Speaker 1: All right here with Red Atkins. It's good. Can you
Speaker 1: hear anything? That's the trick of the podcast. We don't
Speaker 1: let you hear what's happening. We're making you good. Yea,
Speaker 1: what do you do today? I wrote today? Any good man?
Speaker 1: That's a that's a question I can't answer anymore. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I have my own I have my own
Speaker 1: version of what I think is good and bad, you know,
Speaker 1: from the from my all of my years of listening
Speaker 1: to music. But when it comes to my own it's
Speaker 1: hard to tell because there's so many sons. I've probably
Speaker 1: written close to two thousand songs in the last ten years.
Speaker 1: And when I started, I really thought I knew. And
Speaker 1: then the ones that you think this is a Grammy.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the best song of all time.
Speaker 1: It's still sitting on the shelf at my publican company.
Speaker 1: And the one that you walk out of there going,
Speaker 1: it's all right. You know, nobody'll ever cut it. Whatever,
Speaker 1: boys around here, nobody in the world will ever cut that.
Speaker 1: You know, I've got it, you just I just don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't tell anymore. So you couple boys right here
Speaker 1: and you go at him. Now, this is another song
Speaker 1: of the day. I don't, yeah, and it was the
Speaker 1: demo was so whacked out. What you guys doing the
Speaker 1: demo that was different. Craig Wiseman built the track the
Speaker 1: red red red Red, Redneck came from. Uh. Craig Wiseman
Speaker 1: asked Alice Davidson, one of the writers on the song,
Speaker 1: what he had done that weekend, and Dallas said, oh,
Speaker 1: just me and my red neck buddies fishing or something
Speaker 1: like that. But Craig had the microphone rolling and and
Speaker 1: you know, Craig, we didn't know it, don't even know this,
Speaker 1: but Craig's over there messing with the computer and we
Speaker 1: don't know what he's doing. Next thing, you know, you
Speaker 1: hear red red, red, red, red, red red Nick. He
Speaker 1: had just taken Dallas's word from Redneck and turned it
Speaker 1: into that. And uh, the the bridge Riggers, Let's ride.
Speaker 1: That was that happened because we had been there so
Speaker 1: long that I just leaned back in my chair and
Speaker 1: I went yawn. And Craig thought that I was singing
Speaker 1: at melody and he was like, oh, that's good, right,
Speaker 1: there was what you got right there. I was like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? I was like, I yawned, and
Speaker 1: he guys, yeah, it was good. It's in tune. It's
Speaker 1: in tuning, and so oh, let's right, came from me yawning.
Speaker 1: Actually um. And then Dallas had to leave, and so
Speaker 1: me and Craig finished the bridge and the rest of
Speaker 1: the song out. So the first half of the song
Speaker 1: is Dallas singing. The back half of the song is
Speaker 1: me singing. It's got the red red red Neck, and
Speaker 1: it's got all these little ad libs, like, you know,
Speaker 1: all this stupid stuff, and and so, uh, Craig, we're
Speaker 1: packing up, and I said, no way on earth does
Speaker 1: this song get pitched until the Redneck is out, all
Speaker 1: the little ad libs. And Dallas has got to come
Speaker 1: back and sing the rest of the song, because who
Speaker 1: wants to hear a song with half of its me
Speaker 1: and half of its him, you know? And he uh,
Speaker 1: he text me that night and I'm doing a Craig
Speaker 1: wise an invitation, but or he called me and he say,
Speaker 1: I ain't God Daddy, he said, uh too late on
Speaker 1: that redoing the demo. And I said, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: He said, Lawrene, I said, Blake And he loves it.
Speaker 1: That was it. You know, that's a song that I
Speaker 1: was like, who who could cut this? You know? And
Speaker 1: I guess Blake can. Well, Blake's you know, He's y'all
Speaker 1: are the raging idiots, and he's the biggest of all.
Speaker 1: He's the raging ist, raging idiot they ever walked, so
Speaker 1: of the super country, even the pop. Yeah, he can say.
Speaker 1: Blake has created that lane where you can say anything
Speaker 1: Blake and with black Black just I mean, I've known
Speaker 1: Blake since probably two thousand. This is fun, this is true.
Speaker 1: I was back when I was on the road and stuff.
Speaker 1: I was booked by Buddy Lee Attractions, and so me
Speaker 1: and Joey Lee, he was had a Buddy Lee were
Speaker 1: in the parking lot and Giant Records was right across
Speaker 1: the rut across the road, and this guy pulls up
Speaker 1: in a truck, it's old truck and he gets out
Speaker 1: and his hair is literally to his butt. He's got
Speaker 1: a cowboy hat on, curly reddish brown hair down to
Speaker 1: his butt. And I asked Joey Lee, I said, who
Speaker 1: in the world is that? And he said, uh, as
Speaker 1: this new artist I think named Blake Shelton. And I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he can sing. I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about the dude, but he will never make it
Speaker 1: like he was just like worse than I mean, worse
Speaker 1: than Billy Ray never had hair like Blake had back then,
Speaker 1: and who who would have guessed? You know, eighteen years later,
Speaker 1: if you ask a random person on the street, do
Speaker 1: you listen to country music? And they go, no, you know,
Speaker 1: any country artist, Blake would probably be the first. Taylor
Speaker 1: Swifter or Blake would be the two artists they would
Speaker 1: probably pick, you know, because he's just the voice and
Speaker 1: everything he's done is just awesome. See you leave the
Speaker 1: studio now and you got do you not even think
Speaker 1: about what you did? Because it's so like for me,
Speaker 1: I'll go to a radio show and I can't tell
Speaker 1: it's good night anymore because I do it every day
Speaker 1: like I do what I do, and I try to
Speaker 1: do what I do to the best I can do it,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if it's good anymore. I don't either.
Speaker 1: I wrote with Ashley Gorley and h Jesse Frasier today too,
Speaker 1: fantastic writers. They're written every hit in the world, and
Speaker 1: we're just sitting there looking at each other, and I
Speaker 1: was just like, dude, how can we how can we
Speaker 1: cook this potato any differently? That's like we have baked it,
Speaker 1: We've mashed it, we cut it up, made French fries,
Speaker 1: we've bowled it, We've held it over a fire with
Speaker 1: a stick. I don't know how to I don't know
Speaker 1: how to cook this thing anymore. It just to me,
Speaker 1: it starts to be I just trust the process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's for me. My whole My whole success is showing
Speaker 1: up and doing it. You know. I have to just
Speaker 1: show up and and just right because you never know
Speaker 1: what day in the world that God's just gonna drop
Speaker 1: that one in that one in your lap, you know,
Speaker 1: And so I I do it all the time. What's
Speaker 1: the one to you? If I say, hey, what's that one?
Speaker 1: That's what the one that you put out that goes man,
Speaker 1: that's the one I'm I'm proud of it him. I
Speaker 1: think the best, the only one song, the best combination
Speaker 1: of melody and unique lyric. I think it was Honeybee.
Speaker 1: It's a love song that's that's written completely different than
Speaker 1: any other love song I've heard. We didn't even mean
Speaker 1: to write this song. Neither neither Ben Hay Silett nor
Speaker 1: myself even had this title, this has an Arkansas connection
Speaker 1: for you. Um, We're sitting there like we always do,
Speaker 1: talking about Georgia football and hunting or something, and you know,
Speaker 1: we do for the first hour and what do you
Speaker 1: got nothing? What do you got nothing? And so I'm
Speaker 1: just thumbing through like a music Row magazine or something,
Speaker 1: and I flipped to this page and the Governor of Arkansas,
Speaker 1: Mike Huckabee was was in Music Row magazine that I
Speaker 1: guess he plays bass and he had come to Nashville
Speaker 1: and played on somebody's record and it said Huckabee comes
Speaker 1: to town or something like that, and I misread it
Speaker 1: and I thought it said I thought it said Huckleberry,
Speaker 1: and uh, I said, how about this title? How about Huckleberry?
Speaker 1: And you know, he was like, what's that? And I
Speaker 1: was like, I have no idea. All I know is
Speaker 1: that I heard it in the movie Tombstone that dr
Speaker 1: always said Huckleberry, And so we tried to We fiddled
Speaker 1: with that for a minute and I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't get it. I don't know what this is. And
Speaker 1: then uh, the I'm your Huckleberry turned into I'm your honeysucker.
Speaker 1: I saw what about honeysuckle? And He's like, Okay, what's that?
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, if I'm well, if I'm
Speaker 1: a honeysuckle or you're a honeysuckle, then what could be
Speaker 1: the opposite? And that's how honey Bee came about in
Speaker 1: the in the title and the idea was so different
Speaker 1: that we knew we had to write it kind of
Speaker 1: funny because what romantic song are you gonna hear with
Speaker 1: a guy and a girl sitting there? And he goes, hey,
Speaker 1: you'd be my Mississippi and I'll be in Louisiana, you know.
Speaker 1: And so we kind of had ache in mind, I
Speaker 1: will say for that when we we sort of had
Speaker 1: black in mind, because again, like boys around here, who
Speaker 1: else can we can be wetty wetty and and pull
Speaker 1: this off? You know? And then uh. I remember playing
Speaker 1: the work tape for Thomas Rhett because I thought I
Speaker 1: didn't think it was that good, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you think we should demo this thing? And he said
Speaker 1: d He's like, if you don't demo this thing, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna do something with it. Um. And so
Speaker 1: we demoed it and sent it to Blake and he
Speaker 1: just flipped over it. And so that one, I think
Speaker 1: is the best combination of of lyric, a cool idea,
Speaker 1: and a melody. I mean, I've had a lot of
Speaker 1: songs that the melody were great and the lyrics, like
Speaker 1: you know, lyrics are great, melodies stock or whatever, it's
Speaker 1: not anything special, but that would just seem like that
Speaker 1: one just was everything in one When you came to town.
Speaker 1: What was the goal for you to be artist? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean a songwriter also. I mean I guess
Speaker 1: always in the back of my mind, I was a
Speaker 1: songwriter first, but I did want to be an artist.
Speaker 1: I mean from the time I was six years old,
Speaker 1: old enough to know anything about music. Um, I just
Speaker 1: you know, there wasn't the Internet or anything back then,
Speaker 1: so I just religiously studied album covers and had kiss
Speaker 1: posters all over my wall, and I was just very
Speaker 1: I stayed up late at night watching Friday night videos
Speaker 1: and night tracks and you know what there was we
Speaker 1: didn't We couldn't even get MTV, and when we did,
Speaker 1: that's all I watched. So I just I kind of
Speaker 1: idolized singers from a young age and football players. I'm
Speaker 1: a huge sports not too but football players and musicians
Speaker 1: were like from Mars and and that's where I wanted
Speaker 1: to go, So you moved to town. You know. When
Speaker 1: I was growing up, this is massive and I listened
Speaker 1: to U S nine seven Kissing ninety six Franks later
Speaker 1: rock stations. I mean, I can vividly remember this song
Speaker 1: and radio. It's part of my childhood. Yes, weird how
Speaker 1: that one has hung around. I mean, you never know.
Speaker 1: I still play the song today on my show. I
Speaker 1: know I heard I heard um, you know obviously once
Speaker 1: every two weeks or something like that. But I'll have
Speaker 1: people lot of time ago. Man, I heard that. Ain't
Speaker 1: my truck this morning on the way in. I have
Speaker 1: absolutely no reason why. I mean, there's you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of great songs from the nineties, I mean,
Speaker 1: super giant hits from Garth, Allen Jackson, everybody, and for
Speaker 1: some reason, that one has has hung around. Thank goodness,
Speaker 1: you still have the itch to go and play these
Speaker 1: big shows. Ah SOMEO. I mean the Luckily for me,
Speaker 1: I still kind of get to do it. So it's
Speaker 1: not like I'm a songwriter only because I go on
Speaker 1: the road all the time and write. Anytime I'm out
Speaker 1: with Thomas Rhett. He always brings me on stage and
Speaker 1: and I sing that and maybe a song or two
Speaker 1: that he and I wrote or something else that I've written.
Speaker 1: And uh, I go on tour with Luke Brian every
Speaker 1: uh fall for the farm tour. Uh the peach pickers
Speaker 1: to me been hey slipping Dallas Davidson. And our primary
Speaker 1: goal is out there to write. We're right with Luke
Speaker 1: or whoever is opening the show, but we do uh,
Speaker 1: we have we bring a full band, and so we've
Speaker 1: been opening for Luke since Too was in eleven. And
Speaker 1: it's freaking it's it's really weird because you know, most songwriters,
Speaker 1: they don't I don't. I don't think they. We get
Speaker 1: stuck in Nashville and we're stuck on these two or
Speaker 1: three streets on music Crow, but we don't ever go
Speaker 1: out and see what's really happening in mid Iowa or somewhere.
Speaker 1: When you're out there on a farm tour in a
Speaker 1: field on a dirt road, we're literally half the people
Speaker 1: miss half the show because they're stuck, you know, But
Speaker 1: to sing for twenty thou people the songs that that
Speaker 1: we wrote, and they just we don't. We honestly don't
Speaker 1: have to sing. I mean they literally scream every word back.
Speaker 1: And uh, that's pretty awesome to be able to still
Speaker 1: get to do it every now and then. But I
Speaker 1: definitely don't want to be on the tour bus. I
Speaker 1: did it fifteen straight years. I mean I was on
Speaker 1: the road from so about two thousand and ten or eleven,
Speaker 1: and UM, yeah, I don't have the desire to be
Speaker 1: on the bus every weekend, but I do like doing it,
Speaker 1: you know, once every six you know, four to six months.
Speaker 1: I just went on the road with Midland, like a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago. I went from I went to
Speaker 1: California for five days with John Party and flew to Ohio. Midland.
Speaker 1: You talk about two two bands that will warry out.
Speaker 1: I'm good friend to John. Yeah, like I love that dude.
Speaker 1: He's he's awesome. And you wrote this one. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's a a jam. It is, But that's another one
Speaker 1: that I walked out of there never. I didn't even
Speaker 1: think about it. And you know when I left, Um,
Speaker 1: the boots that I'm wearing now, the boots that I
Speaker 1: wrote this song. I've been wearing these boots since two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten. Um, and uh, we wrote this song
Speaker 1: like at eight o'clock in the morning before we went
Speaker 1: to our real rights, and um, well, I mean I
Speaker 1: was about half asleep and and uh we only had
Speaker 1: like two hours, couldn't think of anything to write. And
Speaker 1: I'm just looking down at the ground on my boots
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, same boots. I'm like, what about
Speaker 1: dirt on my boots? You know, stupid whatever, But we
Speaker 1: don't have anything else. And Jesse's track was so but
Speaker 1: you should hear the demo. Man, it's like banging. If
Speaker 1: you think this is banging, Jesse's demo was banging, and
Speaker 1: and we wrote it and you know, it's not a
Speaker 1: fantastic title or anything. Um and uh so I just
Speaker 1: walked out of there and going, who knows, man, it's
Speaker 1: so hip hop and and pop and it's called Dirt
Speaker 1: on my Boots. I mean, I don't know if he
Speaker 1: mal dig this. I really didn't think about it again,
Speaker 1: and I don't know a few months later they said
Speaker 1: John Party was gonna cut it. And I've been writing
Speaker 1: with John since like two thousand nine, like I and
Speaker 1: he's just now, you know, really hitting it. And um,
Speaker 1: I was really excited that he loved it. And then
Speaker 1: right after I was excited that he loved it. I
Speaker 1: got really unexcited real quick because I said, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: John can't have the song, and they're like, why not?
Speaker 1: And I said, what his biggest hit he's ever had
Speaker 1: is called head over Boots. That was the big deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, he said, he's not gonna cut. He's not
Speaker 1: gonna I said, even if he cuts it, he won't
Speaker 1: put it out. There's no way they will put out
Speaker 1: two Boots songs on a record. And uh, Mike Dungan
Speaker 1: was just like, I don't care if you say Boots
Speaker 1: five times. He's like, you want two back to bat hits.
Speaker 1: We're putting out dirt on my boots. And thank goodness
Speaker 1: for Mike Dungan that he just didn't care. He's like,
Speaker 1: I don't care what they say. It's a smash. I
Speaker 1: remember John said he we have two Boots songs, like
Speaker 1: our next song is about to be booted And I
Speaker 1: was like really, and so now nobody even thinks about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got a song on his album called Cowboy Hat
Speaker 1: and I think you just cut a song called Pearl
Speaker 1: Snap And I was like, we're just going what do
Speaker 1: you want belt buckle want he wants spurs. What what
Speaker 1: else can we do? You played ball in high school? Did? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I have a big sports guy too. I had a
Speaker 1: national sports to talk show for a long time. Played
Speaker 1: ball of course in high school. But um, that's my
Speaker 1: passion music and sports. I think every singer wants to
Speaker 1: be an athlete, and every athlete wants to be a singer.
Speaker 1: I like to be out the one. Well, I went
Speaker 1: to the University of Georgia and I played in my
Speaker 1: freshman year, and well, I would say played, I practiced.
Speaker 1: I did my granddad who played at Georgia in the forties.
Speaker 1: We had season tickets my whole life. You know. I
Speaker 1: met herschel Walker when I was ten. Um for me,
Speaker 1: I grew up in Valdosta, Georgia, which is the winningest
Speaker 1: high school football team of all time. You can get state.
Speaker 1: So I grew up in a town where our high
Speaker 1: school quarterbacks were more famous than me than Terry Bradshaw
Speaker 1: or Roger stall Back. I could go see then. I
Speaker 1: remember I shook buck Baloo's hand when I was like eight,
Speaker 1: and he was the voudoustar quarterback, and then he won
Speaker 1: the national championship at Georgia, And to this day, that's
Speaker 1: one of the biggest handshakes I've ever had. Was Buckaloe.
Speaker 1: When I was eight, they were gods where I was from.
Speaker 1: And then he goes to Georgia and then Herschel as
Speaker 1: a freshman, and then you're ten years old and all
Speaker 1: this is happening is from your hometown and it's your
Speaker 1: college team. I was. I was like, you know, I
Speaker 1: was just as much as an aspiring athlete as I
Speaker 1: was a musician. But but a musician is something that
Speaker 1: couldn't happen, And that was just there's no way I
Speaker 1: could be a singer, but I can play football, So
Speaker 1: you thought you had a better shot to make a
Speaker 1: CREDI an athlete. Well, who could be a singer? I
Speaker 1: mean there was no American idol or YouTube or or
Speaker 1: any way to even make it. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know anybody. No, but I don't know anybody that can sing.
Speaker 1: There's nobody from around here that's ever gone to do it.
Speaker 1: So that's out. I mean, I'll just be sitting on
Speaker 1: my bed playing my guitar. So when did you make
Speaker 1: that turn though, where you go, Okay, I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: this because at one some point you have to go.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take the shot. I always played like I
Speaker 1: took my guitar to football camp every year, and I
Speaker 1: was always very good. Well I wouldn't say I was good, No,
Speaker 1: just nobody else could play, so they thought I was awesome.
Speaker 1: I'm very I was always good at listening. I can't
Speaker 1: read music. I was very good at listening to music
Speaker 1: and just moving the needle back and forth. And you know,
Speaker 1: after a little while, I could fake anything. I could
Speaker 1: play any skinnered song or George Straight or whatever. So
Speaker 1: I always played, you know, at football camp and parties.
Speaker 1: Everybody like get your guitar and and um. It was
Speaker 1: after I came home from Georgia and I moved back
Speaker 1: to aut Austin and I was working for my daddy,
Speaker 1: and uh um, I ran into an old high school
Speaker 1: buddy and we said we should get together like we
Speaker 1: did in high school and just start playing somewhere. So
Speaker 1: we played at a little restaurant and at the Holiday
Speaker 1: Inn for like a happy hour and stuff. And um
Speaker 1: we did that for about two years and it just
Speaker 1: kept growing and everybody, I mean it kind of became
Speaker 1: a thing like rhet and Hall are playing at the
Speaker 1: holiday and on Thursday night, and I mean it, it
Speaker 1: was like getting packed in there and I would throw
Speaker 1: in one of my own every now and then. Um
Speaker 1: and everybody, you know, of course, when you're in a
Speaker 1: small town, everybody's like, man, you're better in Garth. Man.
Speaker 1: You you know you're as good as Alan Jackson. You
Speaker 1: want to you want to move to Nashville? And um,
Speaker 1: so about when Thomas Rhett was right about two, we moved.
Speaker 1: We moved to Nashville and just said, you know, thank goodness,
Speaker 1: my parents and everybody where cool with it. And uh,
Speaker 1: I just said, I'd rather go try it and fail
Speaker 1: than be ninety and wish I wish I did it.
Speaker 1: You know, never would have dreamed you know I'd still
Speaker 1: be here doing it. You always call him Thomas Rrett.
Speaker 1: Do you call him Thomas when you're not talking about him? Thomashrett.
Speaker 1: That's that's been his name since he was born, So
Speaker 1: it's he's always Thomas Raett. That's not a thing you're
Speaker 1: just saying because we're talking about his name is Thomas Rtt.
Speaker 1: Most people think his last name is Rhett. I don't
Speaker 1: even call my name is Thomas Rhett. I'm Thomas Hredd
Speaker 1: Aikins Senior. He's Thomas Fredd Aikins Jr. And from the
Speaker 1: moment he was born. That's kind of a Southern thing.
Speaker 1: You know, he's been timing. We called him Thomas Rrett
Speaker 1: since day was born, so I call him t R. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I call him TRS too, Yeah, but but that's mostly
Speaker 1: Thomas Hrett. Yeah. But most people that that that don't
Speaker 1: know anything about me or whatever, they think that that
Speaker 1: his last name is Rhet And so the funniest thing
Speaker 1: ever on Instagram or Twitter one time, the fans got
Speaker 1: into an argument about his last name and they said.
Speaker 1: One person said, because Lawrence Instagram is like, aren't Aikins
Speaker 1: or whatever, And they were like, I think it's so
Speaker 1: sweet that Thomas Rett took Lauren's last name when they
Speaker 1: got married, Like he loves her so much that he
Speaker 1: ditched his last name Rhett for Aikins because his Instagram
Speaker 1: name is Thomas Red Aikins. But they don't. But they're like,
Speaker 1: what's the Aikins thing. His last name is Rhett, so
Speaker 1: he took his wife's name and made that his name.
Speaker 1: And then the next person said, you're so stupid. They're
Speaker 1: like They're like, his his his name is, his name
Speaker 1: is Thomas Redd Aikins. Duh, his dad is Rett Atkins.
Speaker 1: Like like, I've always been called you know, every nobody
Speaker 1: can get Akins, right, it's been Atkins since I was
Speaker 1: in first grade. But it was like, no, his name
Speaker 1: is Thomas Red Aikins because his dad is Red Atkins.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was the dumbest argument I've ever seen
Speaker 1: on social media. But um, was that a conversation you
Speaker 1: guys had where yeah we did, because yeah, he just
Speaker 1: you know, obviously there was Chat at Hims who started
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Then you had me, Trace Atkins and
Speaker 1: Rodney Atkins. And now you're gonna have you know, Thomas
Speaker 1: Red Akins whatever or whatever his name is gonna be,
Speaker 1: you know, Thomas Akins. And I just said, dude, I said,
Speaker 1: not only do we have we called you Thomas rhet
Speaker 1: since the day we were born. I just think it
Speaker 1: sounds cool. It sounds like a stage name, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It sounds like a cool name. So
Speaker 1: and you're not gonna get confused with me or Rodney
Speaker 1: or Trace or anybody. And and so that's they were
Speaker 1: cool with it. They're like, yeah, let's do that. It's
Speaker 1: been interesting because I've been here long enough now to
Speaker 1: see him early early and then see him now turning
Speaker 1: to the star that he is, but also have been
Speaker 1: there since the beginning to where it's we have a
Speaker 1: relationship because I was starting to I mean, I was
Speaker 1: just a little junior turd, you know, right about the
Speaker 1: time he was starting to blow up. And so man
Speaker 1: talk about someone who is in five years completely turned
Speaker 1: into a superstar, Like, that's the one where I go,
Speaker 1: I've I watched someone go from a new artist to
Speaker 1: a superstar. That's the one. Yeah, it's still weird to me,
Speaker 1: Like I still don't believe it, Like like I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't totally. I mean, I know he is one,
Speaker 1: but I don't. It's hard for me to think of him.
Speaker 1: I still think I can tell him what to do,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it's like, why are you
Speaker 1: doing that? Stop doing that? You know? I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think of him as Garthur. I mean, obviously he's
Speaker 1: not that big, but I still don't think of him
Speaker 1: as uh as a star. I still think of him
Speaker 1: as you better be home by eleven o'clock, you know whatever,
Speaker 1: or did you change the all in your truck, you know,
Speaker 1: because if you didn't change the all in your truck,
Speaker 1: you're not driving it. Driving it this week. Um it's
Speaker 1: weird to go on tour with him. And the first
Speaker 1: show I went to last year on his first headlining
Speaker 1: gig was was in Illinois, and when we pulled up
Speaker 1: to the venue, I couldnot wrap my head around that
Speaker 1: Luke wasn't playing tonight. I could not get it. I
Speaker 1: was like these people, like look at these people. I
Speaker 1: mean it was fifteen thousand cars out there, you know,
Speaker 1: and his name is the one on the market. It's
Speaker 1: not Luke Bryan and Ama Shrett. It was like Thomas
Speaker 1: Rhett tonight. And um, I was like this is this
Speaker 1: is weird. And what was weirder was going to catering
Speaker 1: because I'm used to going to catering and seeing a
Speaker 1: little big town or Miranda or somebody sitting over there
Speaker 1: in their sweatpants, and it was him, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I was like, this is your spaghetti? Like
Speaker 1: you shared the sitt in Blakes, Like you're paying for this,
Speaker 1: Like you have a full time caterer out here, and um,
Speaker 1: it was it was just like nuts, what advice does
Speaker 1: he hit you you have thirty number ones? So what
Speaker 1: advice does he hit you? I about when he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: help me out with this. It's different than it used
Speaker 1: to be, you know, when like when he first started,
Speaker 1: he didn't know anything about what's the publishing deal? What's
Speaker 1: a you know? Is this look right in my contract? What? What?
Speaker 1: What is my manager supposed to do? Um? Real naive
Speaker 1: questions back then announce you know, dad, what song should
Speaker 1: I put out next? Or Dad? Do you think I've piked?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like he Thomas s Ratt,
Speaker 1: He he thinks pretty deeply about his life and his career,
Speaker 1: and like, I think that's what God wants me to do.
Speaker 1: Like do you think I'm not spending enough time with Willa?
Speaker 1: You know it's it's like real questions. It's not because
Speaker 1: he's got his manager and booking agent and label and
Speaker 1: he didn't have to worry about He didn't need me
Speaker 1: to tell him all those things. She just like that
Speaker 1: when you came home off the road, like were you
Speaker 1: just exhausted? Like was I bugging the crap out of
Speaker 1: you to play soccer or throw the football? And you
Speaker 1: just didn't want to, you know, like real real questions
Speaker 1: about especially since he has kids. Name. Um, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: pretty I mean we've always been really close, but um,
Speaker 1: it's really cool for him to finally, you know, now
Speaker 1: that he's a dad, that we have a relationship like
Speaker 1: on a different level, Like we can compare notes on
Speaker 1: on kids and things. You know, do you see you
Speaker 1: when you see him start? Not as much as everybody
Speaker 1: else does. I mean everybody. I walk in the room
Speaker 1: and they, oh, my god, you look just like Thomas Rudder.
Speaker 1: They tell him, you know you it's just like your dad. Um,
Speaker 1: if I was thirty pounds less, maybe, But because I
Speaker 1: I when you look at an athlete, you I don't
Speaker 1: see tr I watched the box and you know he didn't.
Speaker 1: He didn't gravitate towards sports as well as I did.
Speaker 1: I think one thing is when you grow up in
Speaker 1: the in the South, in a small town, especially like Valdosta,
Speaker 1: who's one se many football games, it's like what you do?
Speaker 1: I mean, it is like not even a question. You
Speaker 1: come out of the womb, you're a boy, you're playing football,
Speaker 1: and in Nashville there's a thousand high schools here. Like
Speaker 1: I was so disappointed at every game I would go
Speaker 1: to see him play. There would be three hundred people
Speaker 1: at the game because Nashville is so spark I mean
Speaker 1: so spread out on a normal game for us, I
Speaker 1: mean on a game that we know we're gonna win,
Speaker 1: fifty nothing, ten thous some people in the stands every
Speaker 1: Friday night. I used I used to do play by
Speaker 1: play for at the time, it was Division two Soldi
Speaker 1: State and they still maybe and they maybe. I don't
Speaker 1: know what they are now, but I used to do play.
Speaker 1: We used to go down to All dust because I
Speaker 1: did play by play at Henderson State University as I
Speaker 1: went to school and play in the same conference. So
Speaker 1: we traveled down to All Dustin and we would just
Speaker 1: get crushed and we go lose seventy two, and it
Speaker 1: would be the most miserable thing calling a college m
Speaker 1: where you getting cushcare. There's nothing to talk about when
Speaker 1: you're getting wood. There's nothing to say that you haven't
Speaker 1: said al and you're two minutes into the third quarter
Speaker 1: and you're down fifty five and nothing, what do you say?
Speaker 1: And that's not worse that. Those are my worst memories
Speaker 1: of doing because on the road since and I was
Speaker 1: it was I was a paid play by play guy.
Speaker 1: And this is before I started doing Fox Sports. But
Speaker 1: I didn't have a color guy on the road because
Speaker 1: there was a money. I have a color guy at home,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't send a color guy on the road.
Speaker 1: So I do play by play and color losing seventy
Speaker 1: to two. So, um, alright, I formation one to the left.
Speaker 1: Oh sack, Well that's the nineteenth sack of the day. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: he didn't grow up in that type of situation. And
Speaker 1: so because you know, high school football wasn't as huge
Speaker 1: in Nashville as it was for me. He it just wasn't.
Speaker 1: He didn't grow up in that environment to to to
Speaker 1: die to play football, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: he also Thomas Shrett I could take a lot of abuse.
Speaker 1: I mean, number one, I played quarterbacks, so I got
Speaker 1: hit all the time. But our coaches, there's no way
Speaker 1: in the world, our coaches from the eighties would have
Speaker 1: a job more than one day to day. They would
Speaker 1: get fired, wouldn't. We didn't get water, they would say
Speaker 1: on the water unrewarded. You only get water when you
Speaker 1: earn it. And that's and now to even say you
Speaker 1: can't get water all the time, it would be ridiculous.
Speaker 1: There were people throwing up. I mean we would do
Speaker 1: rolling wind sprints and people be puking out of their
Speaker 1: face mask, and um, somebody got hurt. The coach will say,
Speaker 1: you know, get off my get off you're killing my grass.
Speaker 1: But we'll get off my field or somebody's laying there
Speaker 1: and they go move the just move the huddle over
Speaker 1: and run the run the playing again. And uh, for
Speaker 1: some reason, even though I didn't like it, I could
Speaker 1: take it. And Thomas Drette could not. He he had
Speaker 1: to his high school coach, his little league coach were rough,
Speaker 1: and he just he couldn't. He didn't like the the
Speaker 1: verbal abuse of of sports. Duke playing ball. Thomas Jurrette
Speaker 1: came along. Yeah, yeah, well and I flunked out of school.
Speaker 1: Flunked out of school and you got a kid, it
Speaker 1: kind of kills your football career. But um, you know
Speaker 1: I went to Georgia and uh, you know, I was
Speaker 1: on the scout team. I played, you know, scout team, quarterback,
Speaker 1: scout team, the offensive the other team. Every week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if we're playing Old Miss that week or whatever, I was,
Speaker 1: I was doing Old Miss and I was having to
Speaker 1: tackle when I was playing defense, I was having a tackle.
Speaker 1: Rodney Hampton and Tim Worley like guys that went pro.
Speaker 1: When I was on When I was playing quarterback, Bill
Speaker 1: Goldberg was the nose guard. You know. It was like
Speaker 1: Bill gob played at and I'm telling me, I got killed.
Speaker 1: So what was he like as a ball player? Gold
Speaker 1: He's a beast like but but back then he wasn't
Speaker 1: as ripped. I mean he was just more bulky, you know,
Speaker 1: but now he's he's ripped. But when you would see
Speaker 1: him w CW. Because I'm a big wrestling fan too,
Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up a freaking Arkansas. We're talking
Speaker 1: all my favorite things, wrestling, football, music. Did you watch
Speaker 1: wrestling at all? Well, I mean yeah, every every single
Speaker 1: Saturday night from the time I was seven to us
Speaker 1: about seventeen. So if you if you know wrestlers from
Speaker 1: the seventies to about eighties seven all that Once once
Speaker 1: I got out of high school, I was I wasn't
Speaker 1: I know Stone Cold, Steve Auston and the Rock and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, but I don't follow it. But did
Speaker 1: you watch the Goldberger area at all? Because you knew Bill? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I watched the Sun, but I was like I'm talking
Speaker 1: about Dusty Rhodes. I remember, I mean the American Dream
Speaker 1: was one of my favorite ye roads. Rip Flair, Um,
Speaker 1: Lex Luger Sting, Uh, Tommy Wildfire Rich Junkyard Dog. I
Speaker 1: went to those Grand Dog, I got a Memphis and
Speaker 1: like the first it was Georgia Championship and then it
Speaker 1: became uh, I guess w c W. And my granddaddy
Speaker 1: believed it so like so much that the ritual of
Speaker 1: my my grandmoma's house was Lawrence Welk. Yeah, Lawrence Welk
Speaker 1: Show Porter and Dolly and wrestling. And I'm talking about
Speaker 1: my granddaddy. One. There's no doubt that that Dusty got
Speaker 1: hit in the parking lot with a chair and he's out.
Speaker 1: Like he took me to see Abdulla the Butcher and
Speaker 1: Andre the Giant when I was eight, and then we
Speaker 1: saw Tommy Wildfire Rich the Junkyard Dog in the Fabulous
Speaker 1: Freebird Fatherous Michael P. S As And then when I
Speaker 1: was about seventeen, we went to Tallahassee. It was one
Speaker 1: of those huge, like all night thing where you had
Speaker 1: the smallest of the small and it was like, uh,
Speaker 1: who were the guys that were the real college wrestling outfit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then they fought the Road Warriors, and then it was
Speaker 1: Lex Luan Animal, Yeah, Lex Luger and and then the
Speaker 1: main event was Dusty and Rick Flair. And I remember
Speaker 1: touching Rick Flair's arm as he as he walked down
Speaker 1: the aisle to get to the ring, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's That's the greatest thing I've ever done. And then
Speaker 1: and then I have Ric Flair's phone number, like I
Speaker 1: met him. I went on tour with Brantley Gilbert Um
Speaker 1: a few years ago and he played in Charlotte. Brantley
Speaker 1: came off the stage. As soon as we walked back
Speaker 1: going to the buses, Rick Flair walked by and I
Speaker 1: literally tackled him. I went whoa, And I mean I
Speaker 1: went up to him and just bear hugged him and
Speaker 1: he wooed back, and it was it was a woo
Speaker 1: contest for like, it was like the Wou Tang Clan,
Speaker 1: Me and Ring Flair wooing each other and um, dude,
Speaker 1: we hung out with him all night. He gave us
Speaker 1: his phone number and I've texted Hiven and called him
Speaker 1: a few times. Do you watch the documentary I did?
Speaker 1: It was awesome, Well, it was awesome and really sad.
Speaker 1: I felt it was excellent entertainment for a wrestling nerve
Speaker 1: like me. Yeah, I really thought it was fantastic. But man,
Speaker 1: I felt so bad for him, but he was awesome.
Speaker 1: And I talked to Dusty Rhodes on the phone one time.
Speaker 1: Buddy of mine kind of knew him and has his
Speaker 1: phone number. We just said hey, and just as you know,
Speaker 1: I think I imitating him or something, you know, but um,
Speaker 1: if I have a I wrote Black Shelton's new song
Speaker 1: and the whis called lived It and the and the
Speaker 1: lyric in the second versus, Uh, the mold Duke Boys
Speaker 1: were flattened in the hills. Hollywood was fake and wrestling
Speaker 1: was real like we really I believed in my granddaddy
Speaker 1: especially believe it. Man, I could do a whole show
Speaker 1: on wrestling like I could do that. Only Tray the
Speaker 1: Giant documentary be seen the previous for that, I haven't, dude,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Yeah, I still having the key to call
Speaker 1: off T shirt like a Russian I've got it's got
Speaker 1: the Russian sickle and he's just standing there with his
Speaker 1: fist up or whatever. My brother has a Rick Flair sure,
Speaker 1: we can't. I have all my cons Sharat tickets, all
Speaker 1: my tea I have in a band in my house
Speaker 1: right now. I have Molly Crue, def Lappard Whalen. I
Speaker 1: have every concert t shirt ever ever went so and
Speaker 1: all the tickets. So I was like, I've always just
Speaker 1: been the most Like I just idolized. I've always just
Speaker 1: idolized music and athletes. When I wrote my first book,
Speaker 1: I wrote a thing passage you about Sting because I
Speaker 1: talked about things that as I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: I preferred the blonde haired Sting more than that the
Speaker 1: raven or whatever that ended up being. And he wrote
Speaker 1: me a nice note that what got to him? He
Speaker 1: wrote me a nice, nice note and send it back
Speaker 1: to me. And the people that you see as a
Speaker 1: kid that were cool are always cool to you the
Speaker 1: rest of your life. Because for me, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: friends or I'm acquaintances with these massive artists and they're
Speaker 1: just there's just folks. But I got on an airplane
Speaker 1: once with Barry Switzer and he was on the Southwest
Speaker 1: fly and I was the whole time. I was like,
Speaker 1: you got out of your mind. He's a former raisorback
Speaker 1: he you know coached the Cowboys held Oklahoma. I don't
Speaker 1: care about Oklahoma, but those staying, the Barry Switzers, that
Speaker 1: you know, the g Arts, those are the people that
Speaker 1: I really still go Oh, that's that's it. That's who
Speaker 1: I idolized me too. I definitely have my heroes and
Speaker 1: I've met Um, I've met. I've met all the people
Speaker 1: on my list. The only person I haven't met that
Speaker 1: I have to meet is Paul McCartney. But Make Jaggers
Speaker 1: my all time. I picked Make Jagger over anybody on Earth.
Speaker 1: I met him, uh two years ago. And I always
Speaker 1: try to not meet my heroes because I don't want
Speaker 1: to be disappointed and I don't think it's fair to
Speaker 1: put all of your hero hope into one meeting. So
Speaker 1: how did it go with? You know? I was disappointed
Speaker 1: to Nick because I felt like he talked with me
Speaker 1: too long. I felt like that he lowered himself talking
Speaker 1: to me more than one minute. It's you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, it's the old cot be a part of
Speaker 1: any group that stop like like, seriously, you should have
Speaker 1: quit thirty minutes ago, thirty seconds ago? Um, do you
Speaker 1: get a picture? No? Because I couldn't ask you, I
Speaker 1: just you don't want to run the two cool moments
Speaker 1: that I could not ask him. Um, but Keith was
Speaker 1: taking pictures and I went over to ask Keith if
Speaker 1: I could get a picture with him, and his bodyguard said,
Speaker 1: we gotta get him out of here, dude, you know,
Speaker 1: so they kind of rushed Keith out. Um. But I
Speaker 1: met guy Greg Almas, one of the biggest heroes. I
Speaker 1: met him a couple of times. And Hank Jr. Is
Speaker 1: my biggest country here. We we got to be buddies
Speaker 1: and we fished and hunted together a bunch. Um. But Paul,
Speaker 1: you know, he's I would love to meet Paul. Oh,
Speaker 1: let me talk about this, So I'll talk about Warby
Speaker 1: Parker for a second. Have many many pair of Warby
Speaker 1: Parker glasses. They have a free try on program. They
Speaker 1: send it to your home. You can order five pair
Speaker 1: of glasses. You try them off for five days. There's
Speaker 1: no obligation you have to buy anything. They ship a
Speaker 1: free and there's e been a paid return, so really
Speaker 1: it just comes to your house. Go to Warby Parker
Speaker 1: dot com slash Bobby order yours. They sent it to
Speaker 1: in the box and you look and you go don't
Speaker 1: like them and if you do like them, cool, those
Speaker 1: are your glasses that if not, you send him back
Speaker 1: glasses started Listen, I'm a glasses guy, obviously, including prescription lenses.
Speaker 1: Lenses including an I Glaire and I Scratch for every
Speaker 1: pair that you buy a Pairents distributed to someone in need.
Speaker 1: Warby Parker has an iTunes app too, and the try
Speaker 1: on kid at home is just awesome because you can
Speaker 1: look in the mirror with all of them, and you
Speaker 1: said you have five days, you have to do it
Speaker 1: right now. Again, if you have an iPhone X, make
Speaker 1: sure you download Warby Parker's app and use their brand
Speaker 1: new find your Fit feature is there's a depth camera,
Speaker 1: Matt facial features us, all these measurements cool. So Warby
Speaker 1: Parker dot com slash Bobby obviously, I love them, war
Speaker 1: Um all time, Warby Parker dot com slash Bobby to
Speaker 1: check it out. Okay, so let me just ask you
Speaker 1: got the format for a seconds? I think that something
Speaker 1: everybody talks about it, like, how do you feel the
Speaker 1: country format is? Right now? I think it's awesome because
Speaker 1: there's so many different I mean, everybody's got a shot man.
Speaker 1: I mean I really do. It's it's from the most
Speaker 1: traditional to the almost hip hop, almost pop. I mean
Speaker 1: as you can get. There's literally because I grew I
Speaker 1: mean I love it because I grew up loving everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love um Hey Williams Jr. Is much.
Speaker 1: I love Ozzy Osborne and Bill Monroe and run DMC.
Speaker 1: I mean, I literally grew up going to concerts and
Speaker 1: watching videos and buying records of everybody. It doesn't it
Speaker 1: didn't matter who it was. If the song was good,
Speaker 1: I liked it. I didn't care, if you know. And
Speaker 1: so I think the country is now. The country is
Speaker 1: um you know, branched out into so many fields. I mean,
Speaker 1: Thomas Redd has pushed it as you know, he's on
Speaker 1: the line there, he's way over the line, but he's on.
Speaker 1: He's pushing against the next line, you know almost. And
Speaker 1: then you got Midland coming in and going back all
Speaker 1: the way to you know, seventies country, Um got came
Speaker 1: Brown killing it, you got Luke. You know that's that's
Speaker 1: still country is crap, but but can rock and pop
Speaker 1: it up a little bit. I mean it's just I mean,
Speaker 1: as you got everybody. So when someone says with that
Speaker 1: a country yeah, I say that all the time, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still I grew up in South Georgia.
Speaker 1: I mean my heroes were Hank Jr. And Whaling and
Speaker 1: will In those people, you know. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that's out right now is
Speaker 1: not country to me, um, from where I came from.
Speaker 1: But I love me, but I'm just not a I'm
Speaker 1: not a country music snob like that, because you know,
Speaker 1: I would drive, I would go to high school. And
Speaker 1: I have on a Hanking junior T shirt. I have
Speaker 1: OZ and you written on my fingers like and knuckles
Speaker 1: like he had. Yeah. And I let it, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of fade out like you. I wouldn't wash it
Speaker 1: also fade just right on my note I still my
Speaker 1: mom still has my my notebooks. I'm drawing the Van
Speaker 1: Halen logo right here. I got the rat logo written
Speaker 1: right here. I got Whalen's w right right here. I
Speaker 1: run D M C. I mean, I can't say, you
Speaker 1: know that ain't country, you know, because I loved it all.
Speaker 1: I still love it. I listened to just as much
Speaker 1: hip hop now as I do. You know, country, Um,
Speaker 1: I listened to pop. People have always been saying though,
Speaker 1: regardless of what the cycle is and whatever it is,
Speaker 1: that it's not country. Would you think that that's fair?
Speaker 1: Was there? Kase I talked to Garth and Guard said, hey,
Speaker 1: I when I came to town, people were like, I'm
Speaker 1: not country. Yes, I's the country's thing. Ever now compared
Speaker 1: to you know, we were. But I mean this, you
Speaker 1: could have this debate for ten years. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you think Jimmy Rodgers thought Hank Williams was country? I
Speaker 1: mean they didn't want Hank Williams to play on the
Speaker 1: opera because he had a snare drum. You know that
Speaker 1: wasn't country. You gotta play doghouse base and that's it.
Speaker 1: Do you think Hank Williams would think that Whalen was country? Um?
Speaker 1: Buck Owens told me one time, he said, man, he said,
Speaker 1: you know how long it took me and Whalon to
Speaker 1: make it? He said they hated us because we played
Speaker 1: electric guitars, you know, because we were loud. Man. And now,
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't think of anything but country when
Speaker 1: you think of buck Owens or Whalen. Um, there's you know,
Speaker 1: Merle Haggard wouldn't think, you know, Garth was country and
Speaker 1: Garth don't think Thomas Rutt's country, and Thomas Rutt won't
Speaker 1: think the next exactly. So it's it's always. At my
Speaker 1: point is when I talk to the the magazines, there someone
Speaker 1: to call and say, hey what you say? Hey it?
Speaker 1: This will always be the question for the rest of time.
Speaker 1: It's always going to be the cycle and the question,
Speaker 1: and the next one up isn't compared to the last
Speaker 1: one out. I mean Frank Sinatra, you know, he didn't
Speaker 1: like Elvis coming along and messing up the flow, and
Speaker 1: the Elvis didn't like the Beatles coming along and messing
Speaker 1: up the flow. I mean, they're all jealous and they're
Speaker 1: all you know, it's taking up and that ain't real.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that. Uh, all the jazz purists thought Frank
Speaker 1: Sinatra was not true jazz, you know. And if it
Speaker 1: ever does stop, don't you feel like it's it's broken.
Speaker 1: Then if it ever does stop, and just sit And
Speaker 1: that's what I say a lot of it. If you
Speaker 1: if you want the same thing forever, you're just gonna
Speaker 1: get the same thing and it's not gonna there's gonna
Speaker 1: be no growth. I mean, I am a snob and
Speaker 1: some things like like I love old bluegrass. I want
Speaker 1: Bill Monroe, I want Stanley Brothers, I want ancient. The
Speaker 1: only new bluegrass is out, I'll kind of I really
Speaker 1: like like Ricky Skaggs doing like ancient tones and bluegrass
Speaker 1: rules those albums. That's new, but it's still the old.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear new bluegrass because that's what
Speaker 1: you grew up with. That's I grew up, and I like,
Speaker 1: I like, and so I get it. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm no different than any fan out there
Speaker 1: that goes that ain't country, that ain't hip hop, that
Speaker 1: ain't what rock music is, because I think you define
Speaker 1: what real music is from from what you grew up
Speaker 1: listening to. You know, I you know, I love rap music,
Speaker 1: but I don't like it as much now as I did.
Speaker 1: That's what I was gonna bring up. I wish that
Speaker 1: they were still Nelly and Um, I mean, I still
Speaker 1: wish that there were melodies and courses in the song
Speaker 1: You Can Still Be Tough was still hard, but his melodies,
Speaker 1: but you had girls bumping it toft, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. The hip hop analogy is great because people
Speaker 1: now older go, hey, dude, that's you know. The twenty
Speaker 1: one savages, the post Malan's you know it's a mumble
Speaker 1: wrap little yachts. They're going, that's like hip hop. It's
Speaker 1: it's not just our format where this is happening. And
Speaker 1: some people do think it's this country, oh country, but
Speaker 1: it's it's every single format. It was funny. I guess
Speaker 1: I could say these names. They were curious funny. Uh.
Speaker 1: This year on Thoma Stress Tour, daniel Bradberry and Kelsey
Speaker 1: Ballerini were out on the tour and so after the
Speaker 1: show we were all on toom strets Chessing Room and
Speaker 1: and uh, I was like, I want to be DJ tonight.
Speaker 1: You know we always hang back there and crank music whatever,
Speaker 1: and uh, so I was DJ that night and I
Speaker 1: was playing nothing but Nellie and um, you know nineties
Speaker 1: rap and eighties run DMC uh Hohodini. I mean I
Speaker 1: was playing like I was playing what I think it's
Speaker 1: real rap music and Danielle and Kelsey were dancing and
Speaker 1: they were having a good time. But finally they came
Speaker 1: over and said can you play some rap? And I
Speaker 1: was like, what do you think I've been playing for
Speaker 1: last thirty minutes. They're like, Daniel was like, you playing
Speaker 1: me goes, you know, like I mean, that's like somebody
Speaker 1: going you know what I mean, Uh, I'm playing George
Speaker 1: straight all night and they're going, hey, can you play
Speaker 1: some country? You know, it's a it's a generational all
Speaker 1: art always evolves and every generation fills their art is
Speaker 1: what's the truestest art. And I don't think that you're
Speaker 1: that anyone's wrong, But I do think that to think
Speaker 1: that you're right is wrong. That Like, I know, if
Speaker 1: I go, oh, that's that country, I'm not wrong. I
Speaker 1: don't think you can have a creative opinion that's wrong.
Speaker 1: But if I go for sure I'm right about that
Speaker 1: not being country, I'm wrong because I'm not for sure
Speaker 1: right or wrong. Yeah, Well we're Gonnato the whole philosophical
Speaker 1: about art. It's all. It's all an opinion. But you
Speaker 1: know there are I mean, you got every avenue in
Speaker 1: the world to listen to what real country is, what
Speaker 1: you think real country is? You got it at the
Speaker 1: touch of your phone, now you know? And why for
Speaker 1: ten years and people go why w and make songs
Speaker 1: like Whalen. Well, it's all there and there are people
Speaker 1: that sound like whalon to all you have to do
Speaker 1: is do Man, if you heard so and so, they
Speaker 1: sound just like whaling, and I'll go, what's good about that?
Speaker 1: I mean, it was like, why is that great? You know,
Speaker 1: like like friends of mine, you know, they'll go to
Speaker 1: some local bar and they go, hey, man, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: see you this video. This dude sitting up on the
Speaker 1: stool playing at the bar. Man, he sounds just like
Speaker 1: Alan Jackson. And I'm like, but why is that good?
Speaker 1: Why didn't he sound like what his name is? You know,
Speaker 1: that would that would impress me more than he sounds
Speaker 1: like Alan? You know, I mean people like familiar familiarity though,
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it, but um, I just think
Speaker 1: nowadays you can just if you want to listen to
Speaker 1: old blue grass or new bluegrass, just get on your
Speaker 1: phone pick it up. Man. But you know this is
Speaker 1: commercial radio. You know, I write. You know, I questioned
Speaker 1: myself all the time. I'm like me, should I try
Speaker 1: to write a song for the radio or should I
Speaker 1: try to write something I really want to write? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, because I'm in the music business.
Speaker 1: But you know, people out there riding around their car,
Speaker 1: they don't care about that. When you say you wrote
Speaker 1: a song for the radio. What comes to mind? What
Speaker 1: song did you writ for the radio? I'll tell you
Speaker 1: a song that I didn't write for the radio was
Speaker 1: was I Lived at Blake's new song? We wrote that
Speaker 1: on the Farm tour two years ago, and we said,
Speaker 1: let's write the realest song we have ever written, so
Speaker 1: country that no nobody that was born after nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: will get it. Nobody's gonna cut it. Let's just write
Speaker 1: it because that's what we want to write. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the rare ones that that somebody recorded and
Speaker 1: and put out. But you know, I mean, it's like
Speaker 1: you get. We write a lot with tracks you know
Speaker 1: that we go in. I don't it's not every day.
Speaker 1: We just go on with a guitar piano. So we're
Speaker 1: sitting there and obviously if somebody's playing a track and
Speaker 1: there twenty five years old, the majority of it's gonna
Speaker 1: be sort of poplin and you know, and um, you
Speaker 1: just kind of know you like that sounds like the
Speaker 1: radio or you you play something, you go that one.
Speaker 1: I don't know if radio would play that, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, because radio is pretty safe, you know,
Speaker 1: as as as adventurous as they have gotten in country music,
Speaker 1: it's still pretty safe and mean they they want to
Speaker 1: know they do a lot of testing. Oh, we do
Speaker 1: a lot of research. And that's why a lot of
Speaker 1: trouble because I don't do a lot of research. I
Speaker 1: just play whatever. Right, Yeah, you've done great with that.
Speaker 1: Not all the time, because we do have someone that
Speaker 1: programs doub music in general. But I get to go
Speaker 1: and my company now lets me just go on my
Speaker 1: own and if I think it's you know. But what
Speaker 1: sucks is when you write a song like Farmer's Daughter
Speaker 1: that I wrote for Rodney Atkins went to number three
Speaker 1: because it didn't go one because of San Francisco station
Speaker 1: in the l A station wouldn't play it because not
Speaker 1: because it had cuss word in it, not because it
Speaker 1: was offensive because it said feeding the hogs, because what
Speaker 1: people in San franciscut Because in San Francisco. I'm like,
Speaker 1: if you drive five miles out of San Francisco, their
Speaker 1: feed knocks like California is the biggest farm in the world,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That's see. I wasn't in
Speaker 1: the format then, so those little petty things like that
Speaker 1: don't happen. There was a station in New England that
Speaker 1: wouldn't play that ain't my truck because they said, nobody
Speaker 1: up there, uh drive trucks. They all drive cars and
Speaker 1: it didn't relate to their fans. And thank goodness, I
Speaker 1: wanna call her out. Lee Adams, who who was my
Speaker 1: rap back then now is the head of broken Boat promotion.
Speaker 1: She went. She called every Dick car dealership in New
Speaker 1: England and got their numbers and trucks outsold cars. She
Speaker 1: she caught. She sent it to the program director in
Speaker 1: New England or wherever they were, and said, well, you're
Speaker 1: wrong about who drives trucks and cars. But I mean,
Speaker 1: when you do this for a living. If I was
Speaker 1: just writing songs because I wanted to write songs, I
Speaker 1: wasn't getting you know, paid, or writing for a polist
Speaker 1: and company, you know I would write whatever I want.
Speaker 1: Is nobody's gonna hear it anyway. But if you're doing this,
Speaker 1: you know you're getting paid, and you know it's like
Speaker 1: that that bothers you. You think about it, you go,
Speaker 1: I really want to say this, but because San Francisco
Speaker 1: wouldn't say hogs, can I put this in the song?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? It's like, is this gonna
Speaker 1: deter a radio station playing this, is this gonna turn
Speaker 1: the tur Luke Bryan from from cutting this song? You know,
Speaker 1: so it's it is a thought that you happened. Then
Speaker 1: some there's some days I succumbed to it and I go, well,
Speaker 1: I really want to say this, but I guess we'll
Speaker 1: say this, And then there's some days I'll just gonna
Speaker 1: screw it. We're saying, I'm saying what I don't want
Speaker 1: to say. I don't care if it gets cut or not.
Speaker 1: What about this one, because this is a really country
Speaker 1: song that was That was one that Luke was really
Speaker 1: scared wasn't gonna work because it was two country, two
Speaker 1: country and hunting. You know, it's just weird. You know,
Speaker 1: we just lived in a different time and when I
Speaker 1: grew up, I mean hunting. Never once in my life
Speaker 1: that I think hunting was a bad thing until I
Speaker 1: moved in nationally and and me either because we and
Speaker 1: I hunted a lot growing up. And that's a couple
Speaker 1: of things I want to branch it to is because
Speaker 1: I grew up in Wet, I grew up poor, and
Speaker 1: we ate it or we gave it away, or we
Speaker 1: even with fish. We either ate it or we gave
Speaker 1: it to somebody that needed to eat. And even with
Speaker 1: what's happening with guns now, I don't think the two
Speaker 1: sides understand Because of how I grew up in the South,
Speaker 1: guns were at this amazing thing where we looked at
Speaker 1: them in fascination like people who aren't around me too,
Speaker 1: you know me too. So it wasn't a guns weren't
Speaker 1: this thing from television. They were really just a part
Speaker 1: of our every day. So it wasn't We're gonna take
Speaker 1: a gun and and go do something crazy with it,
Speaker 1: because guns weren't crazy time. I mean getting a four
Speaker 1: tim when I was ten years old, natural thing on earth.
Speaker 1: I've never won. I've never questioned what I ate until
Speaker 1: I moved to Nashville because I'm fried Chicken. I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to go to Sweats every day, which is
Speaker 1: a restaurant here and down the soul food. I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to go to Sweats. I want to go
Speaker 1: to Arnold's. I want to I want to go uh
Speaker 1: to any country place. You know. I don't go to
Speaker 1: Arrago and I don't go to big fancy restaurants here
Speaker 1: in town. I wan't fried Chicken. And you know, I'll
Speaker 1: drive to McDonald's probably on the way home. Um, but
Speaker 1: it's like you're you're righting with people from l A.
Speaker 1: And and they look at like they look at you
Speaker 1: like are you crazy You're gonna eat McDonald's. Like I'm nuts,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I've I've written a lot
Speaker 1: of and l A. You ought to see me in
Speaker 1: l A. I might as well just walk in and go.
Speaker 1: Y'all think I voted for Donald Trump. I know, I
Speaker 1: get it. Whatever, you can just look at me and
Speaker 1: you assume who I voted for. But I was in
Speaker 1: l A writing with a bunch of pop guys, and um,
Speaker 1: they were like, Hey, we're gonna order some food, you know,
Speaker 1: And I said where we're all getting? They wanted sushi
Speaker 1: and you know, salad and all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: And I was like, is there ay where I could
Speaker 1: get a Snickers and a coke and a pack of
Speaker 1: Red Man And look, dude, I felt like I got
Speaker 1: Like the next day when I wrote with different people,
Speaker 1: I hid my coke behind my chair because I felt embarrassed.
Speaker 1: If they think that I'm drinking a coke, they like
Speaker 1: I'm bad person, Like I wrote. I wrote with Andy
Speaker 1: grammer out there and we went and got something to eat,
Speaker 1: and he got a salad and all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and I ordered a hamburger, you know, and he was like, dude,
Speaker 1: I haven't eating hamburger in ten years. I think someone
Speaker 1: like that because I do spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: and again, again, I don't know if I'm someone's mental healthy.
Speaker 1: I know it's not the healthiest food in the world.
Speaker 1: But I grew up in that environment and and like
Speaker 1: I went from a four ten to uh at a
Speaker 1: twenty two to a twelve gauge to a thirty OT six.
Speaker 1: That was the big one for me when I when
Speaker 1: I finally But then I have friends that have never
Speaker 1: had any gun at all, and because they didn't grow
Speaker 1: up with them. It's this, it's a it's a TV thing,
Speaker 1: and where if you're if you're not right in the
Speaker 1: head and you want a TV thing, you want to
Speaker 1: do TV things. And so I see my friends and
Speaker 1: are so piste off about what's happened with the guns.
Speaker 1: They're like, don't take that the guns. I grew up
Speaker 1: with them. It's not even a thing to me. When
Speaker 1: uh my buddy Dallas Davidson, his wife is from Australia,
Speaker 1: and um, they had a kid a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and Luke Brown and I got together and said, you know,
Speaker 1: when she has the baby, was coming with a cool gift,
Speaker 1: you know, for Dallas, Dallas's baby, and um, the first
Speaker 1: our first thought was let's get him a gun, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I went down to this cool gun shot
Speaker 1: and bought a twenty two, like a nineteen seventy pistol,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy. And I think Luke got him shotgun. So
Speaker 1: he can't do any of this for twelve fifteen years.
Speaker 1: But but Dallas's mother in law was just because she's
Speaker 1: from Australia and I guess you can't have guns at all,
Speaker 1: and you know that's just not part of the culture.
Speaker 1: Like she was just almost mad. I also, how in
Speaker 1: the world could you think of buying my grands on
Speaker 1: a gun? And it's because the sides are so different
Speaker 1: that they can't agree on anything. That's the crazy part
Speaker 1: to me. Well, when the as soon as you say
Speaker 1: gun control, it's over and the conversation is ever. I
Speaker 1: think we've got to have a way because I'm not
Speaker 1: into I mean this, this whole what's going on with
Speaker 1: these shootings and stuff. It's just it's just unthinkable how
Speaker 1: you feel about I hated the big right because I'm
Speaker 1: not a big fan of people having these rifles. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's a need for so either. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've never had I've never owned anything but hunting, you know,
Speaker 1: bow and arrows and shotguns and uh and a dear
Speaker 1: you know, dear rifle. I've never owned the a r
Speaker 1: or anything uh like that. But we've got to have
Speaker 1: enough in form. Both sides have to have legit info
Speaker 1: to be able to have this discussion, because the first
Speaker 1: thing you think is I ain't taking my guns, and
Speaker 1: that's what all my friends think. They go, They're not
Speaker 1: taking my guns. To them, it's a natural part of life.
Speaker 1: And so two people I have other friends that live
Speaker 1: in Boston, for example, they're not They're no, no, nothing
Speaker 1: about guns. And so again to them, they don't think
Speaker 1: anyone should have a gun because they haven't seen it
Speaker 1: be a tool of everyday living. And both sides create
Speaker 1: their own information. And what's happening is nobody does anything
Speaker 1: in the middle because if you give, then you're giving,
Speaker 1: and we never come to any solutions because both sides
Speaker 1: are so freaking dug in when the real the reality
Speaker 1: of it is for me because I'm one of the
Speaker 1: few that we'll talk about this. What do you feel
Speaker 1: like gun control? I said, First of all, I don't
Speaker 1: say the words gun control. I'll say gun education, or
Speaker 1: gun anywhere you want to put insert. I don't say
Speaker 1: control though, because that has such a connotation. But I say,
Speaker 1: let's imagine that I'm driving a truck down the road. Now.
Speaker 1: I had to get the sixteen and pass the test
Speaker 1: to drive a truck, so I went to Hunters D.
Speaker 1: I didn't did that in school. I did the things
Speaker 1: I needed to do to have a four ten or two.
Speaker 1: I said, but I can't just go from my truck
Speaker 1: to drive a bus without some sort of education improving
Speaker 1: that I know how to drive a bus. And I
Speaker 1: felt the same way about freaking weapons. You shouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to get an a R unless you get the
Speaker 1: bus license. And that bus license might be military, it
Speaker 1: might be, but I don't think you should be able
Speaker 1: to go and buy freaking a art right. And we've
Speaker 1: gotta have more mental checks too. I mean, there's gotta
Speaker 1: be if if, if somebody, if you're a therapist or
Speaker 1: a doctor or whatever, and you know this person, something's missing.
Speaker 1: You know with this person, I think you've got that
Speaker 1: information has got to be somewhere where gun stores and
Speaker 1: places can see that. I don't think they don't care.
Speaker 1: Gun shows happened, and I've been to gun show, and
Speaker 1: I'll admit I've been to many gun shows, especially when
Speaker 1: they're younger. When I was younger, they'd pop up Oliver, Arkansas,
Speaker 1: so I would go. I didn't realize exactly how it
Speaker 1: was so every day did until you get away from
Speaker 1: it and you see others perspectives and you go, oh,
Speaker 1: I get white people can just walk up and just
Speaker 1: take a gun. Well, that's why the song Hunting Fishing,
Speaker 1: we were all scared of it. You know, we were like,
Speaker 1: this is really us. We're not lying about this song.
Speaker 1: There's not one. This was a song that we didn't
Speaker 1: go you know, maybe we should we should tone that
Speaker 1: down or what. We didn't really say anything offensive in it,
Speaker 1: but it was just like Luke was, you know, like,
Speaker 1: this is me, this is us, this is what we
Speaker 1: grew up doing, this is our lifestyle. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: an artist and I want people to know how I
Speaker 1: grew up and that that was a big decision and
Speaker 1: how my boys, you know, how I raised my boys
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and so Luke was like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, boys, uh, this one might not make it.
Speaker 1: You know. It went to number one, you know, but
Speaker 1: we really were thinking it might die fifteen or something.
Speaker 1: You know. I gotta tell you, I never I never
Speaker 1: heard any kickback on I didn't from my position a
Speaker 1: song that there was a lot of thought it into
Speaker 1: should we can, we will we? I never and I
Speaker 1: hear kick back about everything. Yeah, you know it's weird.
Speaker 1: This song and Dirt on My Boots are the two
Speaker 1: songs that I get nothing but dude, I love that
Speaker 1: song from l A Riders and from people who don't
Speaker 1: who don't write songs that country, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They're like when that song came on, you wouldn't believe
Speaker 1: how many songwriters and tern were like, dude, hunting fishing
Speaker 1: this bomb man and Dirt on My Boots is freaking awesome.
Speaker 1: I was talking to Katy Perry because I'm doing Idol
Speaker 1: this season on the Mentor, and so she said, I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about Luke Brian. I just know that
Speaker 1: one song, Hunting Fishing that's what that was the one
Speaker 1: song she said she knew that Luke did. Was that
Speaker 1: because I heard this one song, I didn't even think
Speaker 1: it was real. She goes, it was like hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing and loving. So yeah, that's the one. Even her like,
Speaker 1: that's the one. But I think that others are like
Speaker 1: when I hear when I hear a rap song or
Speaker 1: a rock song or whatever, I mean, why do people
Speaker 1: why did why did young seventeen year old English kids
Speaker 1: in the sixties decide that a sixty year old black
Speaker 1: man from Mississippi is what they wanted to listen to?
Speaker 1: They have nothing in common at all, but they heard
Speaker 1: it and they went, dude, that's real, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Talk about that specifically? Why did Keith and
Speaker 1: Mick and Eric Clapton and Robert Planting. I mean, these
Speaker 1: kids have nothing to do with the South in America
Speaker 1: and they and they they built their career on on
Speaker 1: these songs. And I think, you know, when something's real,
Speaker 1: I think when I think, like, there's probably a lot
Speaker 1: of people out there that they don't like country music,
Speaker 1: but if they heard hunting fishing, they might not understand it,
Speaker 1: they might not agree with or whatever. They go that
Speaker 1: was real, man, you know what I mean, they didn't
Speaker 1: they didn't fake that. I mean, you couldn't make that up.
Speaker 1: I think that's what draws people into other genres, you know.
Speaker 1: So um, I was proud of that song because we
Speaker 1: were really scared, you know that, that we weren't gonna
Speaker 1: be allowed to let the let those words be heard.
Speaker 1: But thank goodness it did. I mean, I gotta I'm
Speaker 1: obviously here to the whole library here, but man, you
Speaker 1: got a bunch of on I mean printing money. You
Speaker 1: got money factory at your house, and I don't spend
Speaker 1: any of it. Are you pretty tight? I'm still drying well.
Speaker 1: I did buy a truck last year, but I still
Speaker 1: have my two thousand and eight for um. But I've
Speaker 1: type with you know, hunting me and stuff. But I
Speaker 1: didn't want to. I didn't really want to buy a
Speaker 1: new truck. The only reason I bought one is because
Speaker 1: I researched it for like three months until they got
Speaker 1: so tired of me that I think they sold it
Speaker 1: to me for ten thousand less than the sticker to
Speaker 1: get rid of us. This one. I was honestly surprised
Speaker 1: it wasn't for song of the year. I really was.
Speaker 1: I thought it should have been It's hard to was
Speaker 1: a four week when what I heard it was four
Speaker 1: week number one, but it was. I think more people
Speaker 1: in America heard that song this year than than any other.
Speaker 1: The audience impressions were We're the biggest or body like
Speaker 1: a back road maybe was finished by the time this
Speaker 1: came out, because nothing beats that really an audience impressions,
Speaker 1: But I guess for two thousand and seventeen that song
Speaker 1: was the biggest. That was another farm tour song. Wrote
Speaker 1: it in the back of the bus in two thousand
Speaker 1: fifteen on the day that the farm tour got rained out,
Speaker 1: So we were sitting like uh back hose, I mean
Speaker 1: uh bulldozers were literally pulling the buses out back backstage,
Speaker 1: and we just sat in the back of the bus
Speaker 1: and and wrote this, and um, I was a little
Speaker 1: tired from the night before. I just put one pass
Speaker 1: down on the microphone and I told Kyle, the guy
Speaker 1: who was recording it, I said, UM, when we get
Speaker 1: back to Nashville, I'm gonna put a real vocal on that.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna sing it really good and all that.
Speaker 1: Once again, as another thing, like Boys round Here where
Speaker 1: it got pitched. I didn't want it to be pitched
Speaker 1: because I thought I sounded terrible on it, and um,
Speaker 1: Dustin loved it, and uh, when he went to sing
Speaker 1: it in the studio, he sang it, and the label
Speaker 1: and everybody were like, it's good, but it sounds too good,
Speaker 1: like we've fallen in love with the demo and Rhett's
Speaker 1: lazy voice. Can you can you uns sing it? And
Speaker 1: so when he went in the studio to sing it,
Speaker 1: he laid on the couch while he's sang while he's
Speaker 1: sang this vocals to to make the annunciation be more lazy,
Speaker 1: and they just said, just don't care, just sing it,
Speaker 1: you know. So that's weird how what I think sucks
Speaker 1: other people like, and then sometimes what I like other
Speaker 1: people sucks. You just suck your stuff. Ross, we were
Speaker 1: talking about our friend Ross Copperman. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: Ross quotes. Um, he's a songwriter producer in town, and um,
Speaker 1: I do the same thing with Ross, but hey, let
Speaker 1: me come back tomorrow and I'll re sing that or whatever,
Speaker 1: and uh, and Ross was like, when we started getting
Speaker 1: more cuts with my terrible vocal, what I thought was terrible.
Speaker 1: And I asked Ross and said, why do you think,
Speaker 1: Why do you think these people are cutting our songs
Speaker 1: with my vocal is so bad? I said, Is that
Speaker 1: you think because I don't care and maybe I'm singing
Speaker 1: it just with more emotion and I don't care if
Speaker 1: it's in tune and this, and that you think they're
Speaker 1: like buying into my real natural singing voice better? And
Speaker 1: he got no, I just think they think it's bad
Speaker 1: and they can sing it better than you do. I
Speaker 1: was like, thanks, Ross, I thought I had. I thought
Speaker 1: I was pouring out in my heart and soul here,
Speaker 1: but uh, I was talking to Ross. I was with
Speaker 1: Ross over the house his place before I came over here.
Speaker 1: I said, hey, you know, I don't I don't really know.
Speaker 1: We've we've met in passing a couple of times, very briefly.
Speaker 1: I don't really know him. He kind of looks like
Speaker 1: he beat me up, Like is he He's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's the nicest guy, dude, He's the nicest guy. You're
Speaker 1: gonna love him. I was like, he's funny. He is
Speaker 1: funny man. We we just make fun of even joke
Speaker 1: with him all the time. And he's fantastic writer. This
Speaker 1: town is full of talent, man, I'm telling this. I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's any other city on earth with
Speaker 1: there's a much songwriting talent, especially capital in an area. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know l A's full, Yeah, New York, London, all
Speaker 1: of you know, Austin, Texas. But there's there's something about
Speaker 1: about Nashville. It's like one big high school, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Good and bad. Yeah, It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I heard something in this co write and then tomorrow
Speaker 1: I told what I heard. They singing edge. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like going from English to history classes. You hear
Speaker 1: bradon Jenny broke up. You know what I mean. It's
Speaker 1: like rumors. No, you can't say anything and without the
Speaker 1: whole road know it in in thirty minutes, you know,
Speaker 1: But it's awesome. I'm gonna run through a few of these.
Speaker 1: He wrote this for Thomas Rrette with Thomas Ratty Change,
Speaker 1: Did you wake up? Change? I don't think I care.
Speaker 1: He texts me about that long a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Can we think about this song? I think I think
Speaker 1: it's a great song because I think it works. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course it works. Yeah, that's a real one man.
Speaker 1: That's that. That was what he said. He said, is
Speaker 1: it too real? I said, you can't be too real,
Speaker 1: but there's not something it's too real. Yeah, he's a
Speaker 1: warrior man, just like you know they, I mean, all artists.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how successful I've I've I've been around
Speaker 1: the most successful people in cometry, music, and you know,
Speaker 1: and got to know him really well. You know, on
Speaker 1: the fans think, God, they just got it together in
Speaker 1: their lives awesome and they don't worry about nothing. I
Speaker 1: was like, dude, you have no idea how much your
Speaker 1: hero worries. I wrote, I just metched my second book,
Speaker 1: and I wrote a whole thing about it. That where
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter how big the artist is. They're still
Speaker 1: reading the the negative think somebody says on Twitter and
Speaker 1: calling their other super famous friends, going, man is really
Speaker 1: bumming me out. Humans are human deleted. He hadn't been
Speaker 1: on Instagram in forty days, you know, because he can't.
Speaker 1: He could have little. He gets five hundred thousand likes
Speaker 1: every picture he puts on there, and you know, twenty
Speaker 1: thousand comments or whatever. If nineteen thousand, nine hundred ninety
Speaker 1: nine said you're the greatest thing God ever created. And
Speaker 1: one dude says you ain't country. He's done. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It's like that's that's the one comment.
Speaker 1: But I was like that too. It was like that
Speaker 1: one that one guy at the show that just wouldn't
Speaker 1: tap his foot, that was just staring at me, like
Speaker 1: you suck. You know. I thought about him the rest
Speaker 1: of the night instead of the other people that that
Speaker 1: like the show. And I just think that's created of people.
Speaker 1: These are our babies, you know what I mean. It's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're an artist, just like you write something,
Speaker 1: you play something, you do your show. When one person
Speaker 1: calls in, it was like, dude, you're terrible. You know,
Speaker 1: you're not funny. Whatever, it does hang with you, it
Speaker 1: bothers you because this is your baby, you know. So,
Speaker 1: but it's cool that that that our biggest heroes in
Speaker 1: our favorite artists are just humans. Also, yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: grow out of having natural human feelings because they had
Speaker 1: Our heroes had them as they were in their less
Speaker 1: than mature stages of artistry. And they don't go away.
Speaker 1: If anything, they may get worse. And so man, let
Speaker 1: me don't do the baby made you a couple of blocks. Aldine, Man,
Speaker 1: I get this guy? How about got your heads? I
Speaker 1: don't want let me ask you this. Are there any
Speaker 1: number ones that you just don't remember writing? No, because
Speaker 1: I'm um, well they all everybody calls me the you know,
Speaker 1: human jukebox or as rat. He knows you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I don't know why that. My brain always
Speaker 1: just remembers songs and things. Um, I guess because I'm
Speaker 1: so amazed that we wrote something that worked. I do
Speaker 1: remember pretty much every situation. That's one of the first
Speaker 1: songs we wrote with uh with Luke. We wrote that,
Speaker 1: guys in like two thousand nine or ten. What about
Speaker 1: writing with Thomas right? How is that? How is that dynamic?
Speaker 1: It's awesome, man, It's it's never we've been right. I
Speaker 1: could send you pictures of me and him, videos of
Speaker 1: him when he's eight years old and we're writing songs together.
Speaker 1: We've always done it for fun. Never in a million years,
Speaker 1: you know, did we think we'd be doing it professionally together.
Speaker 1: But it's not weird at all. You would think, you know,
Speaker 1: we're writing a love songs. It seems weird, like, let's
Speaker 1: writ let's let's write a love song with your son
Speaker 1: or with my dad. I don't know what's weird, You're like,
Speaker 1: write love song my dad right now? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? But um, we're just buddies. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: still his dad and I you know, and we still
Speaker 1: have that role where he's my son and I'm his dad.
Speaker 1: But but at the same time time we've grown to
Speaker 1: beat buddies also, you know, And so we can just
Speaker 1: sit in the room together and and and write anything
Speaker 1: and and uh, life changes was one of those where
Speaker 1: we just told the truth about his story. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we wrote that in two thousands and tens. There's no
Speaker 1: demo of it. He found it on YouTube. So he
Speaker 1: found what he found himself singing it at a radio
Speaker 1: station in two thousand and eleven. Yeah, and thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I forgotten that song. And a lot of his fans
Speaker 1: had had searched all his YouTube videos and they found
Speaker 1: it that when you're gonna put Start of the Show out,
Speaker 1: you know, and so um, when they did the deluxe
Speaker 1: package on on his last album, um, he said, yeah
Speaker 1: that dad, this song has just been sitting around and
Speaker 1: all my fans here and they requested in my meet
Speaker 1: and greets and stuff, and he goes, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So he thought, you know what, he thought it was
Speaker 1: too progressive, you know, like he that doesn't sound progressive.
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds a little pop, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound way out of the box. But in two thousand
Speaker 1: ten or eleven, gosh, that was that was like Bruno
Speaker 1: Mars or something. You know. Most nervous ever been by
Speaker 1: the song of my Life this one, because Thomas Shredd
Speaker 1: had already had two singles out before this one. He
Speaker 1: had beer with Jesus and uh, something to do with
Speaker 1: my hands and they both went to about fifteen and um,
Speaker 1: he was worried the label. You know, it's like, we
Speaker 1: really got we need We've done good and we're happy
Speaker 1: with what we've done, but we need a smash. And um,
Speaker 1: I think I heard you played it the first time
Speaker 1: when you when you said, okay, guys, you know this
Speaker 1: is brand new one from Thomas hreett Like I almost
Speaker 1: threw up not a lot Land. As soon as I'm
Speaker 1: bound out here, I was like, this is not a hit.
Speaker 1: It's not a hit. It's not a hit. I was like,
Speaker 1: I've ruined my son's career. He's done like, I was
Speaker 1: panicking when you played that song. At what point did
Speaker 1: you go cat we got it? When he played um.
Speaker 1: I went on the road with him and he played
Speaker 1: in Missouri at this little club called the Blue Note,
Speaker 1: and this song. I mean, I don't even think it
Speaker 1: was out of the thirties or whatever. It was probably
Speaker 1: a six hundred seat college crowd. They went nuts as
Speaker 1: soon as as soon as they went those drums came
Speaker 1: on and the down down the crowd went nuts and
Speaker 1: sang every single word. And that's like, okay, you see
Speaker 1: the upcoming hit that, yeah, exactly, But that one worried me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm nervous. I'm nervous every time one of
Speaker 1: my singles comes out, but it was when it's on
Speaker 1: your with your kid, It's like, if it fails, then
Speaker 1: I you know, I ruined my son's life, you know.
Speaker 1: I think about that with every artist. I mean, if
Speaker 1: if Luke puts a song out, I'm just like, gosh, Lord,
Speaker 1: please don't let this be the one that doesn't work.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to be the guy, you
Speaker 1: know that screwed Luke Luca. But it's very nerve wracking
Speaker 1: when it's your own kid. It's like watching him pitch
Speaker 1: in the World Series. You know, you can't watch it,
Speaker 1: but you have to watch it, and you're nervous of
Speaker 1: everything they're doing. Well, I've enjoyed you coming up with
Speaker 1: the house. I appreciate that. Well. I think we're hanging
Speaker 1: out again coming up. I think we're going to this wrestling.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, Yeah, we are. If you're going, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's Mankind, Foley, Yeah, whichever the mini names. That's funny
Speaker 1: because we are going to do that. Speaking of wrestling,
Speaker 1: I don't even think about that. Yeah. Yeah, he's telling
Speaker 1: a story and it's like a at a comedy club.
Speaker 1: But it's freaking Mick Foley, Mankind, Cactus Jack remember the
Speaker 1: cat Jack days when he was Captus Jack barely And
Speaker 1: I think I was out of us and by that point,
Speaker 1: you know, but I don't. I don't. He wasn't George,
Speaker 1: he wasn't huge. And the Southeast I don't think it's
Speaker 1: it's funny when you said that, you know, Georgia, what
Speaker 1: was because Mit South is where I was Georgia Championship
Speaker 1: Georgia because we had like Bob and Brad Armstrong. It
Speaker 1: was mostly local Atlanta Wrestlers. But that's what turned into
Speaker 1: WWS and then Turner had it because it was in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: You know, TBS was in Atlanta, which turned it into
Speaker 1: the national just like the Braves. You mean, that's why
Speaker 1: the Braves were the America's favorite team because everybody got
Speaker 1: to see him. I tell I knew who Del Murphy
Speaker 1: was exactly he was. I was a huge Dale Murphy
Speaker 1: freak man. Saw M a direed Cubs fan, partially for
Speaker 1: the same reason because w g M was in everybody's house.
Speaker 1: You go up in Arkansas, you don't have a team.
Speaker 1: And so my stepdad, with a huge Cubs fan because
Speaker 1: he got to watch them, pass it on to me.
Speaker 1: So the same thing. I watched the Braves because the
Speaker 1: Cups never play at night. This is still day game
Speaker 1: only because they have lights. So I watched the Cups
Speaker 1: of the daytime geting from school and I watched the Braves.
Speaker 1: Grandma got w g M two, so we watched them
Speaker 1: and like Bozo the Clown and Dude Bozo the Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Great freaking Grand Prize Game. We thought the six
Speaker 1: Cups and I would have never seen it without cable TV.
Speaker 1: If you get number six, I know exactly what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Well, let's I appreciate you coming by. I
Speaker 1: know you got some hit songs to go, right, but
Speaker 1: a good talking to you. And now when I see
Speaker 1: I'll be like, hey, yeah, remember me, it's Billy. I
Speaker 1: mean he came up with my house. Yeah. Welcome back
Speaker 1: next time. And by the way, check out Christian Bush's
Speaker 1: podcast called geeking Out. Just search forward and we'll see
Speaker 1: you next time here on the podcast m