --> 1:53:34.800 you think I will? What did you think? 1:53:40.520 --> 1:53:45.240 You're a guy who's dynamic on stage. You have to 1:53:45.360 --> 1:53:47.640 work yourself up to do that. I mean, there's some 1:53:47.720 --> 1:53:53.000 instinctive thing, but it's a performance, right, as you say, entertainment. Right. 1:53:53.080 --> 1:53:58.360 If let's just assume you Paul went to visit teenage 1:53:58.479 --> 1:54:03.599 Paul and Chelsea, someone who knew nothing. Okay, I said. 1:54:03.439 --> 1:54:05.880 Yeah, I'm in this band. We play around the world. 1:54:06.439 --> 1:54:11.760 People say you, yeah, you know, you're not that guy. 1:54:11.640 --> 1:54:13.720 You know, blah blah blah blah. Boy, You're You're just 1:54:13.880 --> 1:54:18.680 like me, so you know. And the other thing is 1:54:20.400 --> 1:54:23.080 a lot of people are road weary. 1:54:23.240 --> 1:54:27.040 They've been doing it so long that everything's kind of 1:54:27.080 --> 1:54:29.200 like punching the clock. I mean, people are not gonna 1:54:29.200 --> 1:54:32.080 We had some technical issues at the beginning. You know, 1:54:33.320 --> 1:54:35.360 you could have been oh man, I I you know, 1:54:35.400 --> 1:54:38.240 we had a start time. Now you know we're slipping. 1:54:38.840 --> 1:54:41.880 I got to you know, uh jr cough later. I mean, 1:54:41.960 --> 1:54:44.080 come on, so. 1:54:44.160 --> 1:54:46.640 You're like, oh yeah, cool man, We're gonna work it out. 1:54:47.200 --> 1:54:49.240 I mean, I you know, I don't you know, you 1:54:49.320 --> 1:54:51.800 got a big operation, you got a big band, you 1:54:51.880 --> 1:54:55.000 got a wife and and a kid. 1:54:55.280 --> 1:54:58.920 But you're a friendly guy. I mean, you know, you 1:54:59.000 --> 1:55:01.160 meet somebody that's a good guy. 1:55:01.240 --> 1:55:03.280 Like to hang with it. Yeah yeah, I mean seriously, 1:55:03.320 --> 1:55:05.600 Like for me, I know this is crazy, but I 1:55:05.640 --> 1:55:09.200 actually love love. I mean I worked on paving cruise. 1:55:09.240 --> 1:55:09.440 Man. 1:55:10.000 --> 1:55:13.200 I love what I do, and I will that this 1:55:13.360 --> 1:55:15.760 beat the shit out of that on my on my 1:55:15.840 --> 1:55:17.680 worst day of this, it's still better than my best 1:55:17.720 --> 1:55:20.000 day on that and I it doesn't feel that long ago, 1:55:20.440 --> 1:55:23.080 you know what I mean. But but no, I appreciate it, 1:55:23.120 --> 1:55:26.360 and I want to say I do appreciate what you wrote. Uh. 1:55:26.520 --> 1:55:29.760 I heard from a lot of industry people and it 1:55:29.880 --> 1:55:33.760 was really funny because I was I told him that, 1:55:34.000 --> 1:55:35.520 I was like, that might be one of the most 1:55:35.520 --> 1:55:36.640 glowing things. 1:55:37.080 --> 1:55:37.200 Uh. 1:55:37.440 --> 1:55:40.360 I've ever seen them rit and I really appreciated that 1:55:40.600 --> 1:55:43.240 it I'll tell I'll tell you for the band and everything, 1:55:43.760 --> 1:55:46.280 it meant a lot. It meant like it was the 1:55:46.320 --> 1:55:49.160 sign of like, Okay, at least somebody gets it. And 1:55:49.480 --> 1:55:51.480 it felt really good. So just letting you know. 1:55:52.640 --> 1:55:55.200 That makes me smile. But I'll just reiterate, you know, 1:55:55.960 --> 1:55:59.440 totally honest, totally how I felt. I was just listening 1:55:59.480 --> 1:56:02.160 to the song and I had those feelings and no 1:56:02.200 --> 1:56:04.880 one was paying me, no one. I hadn't met you before, 1:56:05.480 --> 1:56:09.040 But that's what we're all looking for. This is what 1:56:09.160 --> 1:56:12.240 people say, Oh the odds are stacked against me, et cetera, 1:56:12.280 --> 1:56:16.480 et cetera. If anybody he's something they really think is great, 1:56:16.520 --> 1:56:17.960 they want to tell everybody about it. 1:56:18.080 --> 1:56:18.320 Right. 1:56:18.640 --> 1:56:20.800 It's like, hey, I found this because so much of 1:56:20.840 --> 1:56:22.720 the stuff is just mediocre. 1:56:22.800 --> 1:56:25.960 I know. I'm with you, I'm with you, I hear you. 1:56:26.040 --> 1:56:28.440 I just know it was I'm just saying. And it 1:56:28.720 --> 1:56:30.520 made it to the group thread and everyone was just 1:56:31.040 --> 1:56:33.280 you know, it's validating in a way. Do you know 1:56:33.320 --> 1:56:35.320 what I mean? Because you know what you know this 1:56:35.440 --> 1:56:38.360 like what we do doesn't make economic sense and we 1:56:38.440 --> 1:56:40.680 make it work, but we do it because we feel 1:56:40.680 --> 1:56:42.640 like it's the best thing to do, and that's that's 1:56:42.640 --> 1:56:45.040 a it's a validay, so I appreciate that. 1:56:45.920 --> 1:56:47.200 Well, that's the last word. 1:56:47.280 --> 1:56:47.520 Paul. 1:56:47.600 --> 1:56:49.760 I want to thank you for talking to my audience, 1:56:49.800 --> 1:56:53.640 taking this time till next time. This is Bob left 1:56:53.680 --> 1:56:53.960 such